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“Veronica, you look like hell.” “Yeah? I just got back.”

—Heathers

Part 1

DAWN.

I’m watching a 48 Hours episode I’ve seen probably forty-eight times when Tara texts me.

Babe, I hate to do this over text …

I knew the text was coming—we had a fight—and I know where it’s going. I am “too much.” My “moods,” my “rages.” Nothing I haven’t heard before. It’s not the first time I’ve been broken up with over text either. My girlfriends often claim they’re scared of me.

I think they’re weak.

At times like this I miss men. It’s been decades since I kissed a man, but I look back on it fondly. Not the kissing part, but having men wrapped around my finger. Men are simple, easy to control. Women are demanding and unpredictable, and I’m no exception.

The old me would have immediately responded to Tara’s text, rapid-fire sent off the meanest things I could think of. I would have told Tara she has halitosis and her labia looks like something from a horror movie. I would have said no woman will ever love her again, that she’s making the biggest mistake of her life, that she’s going to die alone in a puddle of her own sweat. Perhaps I would have even threatened her family. But I have learned to curb these sorts of reactions, mostly because I don’t want to go to jail again.

Also, I am tired.

I am forty-eight years old and sick of breakups. Don’t I deserve to be taken care of? My son took care of me. Then he left, to Hollyweird. Everyone leaves me. Without Tara, I have no one.

“Abandonment issues” is what the court-appointed therapist said after my first girlfriend called the cops on me. That was a long time ago. Dating women unleashed an aggression in me I didn’t know was there. The therapist used the phrase “borderline personality disorder.” She said it was a diagnosis, but I thought it was bullshit. My personality isn’t disordered. Everyone loves my personality. I said to her, “Borderline what? Borderline fabulous?” and then I winked, and she looked at me like I had three heads. But she was the freakish one. If I had gone to high school with her, I would have bullied her. And she had no idea what she was talking about. How was it my issue that everyone always left me? Starting with my dad when I was sixteen—who, mind you, was rich. I was the victim here. I was left with nothing. Tara was paying my rent, and she promised to take me to the French Riviera.

I can’t go back to the Blind Pig, where I wait tables in between financially solvent lovers.