Four years ago I was angry at love because it hadn’t turned out how I wanted it to turn out. It wasn’t constant roses. It wasn’t a dream picked from the stars. It was jealousy, and yelling, and money, and hanging up the phone.

I travelled with Donnie, a boxer, to this laser light show in Adelaide somewhere, and he’d been on the drink again, and he kept telling me, “Drink,” and I kept saying, “Nah,” and he kept telling me, “Drink,” “Drink,” “Drink,” so eventually I caved into the bastard and drank.

“You’re paying for this, you cunt!”

“I have you,” he kept blurting, but I knew he didn’t have me for shit.

Some drinks later I met a girl. She was with a friend, and both she and her friend smiled about a lot of things, and I thought that it’s a damn special gift for someone to be able to smile about a lot of things.

“It’s a special gift for someone to be able to smile at a lot of things.”

“Oh?” She said.

“Oh,” I said back.

We walked outside and bought some burgers and as soon as we sat, stories began pouring out of her mouth. There was no stopping her. I wasn’t too sure about what she was saying, but I watched her mouth and face anyway: it was so animated, so passionate – she’d giggle, she’d be furious, she’d smirk, she’d roll her eyes, she’d raise her eyebrows. I arm wrestled her and she beat me. Was this love? Was I in love? I wanted to pour beer on her then kiss her face.

For some reason Donnie didn’t want me to leave with her, but I did it anyway. She took me to her place, and as I stumbled around I instantly fell in love with her: she had Star Wars memorabilia, she had an electric guitar, she had piles of books, she had whiskey.

“I think, I think I’m in love with you,” I slurred.

She giggled. We kissed and went to her room. I took her skirt and panties off and saw the smallest penis I’d seen in my life.

“You didn’t know?” She said.

“What?” My heart was beating fast.

We yelled at each other for a while and she cried. “Listen,” I said, “you, you have a lot of nice books.”

I caught a cab back, had a shower, brushed my teeth, wept, watched some lingerie ads on YouTube and fell asleep for three hours.

_

Book I’m reading: Wait Until Spring Bandini