You Own Me (Owned 1)

“Sorry. My degree is in mathematics, or it would have been. I dropped out junior year.” Without waiting for him to reply, I continued. “I know. Far cry from party planning.” I shrugged. “I love math. It's just a bunch of puzzles. It's so much fun. Not only is each equation its own puzzle, but each puzzle you solve somehow affects the way we view the world. It's amazing. Too bad there aren't enough jobs for math degree students. I could have done IT or something, but that's not what I wanted. I really love theoretical math. The more I went down that road, it just became filled with student loans and uncertainty. Besides, it wasn’t the only thing I wanted to do. Nah, it wasn't making me happy anymore . . . Wow, I'm rambling.” Vic had the ability to make me talk and talk until my secrets were all his. Maybe it's because he makes me nervous.

“I don't mind your rambling,” Vic responded. His fingers had resumed stroking the chair. “Keep talking.”

“Well.” I shrugged. “There's a lot I want to do with my life. I'm a firm believer in picking more than one path. It doesn't just have to be degree—career—death. Previously, I was a great mathematician. Right now, I'm a party planner, and I'm going to be the best damn party planner there is. Later? Who knows.”

Vic nodded.

“What about you?” I felt like the weight of the conversation was largely on me. It was always like that with us. Vic rarely talked about himself, but he didn't seem to mind that I talked about myself more than an autobiography would. He encouraged it. Sometimes I got the impression he was pushing the conversation away from himself on purpose.

“What about me?” Vic parroted back.

There he was, again, pushing the conversation away from himself. If that wasn't evasive maneuvering than I don't know what is.

“Well, what do you do? What did you do? What are you going to do?” I pressed. It had been a week of this and I still barely knew anything about him; but I felt like he knew everything about me.

Vic eyed me curiously, a smirk twitching on his lips. “Calm down. You sound desperate, Lenny.”

I threw a Post-it pad at his face.

He caught it so fast I barely saw him move.

I sighed in a huff. “Fine, but if you don't tell me anything about yourself, I'm done telling you about me.”

“Oh, yeah?” Vic asked, leaning forward.

I met his challenge head on and walked on my knees to him. We were face to face now.

“Yes,” I replied.

Vic leaned back, shrugging as he did.

“Okay,” he said.

I wanted to scream. Here I was practically dying for information, and he didn't give two shits. Fine. I moved back to my spot on the floor, and recommenced planning my party. We didn't say two words to each other the rest of the night.

I turned my threat to Vic into a promise to myself. I didn't give Vic any more information about myself until he coughed up something about himself. I was sick of opening up to him while he was always holding something back. I learned snippets about his life, but it was just that, snippets. Talking to him was like watching a movie through a hole in a piece of paper. I got to see some of the movie, but the rest of it was blacked out.

I learned his last name: Wall. I learned he had a sister, a mother, and a father. I learned he worked in security (well, I guess I already knew that). I learned his favorite movie was Aliens, the one with Sigourney Weaver. I thought that was funny. I mean, you can like Aliens, but as your favorite movie? I just couldn't let him get away with that.

“So, if you could only watch one movie for the rest of your life, you would pick Aliens?”

He didn’t hesitate: “Yes.”

I shook my head. “That is so sad.”

Vic and I sat in my apartment while music streamed faintly in the background from Pandora. I couldn't really understand the lyrics and didn’t know who the artist was. The music was folksy and sad, yet beautiful. The singer had a strong voice; whenever she sang, it felt like my heart was being pulled from my body.

“Why don't we ever go to your apartment?” I asked Vic, pulling myself away from the siren song. “I hear it's snazzy!” He did live in the penthouse, after all.

“Because—”

“Oh God!”

Spider! I hate that I'm one of those girls, but I am. Spiders freak me the hell out. I don't know what it is. Rationally, I know they aren't scary. Rationally, I know they are good for the environment: they keep the bug population under control. Most spiders aren't poisonous. Tarantulas actually make pretty good pets. Rationally, I know all of this. However, when I see a spider, all of the ratiocinations fly right out the window. All I see are its spindly legs and creepy crawly body, and I can feel it crawling on me and laying eggs in my shoes and me stepping on those eggs and releasing a billion spiders that crawl up my legs and into my body and then lay eggs in my brain...

“What?” Vic asked, interrupting my brilliant logic.

“Spider!” I screamed, pointing like a two-year-old. It was crawling toward us like it had a plan.