She's Out of Control by Kristin Billerbeck

You think it’s a good idea for me to buy part of Kay’s house. What do you think that tells me? You practically laugh when I tell you Hans is interested in me in that way, and yet when I make a move to get out of that position, to actually become a general counsel, you’re mad at me because I have to change my schedule. I don’t understand you, Seth.” I stop walking after him here. “I guess I’m not meant to.”
    Seth steps forward, and I feel his closeness to my toes. As angry as I am, this man moves me like I’m his rag doll. He brings his hands around my face. “I don’t know what I want, but Ashley Wilkes Stockingdale, I care about you and I don’t like to see you treated that way.”
    Which I find really odd, because doesn’t he treat me “that way” too? I don’t have time to think about it. He kisses me in the dead of the November night, and I’m pulled into the moment, but I don’t feel anything. I feel numbness, like someone who’s been hit too many times and ceases to feel the pain.
    Hans is still in the doorway when Seth and I separate, the two of us looking like pathetic high schoolers, kissing on the sidewalk. I can hear Brea chanting in my ears: Never kiss by the garden gate. Love is blind, but the neighbors ain’t.

9
    A s I stand in front of my house in the darkness and watch Seth’s taillights disappear around the corner, I suddenly remember a few words scribbled in my history. When I was in college, there was a poem written in graffiti along the several campus columns I passed on my route home. It was written in chalk but stayed there for years, probably because the janitor was a romantic at heart. The poem read:
    I wish to
Make a lot of money
With which to
Buy her cute shoes.
    So it’s not Yeats, but there’s something about that sentiment that has stuck with me through the years. What is more personal, more romantic, than quality footwear for your loved one? And Seth is never going to buy me shoes, because to him, it’s like buying me jewelry, which he has no use for either. It defies the practical and enters the realm of romance. And romance is one thing he has become an expert at avoiding.
    If you follow this equation to its natural end, he’s never going to marry me because he cannot imagine giving up the practical for the sake of furthering our relationship. He’s satisfied with that red stop sign at each corner of our courtship. And I’m not.
    I’m not. And there it is. Could this be the first time I’ve thought about what I wanted in this relationship?
    Seth supposes that I’ll be happy with our junior high going-steady gig for a lifetime. Marriage gets in the way of his life, and he’s not willing to share that part of him. Giving up Seth is starting to feel like giving up any other unhealthy addiction. I love him, but he might not be the best thing. When Seth kissed me, he wriggled uncomfortably, kind of like the spider the old lady swallowed. I don’t inspire romance in the man; I inspire fear. And that’s just not good enough for me.
    I’m beginning to view the world slightly differently. I can’t help but wonder: If I cleared Seth out of the way, would God bring me something better? Could he bring me something where I didn’t feel so desperate and tentative? I mean, insecurity is not a natural state, is it?
    Kay is in the kitchen making candles when I arrive home, and the house smells like cinnamon-spice-scented wax. She peers up over the deep red liquid she’s pouring. “Did you have fun at Hans’s house?”
    I shrug. “I guess.”
    â€œWell, that sounds convincing. You should have stayed home and made candles with me. I invited the singles’ group, but they decided to see a movie instead. In the meantime, I’ll be ready for Christmas while they’re scrambling at Macy’s to get the last of the preseason