Fight or Flight

    It’s called the Fight or Flight response. Ever heard of it? She has, and she can tell you all about it. After all, she took Psychology.
    Here’s the down-low: When an animal is under pressure, when it’s threatened or too stressed, it reacts in one of two predictable ways. It tries to run. Or it tries to fight back. Pretty simple stuff.
    She’s always been a fighter. Her personal philosophy on life so far has been to bite off more than she can chew, then chew it. Just to spite the nonbelievers. She’s got cheeks like a chipmunk, able to stretch and hold way more hardship than she lets on. She’s got teeth like sawblades.
    But when it comes to love, oh, the irony! Nothing could make her flee faster, all sweaty and wide-eyed like a gun-shy horse. It is funny when you think about it. After all, she’s The One. The One her friends always came to for relationship advice. She can dish out an accurate gauge on someone’s personality from just one look. It’s a reflex. She’s got this hyperactive empathy, a superpower of sorts. She can look at anyone, talk to them, know what they need and become it so fast you won’t even realize it’s happening until it already has. She can untangle the truth from the lies people tell themselves. She can spin out the words that are exactly what they need to hear.
    No one ever seemed bothered to do the same for her. It used to hurt, to feel so misunderstood. When she wasn’t being what they needed, people looked at her strangely. It made her crumple up inside of herself to keep her heart from breaking. In all the fairy tales, there was always someone there who tried to understand, and even if they couldn’t, they gave acceptance. It took a long time until she realized she wasn’t a princess in a story. She wasn’t even the main character. No one was around to cry on, so she was either going to have to suck it up or wait until she got in her car to cry, cooing softly to herself in her head and saying, “it’s okay, you’ll be alright, it’s fine to feel this broken sometimes. I’m here, I’m here. As long as we have each other, we’ll be strong again.”
    Sad, isn’t it? What you probably don’t get is that most other people accept this as a universal truth already, that there’s no one out there who will ever really care for them the way they can care for themselves. But she’s different. In ways she didn’t expect. In lonely ways. She really believed, up until this point, that she might find someone who knows her. Really knows her. Or at least someone who would be interested in who she is enough to try, like she seems to be with everybody else. Like I said, it’s sad.
    But despite it all she’s been in love a grand total of four times. There were crushes inbetween, of course, but she usually got bored so quickly or talked herself out of it so well that they fell away like empty candy wrappers on the floor. It’s these four, though, that really stand out.
    First time, it was innocent. It was young and fresh and even scary, in that awkward way it’s supposed to be. Her face turned red several times while she tried to think of the right thing to say. He knew what he was doing. They both knew that. She just wasn’t sure how it made her feel.
    But I can tell you now. It made her feel even more awkward and out of place. He told her she was cute. She almost believed him. Even when she got bird crap on her shirt sitting outside with him, and he wiped it off for her in the bathroom later. She got this feeling of intense heat all over her body. A prudish little thing, she wasn’t sure what to do. It made her feel uneasy. It made her want to run. He was the Fire Kid. It made her feel sick.
    She toughed it out as long as she could before she found an excuse to hightail it out of there. He was an asshole. Like she didn’t know already. Everyone knew. But her instincts of self-preservation kicked in, and she fled the scene. It brought her tears and sleepless nights. Kind of adorable at that age, how seriously she took it all.
    Second time was unexpected and exciting. She was a gawky, pimple-faced creature by then, convinced she was fat like they all seem to be at that age. Enter the Golden Boy. He held a door open and walked right into her heart. That’s how he won all the girls over. And she knew it, she saw it, but she didn’t care.
    He showed up like a phantom in her dreams, always smiling like a long-lost friend, but in person she didn’t know how to behave. How could she be her colorful chameleon self when he made her red blush bleed through to the surface? But he liked pretty girls. He liked them a lot, and they liked him back, a lot. She had to settle for the occasional conversation, where she couldn’t tell if she was reeling him in or driving him away. She figured both. She always came across as hopelessly weird. She started to embrace it as her little place in his world.
    She never got over mister Golden Boy, Lucky Number Two. When something’s so undefined it never really starts, there’s no way to know if or when it ever really ends. He visits when she’s sleeping sometimes, even still. But his shiny image is getting blurry and she forgets what he used to mean to her now.
    Third time, oh boy, that’s when things got interesting. Another go-getter, charismatic and a lady’s man. She started getting the sense by then that she definitely has a type. And he saw her and he hit. He hit hard, exactly where she was weakest. Let’s just say she knew a little more about the world and wasn’t so awkward and prudish anymore.
    But she was in another phase. She was too dark and serious now, not blush-red and stuttering when boys caught her off her game. She’d take one look at them and their words would drop flat. She got that mean look girls wear when they’ve got no other defenses. Yet she still grew hot and cold and hot again around this one, the Triple Threat, and he just smiled when she turned him down. That freaked her out, so she kept running. He’d always pull her back, a little at a time. She scoffed at her own silliness. Her friends either glared his way or swooned. They had no idea how deep she was in it.
    Like a bear might do with its leg when it’s caught in a hunter’s trap, she broke her own heart to get free. It didn’t help that he had slept with her best friend, but she could feel the wound closing and growing numb. It was okay. She had made it out alive. He never knew how she felt about him and neither did anyone else. She should’ve felt victorious, right? Relieved?
    She did a lot of growing after that, anyone who paid attention can see it. Just look at her. Her kaleidoscope of personality has narrowed itself a bit, fitted to the colors she likes best. She’s polishing them to be brilliant, someday. She’s getting herself together. She’s still got her superpower, still got her instincts, but she’s learned that she can use them for her own happiness now. She’s working through the good and the bad, the colors and the darkness, and she’s making them her own. It’s a good place to be.
    But then it happened. Him. Number Four. He doesn’t even get a snappy nickname yet, because she’s still in it. Yeah, I know. Kind of unbelievable given her track record. But I guess she knows now, another human truth, and it’s made her wise beyond her years. I guess that numbness and that distance she kept could only comfort her for so long.
    He doesn’t fit the mold, this one. He’s funny and cute and smart, and he frustrates her endlessly. She knows she shouldn’t love him, not so fast, not so readily. She tried to pull out of him those things that would give her a good reason to snap herself out of it. But she just kept pulling, pulling. She ended up closer than she meant to. She ended up falling.
    Now she knows what it must be like to be The Other Woman. Oh, man, even she can appreciate the tainted humor of it all. She’s never been here before. She keeps smiling even after he’s stopped talking and walked away. She catches herself staring right at him, even when he sees her drinking him in. She wishes she could just lose herself in it and not care, because with him she’s ready to do that. About time, right? Oh, man, it’s always about the timing.
    Irony. That’s what it is. She finally knows it. It dawns on her slowly, but she accepts it with a surprising grace. She’ll ride out the storm because she doesn’t feel like running anymore. She’s not the same kid she used to be. She’s afraid now, sure, but she’s been longing for this type of fear more than she ever realized. She wants to fight. She wants to stay.
    He has a girlfriend. A sweet, naïve little thing. She’s all pink sugar and barely any spice, and it annoys our girl because she’s always comparing, even though she knows she shouldn’t. Aren’t the two of them better for each other than she could ever be, splitting them down the middle? It’s finally shifted in her favor, the power complex of love relations. She could take him away. She knows it in her bones. She could entice him, intrigue him, show him things. So what’s stopping her?
    I guess she just grew up. Grew into herself, more like. It’s not that she gives a damn about her reputation, whatever that means. I told you already, she’s got her own back. The good and the bad, she accepts it just the same. When it comes down to it, I think she’s just holding onto this sense of honor she’s had beaten into her brain since she was small. She wants to do the ones that came before her proud. It’s the only thing holding her back. And it’s a nasty truth, maybe, because the Sugar Princess thinks they’re friends. But our girl won’t lie to herself. She’s well aware of the truth.
    And she loves him. Better than she ever loved the rest. It’s just awful, awful timing. She would fight for him if she could. But she can’t put him through that. She thought, when it first happen, she might slip out unscathed like she did before. She might drape the wool over their eyes and no one would be the wiser. It’s just that she’s tired of pretending. She’s the wolf in clothing made for sheep. And like I said, she loves him! So she lets him see it, she lets him know. She knows he knows and they both agree, silently, that there’s nothing they can do about it.
    Like I said, when things have no definite beginning, it’s hard to tell exactly where they end. And she’s still hoping they’ll meet again, one day. But she’s left town and he stayed behind, maybe to make the Sugar Princess his Queen. Who can ever tell? And she’s hurt, she’s been through a thunderstorm in a tiny leaky boat, but whoa. Look at her on the other side!
    It’s called Fight or Flight, and she’s always been a fighter. It just took a little while for her to figure that out about herself. And yeah, I’ve been watching the whole time. Don’t get judgemental. Just enjoy the show.
    Where will she go from here? Good question. I wish I knew. Maybe she’ll go back to where she’s been. Maybe the Golden Boy or Number Four will catch up with her eventually, now that she’s awake. Wouldn’t that be dandy? Wouldn’t that be just like those saccharine, hopeful novels written for middle-aged women full of regrets?
    Nah. I think it’s forward like it’s always been. I think she gets it now. I think she understands that she’s got to take what she’s got and use it for all it’s worth, no exceptions. She’s tasted the good stuff. She wants more. And when she gets there, like she’s sure she will again someday, she’ll give me plenty more to write on whoever turns out to be Number Five.