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Everything hurts.
You should have stuck to the plan. I know that now.
What I don’t know
is, how he plans to kill me. Will it be quick? Will the liquor dull the effects? Will he make me suffer?
You never should have gotten mixed up in this. I know that too.
I can still picture the night we met, him sitting at the bar. I can still hear the music. Jazz, I think. Focus. Only seven percent of any given message is based on the words. Thirty-eight percent comes from the tone of voice and fifty-five percent from the speaker’s body language and face.
“Have you any interest in playing a game?” he asked over his dirty martini. Funny, I can remember his expensive suit but not the expression he wore.
“Depends on the game…” I’d said with a shrug. A playful, stupid shrug. That sums up what I was—so sure of myself, so foolish in the end.
I remember he smiled. “It’s a fun one,” he assured me. I can’t recall his tone.
He raised his finger, and the bartender placed another drink in front of me. Researchers have found that humans have a limited capacity for keeping focus in complex, stressful situations like negotiations. Less, if there’s alcohol involved.
I remember feeling brave. That’s before I knew enough to know I’m not. I cocked my head, took him in. “Unless you’re on the losing end.”
“Ah, a skeptic,” he said. I remember he was handsome. Not spectacularly so, but enough to take notice. Not that it mattered. “Let’s start with truth or dare.”
I sipped my martini. His choice. I hadn’t realized it wasn’t a question. When it’s important, never lead with a question, always a suggestion. “I’m going to assume you want to go first so…truth.”
Another smile. “Excellent choice,” he remarked. “I’ve always had an affinity for the truth.”
You have to feel for the truth behind the camouflage; you have to note the small pauses that suggest discomfort and lies. Don’t look to verify what you expect. If you do, that’s what you’ll find. “Most people do.”
“Now that there is a lie.” He shook his head slowly when he spoke. So cool. So confident. Breadcrumbs. “Most people only want the truth as long as it works out in their favor.”
“I can’t speak for most people.” Maybe it was the drink. Maybe I was just feeding him what he wanted to hear. Maybe I was just naive. It’s too late to know.
That all seems like a lifetime ago. The night we met.
He toasted me. “Shall we begin?”
I lifted my brow and then my glass. “Begin away.”
That’s not really where it began. I know that now.
“Do you see yourself settling down?”
I almost choked. Sometimes, but not often, I was taken by surprise. Get on the same page at the outset. You have to clearly understand the lay of the land before you consider acting within its confines. Why are you there? What do you want? What do they want? Why? I didn’t think to ask those questions. Not of myself and certainly not of him. “Settle down? You mean with a picket fence and two point five children?”
He stuck out his bottom lip, his shoulders rose to his ears. “Something like that.”
I gave it some thought. My mind was already made up. “Maybe.”
“You?” he said, eyeing my dress. “You think you could be domesticated?”
I narrowed my eyes. Classic NLP. Neuro-Linguistic Programming. I didn’t know then what I know now. Insult them at the onset; they’ll work harder to prove you wrong. “Why not me?” I scoffed. I sat up straighter, mocking him as though I was offended. Maybe a part of me was.
He touched the rim of his glass to his lips. “You don’t think you’re too young?”
I laughed. “My mother often reminds me that when she was my age, she was two years married and pregnant with me.”
His brow lifted. “Is your mother happy?”
