The Bad Girl (Week Two)

Ricardo isn’t all good, in the same way that the Bad Girl isn't all bad. Sure, he always followed  the rules and did what was asked of him, but within the framework of his relationship with the Bad Girl, I don't think he was the saint that his friends make him out to be.He loved passionately, but he also loved selfishly. The roles reversed slightly during the second half of the novel. At the beginning, Ricardo seemed the victim of fate. He was destined to always love a woman who wouldn't love him back. Yet, as the story progressed, I found myself feeling less and less sorry for Ricardo. It was always about him and what the Bad Girl was doing to him and how much he suffered, when there was clearly something wrong within the Bad Girls psyche.There was something not quite right with the Bad Girl from the beginning-- her lies and escapism-- and this was proven when she is hospitalized for the physical and mental abuse that she encountered with Fukuda. Perhaps the most alarming thing about the whole ordeal was that she wanted the relationship that she had with Fukuda. And, although her childhood situation is explained a little at the very end of the story (and we finally find out what happened to her sister!) there are still many aspects of the Bad Girl that are left a mystery.
Ricardo loved the Bad Girl in the best way that he knew how, but there were still some things that the Good Boy did that I found to be, for irony's sake, bad. Whenever he met up with the Bad Girl he had an unrealistic illusion of how she was going to be. He would slip into denial about what kind of person she really was and he'd tell himself that this time things would be different while being paranoid and neurotic the entire time. So, of course she would always disappoint him, always be the bad girl. How could she not? She was always just herself and Ricardo could never learn his lesson.
I found it to be absurd that the doctor had to tell Ricardo not to have sex with the Bad Girl after her operation. Why would you even have to say it?, I thought to myself. Why would Ricardo have sex with someone he treasures who just went through so much sexual trauma? Besides, just a few pages ago he was saying how he doesn't really need sex. Evidently I was wrong. Ricardo did a mediocre job at controlling himself-- he couldn't even wait the entire two months that the doctor recommended, which, if you ask me, isn't close to enough time.
Although the Bad Girl was indeed bad, acknowledging that some of the things that she did to Ricardo were hurting him, there were also things that showed her humanity. Her relationship with Yilal, for example, made the Bad Girl seem almost childlike, innocent and kindhearted. I sincerely believe that many of the Bad Girl's problems originate from a very dark event in her past and that she has very little control over what she is doing, even though she knows that she is hurting Ricardo.
I believed that they truly loved each other, they just didn't seem to know how to give one another the kind of love that they needed. Ricardo wanted to love the Bad Girl tenderly, in his simple husband-wife-stable-family way. The Bad Girl needed more roughness and excitement, perhaps she needed a constant change or challenge to keep her feeling happy and alive.