Who Killed Jenny Schecter? Ch. 23

"What I learned was, women have to learn to be brave and courageous, too. Even if they are afraid, maybe even deathly afraid, they can't show it, they can't let fear get the better of them. Women have to be brave and courageous and stoic, even in the face of overwhelming odds against them. If they weren't brave and courageous and stoic they'd never have a single baby. You feel like shit for six or seven months, then you scream for 24 hours. Who needs that shit? But we'd have become extinct a hundred thousand years ago without courage. And so, Shane, when this woman asked me to marry her, I was afraid. I had doubts. I know all the problems and the likelihood of humiliation and failure. I knew there would be a lot of pain. I knew I might get hurt, maybe really, really bad. But I knew from those movies what I had to do. I had to put on my big boy britches and my stoic cowboy face. I had to buckle on my gun belt and go out into the street and face down whatever was going to happen, good or bad. And nobody was ever supposed to know how scared I was. Anyway, it was a tent up in Whistler, not a street, but same difference. You walk toward the person who's gonna hurt you. Having dad on your arm is just false conciliation."

"When I was getting dressed, putting on my wedding dress -- oh, Shane, it was gorgeous. You should have seen it -- anyway, I was putting it on, and my mom was in the room, and my hands were shaking. I was that afraid. And my mom just laughed. She said, 'Carmencito, you're so nervous, your hands are shaking.' But I couldn't tell her it wasn't just wedding jitters. I couldn't tell her it was fear."

"You see, Shane, I knew. I knew you weren't going to be there, downstairs, waiting for me at the altar. I knew I was going to go walk out into the dusty street in front of the saloon and get shot down. It's just what you have to do -- you walk toward the gun, not away from it. I just couldn't let anybody see it, least of all my mom, who had come all the way to Whistler to see her beloved baby girl get married. And this is something I have never told anyone, ever. Not Jenny, not Alice, not Lauren, not my sisters. I knew when I rode the elevator downstairs and walked across the lobby with my mom, everyone looking at us, me in my gorgeous wedding dress, people clapping and smiling, and we walked down the corridor to the door and out to the tent to the entrance of the tent, I already knew you weren't going to be there, and I was going to get hurt. You know how I knew, Shane? Because you're a coward, that's how. Whenever you had a major problem in your life, you ran away. Whenever some poor girl or woman was attracted to you, you ran like a fucking bandit. You were afraid. You're afraid of love. You're afraid of committing yourself to someone. You're so fucking afraid you'll be hurt, like I was at Whistler. Basically, Shane, you're a coward. And I always knew that. It's why it took me a week just to say yes to a question that should have taken maybe half a second.

"Have you ever in your whole life ever fought for something? Had a cause? Defended somebody? Went down swinging? Or have you always just run away? Have you never felt strongly enough about anything or anybody? Yes, you're a very loyal person ... until things get tough. Until things get hard. You let Jenny push you around and manipulate you, that was a kind of running away, and she even betrayed you, and still you didn't get mad. You know why I knew you didn't kill her? Because you're a coward. You know that saying, 'When the going gets tough, the tough get going while Shane McCutcheon runs away.' But Shane, pardon me for putting it this way, but you need to grow a set of balls."

"And here's the final piece of something I need to tell you, that I've never, ever said to any other human being on earth, and never will. The reason why you and I will never, ever get back together, no matter how we truly feel about each other, is because you're a coward. And I can't love someone who I know will run away when I need her most. I might love that person with all my heart and soul, and I might want to fuck that person until the cows come home. But I cannot respect that person. I cannot count on that person. I know that person won't be there when I need her. I cannot have a romantic, sexual, loving relationship with that person. Not ever. Once was enough."

Shane sat through all of this with her head in her hands, her face not visible. Carmen couldn't tell if she was crying or not.

"I love you, Shane. I always will, until the day I die. But I cannot have a lover's relationship with you. I know it now, and I knew it back then. But I had to hide my fear and ride down the elevator in my wedding dress, and stand there at the back of the aisle, and when Alice came up to me, she didn't have to say anything. I had to walk out into the street and meet my fate. That's what the other Shane did, and Gary Cooper and Bull Connor, and John Wayne and Kevin Costner and all those other guys. Pretty ironic, huh? I fell in love with the wrong Shane, not the brave one but the cowardly one. And don't tell me that was just Hollywood and they were just actors, because there's all those guys who went away to the Revolutionary War and the Civil War and World War One and World War Two, and who settled the west and rode in wagon trains and a thousand other real-life examples. Shane, I'm sorry you didn't watch much TV when you were a kid because your home life was so fucked up, and you didn't go to the movies like other kids, and that you missed some important stuff. What you missed was how to be an adult. How to be brave. How to swallow your fear and walk out into the street at high noon or 7 o'clock at night in a tent up in Canada. Not only couldn't you marry me, you couldn't even tell me face-to-face. You made Alice do it. That's what I can never forgive."

Carmen stood up. "I'm sorry, Shane. I've been sorry every day and every hour and every minute since the night I got shot down in the street, like I knew I would. The only difference is, there were no bullets and I didn't die. The wound wasn't fatal and I just cried a lot instead. I'm going inside now. Clean up your face, grab yourself a taco from a taco truck, and pull yourself together. We have work to do."