Gifts for Lonely People

Nora hired me in 2022. She was this weird, frail girl, only like nineteen to twenty-two years old. Not really my usual clientele? I coaxed out of her that she was a lesbian after some back-and-forth texting, which grinched my ego a little. It’s never really flattering when a college guy wants to bang you, just kind of a given if you make it to forty and still put effort into yourself. But this felt a lot different, it was kinda sweet. And she was polite about it. She was really polite, actually. Maybe to the point of making herself look more suspicious than she would have if she’d just been honest with both of us from the start.

I figured maybe her mom had recently died…? But it was kind of more pitiful than that. I started to notice once we got to walking around town how little space she could handle between us, you’d think I had her tied to an invisible rope. She just spent the whole time playing with her hands and not really doing anything, like some scared kid. Now, when someone doesn’t give me anything to work with, that’s fine- I’m still getting paid, they’re free to stare if they’re really just that stunned. I’m not gonna put extra effort into fixing their personality flaws. Yet I couldn’t help yapping at this girl like it was going out of style, just hoping to get some peek at who she was. She gave so many one or two-word answers you’d think she had a bomb strapped around her neck ready to go off if she spoke a full sentence aloud, it was fucked up. There’s like a million people like this and I’ve seen plenty in my time doing this job but never once did I try so hard to get through to them. It made me realize how far she was gone.

And it was pitiful in a way. She was cute, better than I looked at that age, at least if not for her really really obvious cuts and these weird fucking teeth that made me flinch whenever she finally talked. You let yourself go when you get that way I guess. When we sat down to eat I asked about her situation and she said a whole lot of nothing. If she wasn’t lying she honestly had some things going for her, apparently the girl was still doing some schooling online (no idea to what end) and had a good family and a home. Maybe that was her problem…? If I had it that easy at her age I would probably give in too. Then again, I can’t say she was living the dream after what she did once I got done ordering for us.

“I… have a secondary propo- proposition.” She croaked, holding at an envelope sealed with scotch tape. “Like a second request. Um, I have eight hundred dollars in here if you want to look at it.”

I frowned and slid it out from her fingers, checking it and finding she wasn’t lying. I wondered how many birthdays this took to acquire, or if she’d learned to be as much of a leech as me. Against my better judgment I stuffed the money back inside and gave her an honest look. Whatever she wanted, maybe it’d be good for her. I was willing to make an exception to my rules at this point.

“What do you need, sweetie?”

She made a concerted effort to freeze time.

“I… need you to kill me, or get as close as you can to doing it. There’s like, plenty of my stuff you could take and sell too, so that’s… extra reward. And like, I came up with this wavier that I could like sign as- as a workaround- so like it wouldn’t be… illegal. I think.”

“That’s- that’s still illegal.”

“Oh.”

…You would really think that someone so willing to die would have thought it through more than that, but it dawned on me from this point on how little time Nora had to think about anything. If her head was a room, that room was about twelve-by-twelve feet with a ceiling just above her head and populated by sixteen rhinos. There were gaps in the rhinos, but most of them she was already using to breathe and she couldn’t exactly reach the doorknob to get out and find a better place to stay.

“Why… do you want to die, Nora?”

“Oh, uh…” She picked at the cold sore on her lip, looking casually embarrassed at first before the feelings started to choke her up. I haven’t seen any kind of dispassion more saddening than the kind that lets you utter confessions of self-destruction in the way you might a fast food order. “It’s, uh… it’s like… oh, God…”

She really didn’t want to cry in the restaurant and I could tell. As much as the coming food we’d ordered and my better judgment stuck me to my seat it was hard not to grab her hand like I did and take her out of there. She found it easier to let it out in the street, on a bench a bit away from everybody. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway if she didn’t want to though as the first bit of physical contact I gave her started sending her into an embarrassing shock.

I never ever ever want to have children. There is a feeling already so terrifying about having held this child in my arms, having felt every cavernous rift in her graffitied skin, every illness that went unnoticed and every complete failing she and those around her had made. If I was responsible for this child, beyond just being paid to spend time with her, but to have been bound to raise her, for her to be of my flesh and my blood, every mistake I make with her permanently etched into an evidently broken person- well, I don’t think anything could destroy me more than that.

Still, it took so little to help her in the short term, even if her true scars were permanent. The terrified, half-hearted side hug I gave made the girl into a mess of debt and gratitude. I have known submissive men who have praised me less after paying to do it. She worshiped me. It was repulsive and sad as well as a bit enthralling. You don’t get where I am without failing at a lot of other shit, so yeah, even having a suicidal girl prostrate herself for me still felt a little good. Though it didn’t last long with how things ultimately went.

“There- there’s just like, no words- um…” She began, hungering for the air to speak, a sob completely drowning out or else punctuating every other word. ”I… want to be like you, but then, then- whenever I do speak to someone, it- like, that dream goes away, I realize- um, I’m just not like that, I could never be like that, when I try to smile my face doesn’t move-“

“Calm down sweetie, it’s okay.”

“Okay. Um- I just- how can you be normal…?”

“Well… there’s a great many ways to come across as normal, I myself have used plenty of them.” I tried to sound as okay with her outburst as possible. “But they are just tricks, after all. Don’t you… think it might be better to try being yourself?”

“I try being myself.” She explained. “But there’s something wrong with me. Ever- every step I take out of my comfort zone is met with rebuttal. I get mocked by- by everyone, even kids…”

“It’s not always easy, I know. But I’m proud of you for trying. Do you ever wonder if you… might be looking in the wrong places?”

“I don’t know where to look. It’s not like how- how it used to be I guess, whenever you were my age… there’s… just nowhere really, nowhere near… you go outside, you see people closer to your age than mine, often older, maybe a tiny bit younger if you’re lucky… I guess I just don’t know where people my age hang out, but I feel like the last girl on Earth, and that’s before being as weird as I am…”

“That’s why you hired me, I’m guessing.”

“Y-yeah. Because as embarrassing as it was it felt like a step forward. L-like if I can’t make friends I can at least practice- talking to someone. And I just- wanted to feel good for once. But um… y-yeah, there’s just not a lot of opportunities, even online. And I get freaked out there, too. I must be the most anxious person in the world.” She sighed deeply, vocal cords defrosting after so much silence. “I-I think about being like you sometimes, you know. Just- getting people to pay to see me. Beats mowing the lawn. But- but I wouldn’t do it for the money. I would do it because… well, if someone is giving me money just to see me, then… well… yeah, there’s pressure to do good and make them happy, I’m sure, but you don’t have to be worried about overstaying your welcome. I- spoke when I’m spoken to, you know? If I ever say something out of the blue it feels like a crime.”

“Okay. Well…” I really have to rev myself up as I think of what to say to her at a time like this. Usually you just give the customer what they want to hear and you’re good. This girl’s dying and is actually asking for help for once. I’m not a therapist. “Do you remember what made you this way…?”

“I, uh…” She swallowed, presumably combing back through her life like a bin of sharp-edged Legos. “W-weird codependent situationship…”

“That’ll do it...” I risk a chuckle.

“D-do you get scared?” She asked, wide-eyed. “Of anything?”

“Well yes, I get scared of men pulling knives on me when I come to their houses to watch Scorsese films and I get scared of women barely old enough to drink giving me hundreds of dollars to put a bullet in their brain.”

“I-I’m sorry about that…”

“Hey. It’s okay, you gave up so you get a pass.” I slipped her back the envelope finally, trying my damndest to cheer her up, get her to laugh for once.

“Will I ever be normal…?” She glances up at me, waiting for her personally-hired doctor to give it to her straight. Her lip quivers.

“I think you just need a hug and some non-paid for time with somebody.” I smile. “Do you have anyone for that?”

“Not really…”

“Ah, I’m sorry then.”

I offer her the first half. She hugs back. It’s not a friend hug or an I-wanna-fuck-your-brains-out type of hug either so I’m a little lost a first before I remember the guy I saw last month who did the same thing after finding out I was like a year older than him. She just shrivels up into a small ball and lets me be her mom for a few minutes. I stroke her hair. She forgets her embarrassment. She cries, and I cry a little too hearing it. It kind of felt for a moment like… even if this kid was maybe not getting like half or even a fourth of the emotional nutrients you need to live, that she was gonna be okay. She was gonna go home, throw her suicide notes in a paper shredder, toss out every sharp object in her room and have a long, drawn-out and probably awkward conversation with her mother. And after that everything was gonna go great for her.

…But I still remember the last thing she said to me.

“Do you do repeat visits? I’m definitely gonna need this again…”

…And yet that was the last I ever heard of her. Never got a single message again.

Every day I pray that it’s because she got better.