"I love you."
“I love you.” As I uttered my mantra for the fifth time in rapid succession, I began to feel a little foolish. I mean, I was professing my profound affection for my boyfriend to my reflection while doing my hair because I was nervous.
Nervous because today I will be professing my profound affection for my boyfriend of three years, Ravi Singh. My name’s Pippa Fitz-Amboi, not Narcissus, for a reason.
It may seem a bit odd since we’ve been together for so long but this is a large step for me. My therapist says I’m, “making progress with trusting others,” but I believe that she’s wrong since I’ve trusted Ravi since the day I knocked on his door for that initial interview. Ravi has been a constant fixture in my world where everything has changed. When I felt like I was hurtling down to my doom, he helped me find my footing. When it seemed like I was losing my uphill battle, he picked up a weapon and joined my ranks. When it felt like the weight of the world sat atop my shoulders, he became my own personal Atlas and bore it for me. My life has been in his hands on numerous occasions, so do three itty bitty words really hold that much meaning?
So what if he’s told me those three thoughtful words a multitude of times and I have yet to reciprocate? So what if his expression turns a tad bit sour each encounter I fail to say it back? So what if this all-consuming monster called inadequacy has managed to wiggle its way into my brain and live rent-free because I can’t find it in me to utter such a dumb yet domestic decree? We are fine and I am fine because I am saying a few fickle fleeting formulations today. I am saying I love you.
It is a Friday which means it’s the highly anticipated date night. After an arduous, anxious finals week where we didn’t speak for its entirety (despite occupying the same abode, might I add) we definitely decided that every Friday would be dedicated to deepening our romantic relationship. And sure, maybe most of them were spent binge-watching a series of goosebump rising, bloodcurdling true crime documentaries. It’s hard to get out of the murder mystery mending mindset, okay? Recently, that’s the only thing we can agree on anyway.
Fights seemed to ignite out of nowhere until they just…stopped. We’d be walking and suddenly find ourselves bickering about arbitrary things, like the weather or which sports team will prevail. Once, we didn’t talk for a week because we couldn’t agree on who’s turn it was to do the dishes. My best friend Cara asked me about it and I didn’t know what to say. I’ve found myself unable to say much of anything lately. How do I respond when she inquires about how well our relationship is going when Ravi just told me he wanted to see other people? What works best when he suggests that I move out and his new girl move in? A“that’s cool” or a “yeah” And really, how do I inform her that my soulmate, love of my life, and partner has seemed to slip into the abyss and refrains from returning my calls? Would a letter or email suffice?
Sure we haven’t had date night in six months because he’s been hidden for five, and yes we haven’t traded witty banter in four months because he blocked all six of my numbers, and obviously he hasn’t said I love you because he’s loved her for three but today is Friday which means today is date night. Date night is date night, after all.
It is currently seven forty-five, I check my burner phone confirming that he has received and responded to my text message demanding that he meet me in the woods at eight o’clock. I scroll through our older conversations, giggling to myself as I watch his responses grow more and more frenetic over time. What a wimp. My wimp, though, mine. A whimper sounds beside me and I swiftly rush over to the source of the sound. Ugh, she’s crying again, not just the regular river of tears but the snotty, sniffling kind. What a baby. I come closer to her and crouch so we can be eye-level, her sepia eyes widened to the size of dinner plates while she flinches with fear. When will she learn I’m not going to hurt her? Those few lapses in judgment notwithstanding, of course, that was the past Pip.
A long five days ago.
I remind her that she will be freed today. After months of managing, scheduling, bargaining, and blackmailing, I finally am receiving the fruits of my labor: a date night with my boyfriend. She should be grateful that I am treating her with this much formidability. For I am neither behooved or benefited to give her such a comfortable chair in my basement or luxurious ropes. I could’ve left her hog tied on the floor with tape covering her rose-bud, lush lips but instead, I grant her the throne of champions yet she’s still unsatisfied. Kids these days.
My mind drifts over to Ravi and her’s joint Facebook page, how satisfied and satiated she looks there. A flurry of photos fill my vision without my doing, a phenomenon more frequent than not nowadays. It’s infuriating. It’s evident he doesn’t love her like how he loves me, so why is he with her? We’ve caught criminals together, I’ve created criminals for him, why is he so willing to spend time with someone who didn’t? With someone who, despite supposedly earning her masters degree, couldn’t even spell his name after I knocked her around a few times. All she could do was moan in pain as blood gushed from her busted mouth, incurring my ire. At least pretend to care for Christ’s sake! I know everything about him, well, maybe not where he’s currently living (he’s playing a difficult game of hide and seek for some obscure reason), but I know all the important stuff. Like his favorite color, his affinity towards his fallen brother Sal, and his social media passwords. How else would I find this girl he’s faking his affection for?
For the millionth time she reiterates about how if I let her go this minute she won’t say a word and definitely won’t run to the police. I sarcastically wink conspiringly and nod, guffawing at the mere mention of such an idiotic idea. She wouldn’t last a day in front of those investigators, not even an hour. I give her a few sandwiches of the knuckle variety so she’ll resume our round of the quiet game and quickly snap a photo to send to Ravi. Maybe this will entice him to be a little faster picking me up for our date. A hasty reply is sent saying he’s on his way. Hmph, he better be.
Following that dispatch I switch to the news outlets to check if they’ve made headway on the case. Scrolling through I notice they have nothing, I chuckle, typical. The cops, the media, and even Ravi are so stupendously stupid they couldn’t find a perpeator if it smacked them in the face. For example, back when I was a senior residing in frumpy Fairview, I “solved” the town’s murder mystery. Solved being the operative word for faked. I manufactured the case, planted probable (but majority circumstantial) evidence onto a handful of bumbling fools and watched them crack. I didn’t even have to do that much work! I can even call it framing, they were digging their own graves, pun unintended. All I had to do was apply just a teensy bit of pressure mixed with a dash of blackmail and abruptly they were indicting themselves! It was the perfect profusion for quite the kerfuffling conniption.
Salil Sing, colloquially referred to as Sal, was the murderer. He killed Andie, stashed her body, and hung himself after. I just convinced everyone that he didn’t. Why? Well, I am a girlfriend and girlfriends have responsibilities like keeping their partners happy. I am a good girlfriend and I had to protect my boyfriend. Even though I adore Ravi, I can say by my troth that he is far too feeble, frail, and frantic to harbor such an occupation. I did what he couldn’t but what he needed, he should thank me instead of striving to replace me with this egregious, erroneous error of a woman.
Men, am I right?
Soon, I grow bored of gazing at her squirming so I get up and stop wasting time that should be spent preening and prepping for my hot date. My bushy eyebrows are tweezed, my legs are smoother than a newborn baby from my subsequent shaving, and my face is drenched in cosmetic products once I step out of the bathroom as a new woman. A woman who can finally say I love you. A woman Ravi Singh will always love. He texts that he’s arrived and in anticipation of his arrival I peek outside the window, only to be greeted by a bewildering sight. It’s weird. If my memory serves me right, which it always does, Ravi’s car is a deep cobalt blue, not black and white. Another peculiar change are the noises it’s making, a deep siren resonation reverberates from the vehicle. Blue and red lights bloom into the late evening and this leaves me even more perplexed.
Did he hook up a fireworks display for our rendezvous/reunion? How charming.
Excitement coursing through my veins, I slip into my shoes and keep my head up high, once I exit my apartment I will walk straight into his opening arms. Adoration will spill from him like a dam bursting open and I will remain the woman Ravi Singh loves. I step into the cool, autumn night and suddenly I’m faced with the possibility that I might’ve been wrong. Ravi is standing outside like he previously promised but something’s off.
Perhaps it’s the guns facing me or the fact that I’m being told to put my hands up where these mysterious men in uniform can see them, but both lead me to believe something is wrong. This isn’t how I imagined it. No, my mind conjured thematic tales of a dramatic rejoice. Of an embrace so romantic he’ll forget how pedantic I was when I laced his drinks with poison. Of a kiss so magical I’ll be swept off my feet. Alas, my idyllic, idealistic ambition ceases to frolic into fruition. In his crisp blue jeans and ironed vermillion polo he looks as handsome as ever. I reach to lay a hand on my love and I’m thrown to the ground where my face makes sweet love with the pavement. Not what I wanted to kiss but this will have to suffice, I bitterly thought. My mind blanks and I go through the motions of what I know is an arrest, I am a police officer after all. Yet, it is only when the handcuffs click into place that I realize although I am the woman that loves Ravi, I may not be the woman Ravi loves.
Still, I whisper a desperate, “I love you,” as I’m sequestered away from the man I love. With tears streaming down my face, it’s difficult to make out what’s even going on in this place but if I squint I think I see my man saying those three little words back to me.
