Fucking guy. Why didn’t he just do what any normal man would do, sock me one in the face (or balls in this case, ha), bask in the glow of his girlfriend’s adoration and be done with it?
Now I’m sitting on another bench, but this time it’s in a cage.
I’m running through all the terrible scenarios that could happen.
Worst of them all, is I end up back in London.
No lie, I’m just not ready for that.
For sure I would be free and I could do whatever I felt like doing, but I would happily risk time in a Taipei prison for harassment if it meant I could carry on ignoring my old life.
After all, I was the master, Mia had told me, of ignoring things.
You seem pretty fine, she said, when I came home after getting fired from the paper.
I am fine, I said, opening the fridge.
She grabbed her jacket and said, Let’s go.
The tall grass towered and glowed gold as we lay on the ground, staring up at the blue. I watched a cloud dawdle from right to left.
Mia moved to rest her head on my shoulder. Her hair tickled my arm.
For real, Mia had warmth. When I was with her, especially in the quiet moments like this, or after we had sex, I felt like I had warmth too.
Like I’d somehow absorbed it by being next to her, with her, inside her.
You know what it felt like? It felt like all the heavy, joy-sucking douchebag cynicism in me had vacated.
She rolled over and I rested my lips on the downy fuzz at the base of her neck, exposed by her tied-up hair.
My happy place.
I’m sorry you got fired, she said, turning her head towards me. For someone like you, that must be hard to take.
Someone like me?
You know. An overachiever. A perfectionist.
My hot breath bounced off her neck and back onto my mouth. I liked the way it made the fuzz stick to my lips.
I guess, I said.
Actually, I said, it makes me feel like trampled dog shit, replaying the still fresh, still terrible memory of my picture editor giving me the sack.
Mia shuffled her back and her butt into me more, took hold of my arm with her hand.
Love you, she said.
A metallic rattling sound shocks me out of my thoughts.
You, says Mr Police Officer, sheathing his baton. You go now.
He’s looking at me different to the way he did before. Respectful like, the way he’s holding the door open for me, waiting patiently, as though I wasn’t the complete waster he previously thought I was.
What gives? I say.
The cell door clinks closed.
Someone save you.
In the corridor on the way out, I pass a girl struggling against the grip of another Mr Police Officer.
That movie star is the one you should be arresting, she screams. All I did was say no to him, she screams.
I put my jacket on and step out the police station. My face feels like it’s being blasted with an array of high-powered hairdryers.
I take my jacket off.
I look around, and I have no clue where I am in this city. I look for a taxi rank, nothing. I scan the roads for cabs passing by, nothing.
A metro station it is.
Need a lift? says a familiar voice over my shoulder.
Charles Hu is waiting by the entrance of the station. Leaning against the wall of the building with his hands in his pockets. Smiling.
Come, the car is this way.
