She says she is gonna kill herself after I take a phone call with a writer friend, so I go into the bathroom and lock the door. I stand there and lean against the wall. Welp. Another dead ex during Pisces season. Her friend with borderline personality disorder that I met five years before her on a Mibbit IRC for people with BPD was being a bitch to me via Zoom and blaming all my dead exes on me. I guess I wasn’t clear enough when talking about them that I forgot to mention they didn’t die while I was dating them.
The argument between me and the current girlfriend is very boring. I can’t believe I wasted my time on another BPD bitch, she says, and I yawn. Threats of being the fourth dead ex. That one makes me laugh.
I shoved a tiny honey jar of meth up my cunt because I’ve been through this shit before and they (the junkie girlfriend, the alcoholic boyfriend, the non-binary polyaddict) always regret throwing out the drugs. Thank God, they say with a sigh of relief and hug you when you have both calmed down.
My biggest rule is never call the cops. I did on her. Imagine being so unpleasant to be around that you get the cops called on you during a pandemic.
But also imagine moving in with me and then this happening. I don’t blame her. I don’t like to demonize or victimize.
It is very important that you know I am a psychotic bitch.
I have no photo ID or insurance card because I am disorganized. She has no phone or source of income.
We gotta make it work. I can’t kill her, and isn’t that what I would be doing? Her dad has dementia and Meals on Wheels and no phone.
I have to keep her here with me, right? There are crazy people out there.
***
That was March—it is April now. I taste blood in my mouth. I can’t go to the people I went to the first time; that’s bad manners. That’s never learning and exhausting the energy of others for no good reason other than my own stubborn stupidity. I cannot worry anyone. Everything becomes less and less important every minute. I spit on her side of the bed. Red on my white Betsey Johnson sheets from ROSS from when I moved here last year in February. The hearts are grey and black and there are skulls on them, too.
She asked me if I had been masturbating. The fuck? No. Why? Oh. Because there was blood on my lips and I was on my period.
She tried to kiss me, but it was a bite. She pulled my shirt up and slapped my tits and called me a dumb whore. I just looked to the side. I looked in her eyes. She has never been this pissed at me before, or at least not while on top of me. She shoves fingers in me and they go in easily because of the blood already there. Tell me I suck, she says. No. She continues. I stare at the wall. She takes her fingers out and wipes the blood on me somewhere I can’t see because I’m wearing black.
Everything is fine. I am safe indoors on my bed, as always. Don’t go outside and keep your distance.
***
It’s June. I told one of my best friends I kicked my girlfriend in the knee. Foot to knee. I felt so bad. I keep telling her she is driving me into psychosis with Zoom. She doesn’t listen and it gets bad and now I’m alone.
***
August. There’s nothing to say, really. Oh, wait, there is a lot to say. I do what she did to me. Go through all her shit. She has no privacy. I am obsessed with her secrets. I am abusive and want her all to myself. I collect images of her talking to other people saying she is going to leave me and that I am not the person she fell in love with. In previous relationships, I have never done this. I didn’t go through my girlfriend’s phone for the seven years we were together.
She gives me an ultimatum of him or her and I choose her because she gets me groceries and is there for me, a warm body, and this has been much to her despair because now I am needier than ever.
Love and addiction.
***
September. As I type this, I hear my name being spoken in the house. I’m a suspect and the LAPD knows me as some tweaker with a book coming out. My girlfriend saved my life. She is in jail now. Loving me is terrible, please don’t ever do it. The stupid boy who fucked everything up/Virgo boy with BPD is still texting me from a nearby alleyway. I’m seething. It’s not lost on me that it’s exactly the same trope as my book: revenge for a loved one, and it makes me sick that I even think of that, or maybe that’s just the scent of this bed. The blood of my enemies is on my pink pillowcase. On my bed:
- Me
- My mouse, keyboard
- A shirt
- A knife
- A pipe
- A laptop
- An iPad
- A box of Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies
- Pillows (1 bloody, 1 silk, 1 from Etsy)
- A robe
I miss my girlfriend.
Elizabeth Aldrich writes fiction, poetry, and bad HTML in Los Angeles. Her book Ruthless Little Things is being published this year via Expat Press. Once sent Matt Forney topless videos while he was at a family restaurant.
