“You have to start sticking up for yourself, Maggie. You’re better than that asshole.”
“But I still love him.”
“Jesus, Maggie, you shouldn’t. He’s a worthless shit. What you need to do is stop showing people how you feel.”
“But I’m not real good at hiding how I feel.”
“Well, you got to get better at hiding it, kid. You can’t go around showing every asshole how much they upset you. Then they think they won.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Show them that you won. You have to act like you don’t care. You can’t ever let people know they got you. Not ever, hear me?”
“Really?”
“Yes, kid. Really. That’s the only way they know not to fuck with you anymore. You can never show people you care.”
“But why? What’s the point of lying, if you do care?”
“Because people prey on weakness. You can’t show them that you’re weak. You can only show them that you’re strong. You do that by showing them that you don’t care.”
“You aren’t always going to be strong, though.”
"Nobody needs to know that.”
She sighed after I said that, and she looked up at me. She looked so small on my couch. Then a wash of tears came to her eyes, but I could tell she was trying to fight them. I put my arm around her then, just instinctively. I just wanted to put my arm around her. I don’t know why.
“Why are men so mean?” she asked me.
“Listen, every asshole that isn’t good enough for you is going to be mean to you. Because you scare them. You are beautiful and smart and you have a lot going for you, kid. You don’t need to wear a dress like that to look beautiful. You look beautiful right now, just normal.”
“You think I’m beautiful?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Really?”
“Truly.”
She smiled after I said that. I think it meant a lot to her. And she was beautiful. Well, once you really got looking at her anyway. I thought it was real nice of me to be building up her confidence.
“You need to know how much you got going for you, Maggie. Until then, nobody else is going to know.”
She moved in closer after I said that. She rested her head on my shoulder.
“Yeah.”
Then she went quiet for a bit. I thought maybe she’d fallen asleep.
“Are you mean to women?” she asked me in a real quiet voice.
“No. I tell them what I’m like up front. They know what they’re getting into.”
“They probably fall in love with you anyway, though.”
“No. I don’t let that happen.”
“You don’t let love happen. It happens, whether you want it or not.”
She was always coming at me with corny shit like that. And she said like she just knew it to be true, like there was no convincing her otherwise.
“Oh, the ignorance of youth,” I said.
“It’s true! I bet they all fall in love with you even though they don’t want to.”
“Well, if they are falling in love with me it’ s because they really want to, trust me. I make it real hard for them to think I’d ever love them back.”
“You don’t think that’s mean?”
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