Let's Pretend We're Lovers

“I love you,” Allison Carter said to the girl holding a knife to her neck in the gray alleys of the subway station. Underneath the sun, the towering buildings and the gleam off the windows in the reflection of Allison’s sunglasses, there was the caricature of what she thought New York was like. People bellowed on their phones, paced past her without looking up, shouted in the corners, talked to the wall, and fell asleep on the floor. 

Every time while getting on the subway, ready to act confident and careless like she’s done this her entire life, Allison prepared for the worst. Of course in her last few hours in the city, that’s when she ends up against the wall with the demand she empties her pockets, and all she said was, “I love you.”

The girl recoiled, “What.”

“I…love you?”

She scraped the knife further along Allison’s neck, “That’s a weird thing to say.” She tried to keep her eyebrows furrowed, but she was trembling. The veins in her neck twitched and her hands shook as they brushed Aliison’s face. 

“Are you ok?”

“I’m fine. Are you ok?”

Allison shrugged, “I’ve been better.”

“Yeah, that was kinda the point.”

“You’re not very good at this,” Allison noted. It was not the best thing to say to someone threatening to stab her. She could’ve also mentioned how she only had twenty dollars on her, but she figured this wasn’t exactly one of her high points.  

The girl in front of her dropped her knife, “Well neither are you.”

“So we’re in the same boat then. I’ll continue my day and you can continue yours,” Allison creeped backwards. “I need to catch a train in…” she checked her watch, ”six hours.”

“Six hours? And you’re just waiting down here?”

“Yeah. I don't have anything else to do.” She packed up her apartment, the one she shared with two other students who replaced her the minute all her boxes were packed. Her parents sped to collect her belongings, and gave her one last day in the city to say goodbye. She had nothing left to do but eat a bagel, walk through the streets and feel anonymous for the last time.

The girl rolled her eyes, “Ok, come with me.”

“Wow, what a good idea.”

“But my darling, I thought you loved me,” she challenged as she walked away without looking back.

They ended up at a coffee shop with matching mugs of watery coffee in front of them. Allison put enough cream and sugar that she wouldn’t have to taste the bitterness. The girl on the other hand sucked black coffee through her teeth before asking, “So what’s your deal?”

“What’s my deal?”

“Isn’t that what I asked?”

 Allison studied her like she was inside a test tube: wiry thin black hair, eyes the color of iron, gray and hollow skin, “What does that mean?”

“It means who are you? Who is the girl who confessed her love to me?” Her words felt detached and mocking, and her movements were labored. 

Allison folded her hands on the table, “I don’t even know your name.”

“Gianna,” she said.

“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”

“Does it matter?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know who you’re talking to?” Without talking, ‘Gianna’ dug into

her pocket and handed Allison her ID. Her name was right there: Gianna Monroe underneath a fatigued picture. She was from New York City, born and raised.

Gianna took back her card and raised her eyebrows, “Your turn.”

“Allison.”

“That’s the truth?”

“Do you want to see my license?”

She shook her head, “So, Ally, what’s your deal?”

“Don't call me that.”

“Why not?”

“Well aren’t you so inquisitive?” Allison said, sighing before answering the question. “No one calls me that.”

“What should I call you instead? Lover?”

Allison laughed, “Sure.”

“Well then, my angel, why are you here?” Why was Allison there? She followed a girl who threatened to kill her and let her buy a coffee. She would either get a death powdered in snow, or entertainment other than the mass market paperback and pre packaged sandwich stuffed into her backpack. 

But why was she in the city? Why did she crawl away from Wisconsin to a jungle gym for academic exploration:“Columbia.”

Gianna quirked an eyebrow, “You go to Columbia?”

“I went to Columbia. It was my dream school.”

“And it wasn’t all it turned out to be?”

“I dropped out. I went there because I got in, and that’s where all great people go. All people that do something with their lives outside of rural Wisconsin.”

“What’s so bad about Wisconsin?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“I want to get to know you darling,” she said, a smile curling up her lips. “But please, if you want to interrogate me, I’m sure Miss. Columbia has wisdom to offer.” Allison was a criminal law major. They were supposed to teach her how to get the truth out of people, how to weave herself an entire new skin that no one could penetrate. If she stayed there then maybe she wouldn’t be ripping out her skull to display for a girl with concrete eyes. 

“Why are you taking interest in me?”

“I plead the fifth”

“Why did you try to mug me?”

“Next question.”

“You’re not very good at this,” the words were deja vu on her tongue.

Gianna smirked, “I grew up here, and I don't want to leave. That’s the truth.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Oh? What can I do to convince you?”

“Don’t lie to me; You don’t have any reason to.”

“Fine, since you know me so well sweetheart, you tell me what’s wrong with me.”

“Fine,” Allison said. “You’re desperate for something. You’re disheveled and defensive. You don’t like to be anything but a mystery.”

“Good, but you forgot the ecstasy addiction.”

Allison coughed. She didn’t know how to react.

“Not anymore. I’ve been clean for,” she counted on her fingers, “one and a half months, but my parents want to send me to rehab, and I…I can’t. I’m cut off right now, and I need to get my life together or…I don't know. Did that satisfy your curiosity?”

“You’re not going to get back on your feet by stealing from someone.”

“Not someone with Columbia level of student debt.”

“I’m not gonna try to give you advice--”

“Good. I never claim to get you, you never claim to get me.”

“Are you always this hostile?” Gianned shrugged. “Do you think you have to fight all the time?”

“Touche.”

“No, answer my question,” Allison said. “After today I’m gone. I won’t lie to you if you don’t lie to me. I do love you, remember.”

Allison got the impossible concrete girl to smile as she said, “My love, I will give to you what you give to me.”

“What should I give to you?”

“Your everything.” She reached out her hand.

Allison took it, “Let’s pretend we’re lovers for today. I’ll pretend my life is grand as long as you’re in it.”

“Deal.” Gianna said. “Have you ever been in love before?”

Allison shook her head. She was in love with her future once: all the kids saw her as impossible, and she saw them as useless. She thought about how delighted they all would be when she returned with a backpack full of nothing. 

“I haven’t either,” Gianna said. She studied the table, tracing stains with her fingers.

Allison hated to admit it, but the words were smooth as honey. She thought of Gianna’s raspy voice whispering sweet nothings into her ear, and a tangible feeling of infatuation. She could have these solemn moments, instead of a rapidly approaching date with her hometown where everyone knew her name. Population: 15000. 

Allison felt the brick walls close in on her. She couldn’t escape being underground, “I’m suffocated,” she said.

The concrete girl looked at her, “Then let’s leave.” She grabbed Allison’s hand and began to lead her out.

“Wait, but don’t we need-”

“I’m taking you to the top of the world,” Gianna said. “When you think back to this moment, you’re not going to remember the bill you didn’t pay.”

The entire city was laid out in front of them. They were above the clouds, above the sprinkles of snow. The people were ants they could crush between their forefingers, and cars looked comical speeding along. All the yelling, the beeping, the wind, the chatter, the white noise they learned to dance to faded into they could only hear their own breath. “I’ve never been this high before,” Allison said.

“What does it feel like?” Gianna was leaning against the metal wall in the center of the terrace, the one with the entrance to emergency stairs they ran up minutes earlier. 

“This is the reason I came to the city,” Allison said. “I wanted to be on top of it. I wanted to know the buildings and the streets. I wanted,” she could see the horizon away from the city, the bridge that connected it to the rest of the world, she could see the sun gleaming into her eyes, “all of this.”

Gianna came up next to her, putting her elbows on the safety rail, “You could’ve had it, you know.”

“I can’t go back to that place.”

“Do you think you can stay here?”

Allison searched for an answer, searched for anything that yelled into her face. She waited for the sun to give her an answer. She waited for her concrete girl to stop asking questions, for silence to fall over them. “I don’t know.” 

“That’s hard for you to admit.”

“What about you?”

“I almost jumped off this building when I was high.”

“What?” 

She stared off into the distance. The sky was bright with the foreshadowing of afternoon. “I was eighteen and I dropped out of community college. It wasn’t for me. I couldn’t sit still in a classroom, I couldn’t see myself working a 9-5, I spent all my money on molly. I kept walking until I found myself here, and I thought it was a sign that I should give up while I still have my dignity.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“I was sitting here in this exact spot, looking at everything. I felt like I was a part of an indescribable chaos, and I could burrow myself in it long enough to find some sort of meaning.”

“Ah yes, by mugging someone to avoid rehab.”

Gianna laughed and looked at her, “I’m fine with being a fuck-up, as long as I can sleep at night and be somewhat fulfilled.”

“You’re not a fuck up.”

“Tell that to my parents.”

“My parents would love for me to be a fuck-up. They don’t want an extraordinary kid, they want someone they don't have to worry about. They were overjoyed when I told them I was going home. I couldn’t take the pressure so I gave up. How pathetic does that make me?”

“You’re not pathetic. You’re nineteen. You’re not going to end up anywhere you don’t want to be,” she said.

Allison wiped her eyes to make sure there were no tears; She never let herself cry. “What did you want to do?”

“I wanted to go to culinary school.”

“Why didn’t you try?”

“Nothing in my life mattered except my addiction. I have to take it second by second to get through the day. Finding my place in the world, listening to my thoughts, trying to believe in something was so much work. That stupid euphoric feeling was so much easier.”

Allison weaved her fingers around Gianna’s. There was nothing she could say to make her feel better, but she could be there.

“How did I make you feel when I pointed a knife at you?”

“Sharp.” She thought back to that moment. She could only think about the adrenaline coursing through her veins. 

“I mean, how does vulnerability feel?”

Allison replicated Gianna’s elbows on the railing, “I couldn’t die like that, in the middle of a place where no one knew me.”

“You have a weird way of getting people to know you”

Allison grinned, “It worked.”

“Do you trust me?” She held out her hand: a sacred promise. 

“Should I?”

Gianna only grinned at her. Allison, against better judgment, took her hand. 

“Ok, close your eyes” Allison shut her eyes and the rest of her senses consumed her. She could hear a plane in the distance, feel the wind through her hair, taste the sweetness of afternoon. She tightened her hands against the safety rail.

“Let yourself trust me.” She took Allison, squeezed her fingers and led her up until they were both standing on the safety rail. Allison could hear the city underneath her feet. She went to peek open one eye, but Gianna put a hand over her eyes. She wrapped her other arm around Allison’s waist. “Now let go of me,” she whispered into Allison’s ear. 

“What?”

“You’re not going to fall. Hold out your hands.” Allison took a deep breath and began to crawl her trembling hands until they were reaching out on either side of her. She filtered the breeze, feeling the ecstasy of the top of the world. She felt Gianna behind her, her grip loose enough to let Allison float, but not fall.

The air was sweeter, untouched by pollutants or tobacco or the stench of the throngs. She could fall at any moment, or the stranger behind her could drop her, but  she wasn’t thinking about that.

Gianna pulled her back into they were both lying on the ground of the terrace, and they were laughing. They were at the brink of being corpses that fell from the sky like a forbidden snowflake. Allison looked at the hollow gray skin of her concrete girl, her eyes bright and wild and her thin lips open wide and vulnerable. She looked more real than she had all day.

“Thank you,” Allison exhaled. She grabbed Gianna’s face between her hands and kissed her. 

Gianna jerked away, “Why would you do that?”

“I’ve never felt like that before.”

“You’re leaving in a couple of hours.”

“Yeah, it was just a kiss.”

“Just a kiss.”

“Fine, it was a thank you. It was my first time I ever felt that…free.”

“I’m not your savior, Allison.”

Allison furrowed her brow, “I never said you were. I thought we were having a moment. The whole ‘pretend we love each other’ thing.”

“Pretending. You can’t do that to someone. You can’t …nevermind. I don't think the girl who dropped out of an ivy league when her grades dropped a little understands consequences”

Allison imagined something physical: a strike of lighting, a crack forming in the pavement, a knife stabbing her neck, but there was only empty space lingering in between them.. When someone cuts deep like that, there’s nothing left to do but cut deeper. “You’re right. I hope you get the help you need. God, it will feel good to get out of a place filled with lunatics.” 

Allison hiked her backpack up her shoulder and ran to the subway station. 

Allison was back where she started, which she chose not to think of as metaphorical. She held onto her backpack strap in one hand, her ticket in the other hand. In a matter of hours she would be hugging her parents and sleeping in her childhood bedroom. 

She shouldn’t have been so willing to put her life in someone's hands. She shouldn’t have let herself kiss someone she didn’t know. She still didn’t know who Gianna was besides her concrete girl who hated being kissed and loved getting inside people's heads. It was all so pointless and Allison shouldn’t have let herself get invested in a fantasy. 

She should’ve suspected it when a voice yelled her name running down the stairs into the station, “Allison!”

“You’ve come to apologize?” Allison asked; she wasn’t going to.

“No,” Gianna said. “I’ve come to do this.” Gianna's hands were cold and familiar, trembling against her face when she kissed her. Allison promised herself she wouldn’t change her mind by looking at her, but she still let herself taste cracked lips. She would let herself bring her hands to Gianna’s face, down her neck, her collarbones, the curve of her waist to memorize this impossible girl, but she would not let herself think it could be anything.

Allison pulled away and reached into her wallet, “Here. Please, get better.” 

Gianna pushed her hand away, “I’m not taking your money. And I think…I think I should go to rehab.”

Allison bit her lip. She didn’t know how to be proud of her. All she could do was smile and say, “Didn’t want to give up so easily?”

“I don’t care if you don’t forgive me for insulting you. Don’t forgive me, hate me even, but don’t ever think of me as a stranger.”

“Stranger? You’re my lover.”

They both smile, and Allison hated them for it. “Do me a favor,” Gianna said. “If you ever want to come back here, don’t do it until you make something of yourself.”

Allison doesn’t say anything. She saw the subway lights approaching, lighting up the gray hallway. Instead, she kissed her again. And again and again and again. 

After she entered the subway car, and watched Gianna, after she got on her plane and got home, and after she became a lawyer and opened her own firm, she would think about Gianna. She would close her eyes like she was still on the edge. She would still let herself believe that she hated her, and she still would want them to meet again, so she could hold her close, kiss her again and again, and whisper “Thank you” to her concrete girl.