Four of Cups

Back In School-NIGHT

After a while, we sit closely in an awkward silence. Just like old times. She smiles at me.

“Piteux, will you move in with me?”

“You asked me that before. A long time ago.”

“No! I never said that. You always make up things I said.”

“Okay,” I stammer, I know she’ll say I was drunk and imagining, but we were both drunk and she was off her meds to boot.

But she did say it.

But that was long ago.

And it isn’t important.

“Piteux, you just don’t know what to make of me. You think of me as crazy. A little girl.”

“No.”

“Oui. Le fou. Le fille.”

“No. I am glad of what you’ve become. A stable, well-adjusted woman. I am proud of you.”

I don’t wholly mean it.

She is crazy but she is also all mine. A least for a little bit. There is some comfort in thinking she was never quite right. Always a little off. She probably wasn’t even a virgin anymore. And I had considered that, sadly, if not crudely, to be a prize that had been promised to me. Taken away before I could claim it. No matter.

Lose to win. That is the way of the Fool.