Calculations

I wait for you to say something perfect. Niri finishes stringing the lanterns around the patio. All those colored paper shells look like sugared sweets; a candy necklace for the night. I wish they would melt into syrup and trap you and Kinsey; the two of you ambered together forever. Maybe then you would find something to say.

From my spot in the yard, I’ve watched you fight and kiss and maybe do a bit more. Niri’s parents presented me when she moved into this new place, back when you were with her, and not anyone else. She’s been here for five years, eleven months, and twelve days, but everyone still calls it the “new” place, and everyone seems to forget about the two of you.

But I’m still here. Albeit I’m a little less pink and my ankles have rusted from last summer’s rain. Grandy still tells me I’m beautiful, but I’m not sure I believe him. He’s so much younger than I’ll ever be. Tonight I’m not talking to him because I’m too busy trying to listen to you. And Kinsey. These past few months it’s been Wade and Kinsey at every party.

“Niri!” You yell her name, pulling her in for a hug. She makes a face at me and Kinsey over your shoulder. Her eyebrows rise and say no way, her eyes go wide and wonder what happened. Even I know that you and Kinsey have something.

“Somebody get this girl a drink,” you say, passing Niri off to the others at the party.

Kinsey hands her a glass of your homemade sangria, and Niri dumps it by my feet as soon as you’re not looking. I suck it up through my legs and it makes me feel good, almost great.

“Kinsey, girl,” Niri says.

I smile even as my stomach sloshes with too much sangria and sappy daydreams of what tonight should have been for you.

“And nothing,” Kinsey says. She chews on a soggy orange wedge. I imagine the fruit bursts with booze and saturates her tongue in slime and seeds. When she spits into the bottom of her glass, I know I am right.

“Like, really nothing? Not even hey or hi or you know, let’s fuck?” Niri asks. No one looks because it’s Niri. But if it were me or Grandy, they’d all be like acid trip? And then maybe they’d drink and dance and forget that the lawn ornament said something so profane.

“It’s not like that. We just, I don’t know, and it…he’s just different here,” Kinsey says. I want to say he is different, he gets you, he just gets confused, and I think he might love—

“The dance floor is calling us,” Niri says.

There is no dance floor.

You drink that gin with yesterday’s lips, the ones that talked about Kinsey. You said she was brilliant and beautiful and you finally got that there was something real about her. So where is that guy? Why isn’t he here tonight? Why aren’t you kissing Kinsey and keeping her in your arms? Why are you so determined to fuck everything up?

“Later,” you say to a girl named Kat when she asks you to dance. I follow your gaze to Kinsey swaying, seeped in those lanterns’ colored light. She looks like some sort of mystical creature, and she smiles when she sees you staring.

You still haven’t said anything to her. You hugged everyone but her. You laughed with everyone and just nodded your head when she said the stars, even though we all know that is your special code for let’s talk. Because everyone remembers the last three parties and how you brought champagne because Kinsey loves it and it makes her crazy and it reminds you both of the galaxy.

Tonight it’s like you are trying to put as much distance between you and her as possible. I hope you know that your Kinsey is a philophobiac, and the idea of loving someone, like really loving someone, scares her. But sometimes you are sweet and you sang that one line from your favorite song to her that night she got sick. I think she still remembers that version of you.

Everyone dances and sings another shot before we kiss, but you stand still beside me. You sigh and I miss the end of that line and the one after. But when it gets to the chorus, you whisper the words, and smile. I know you want to join the party, but you don’t. I’m not sure if it is because of the song or because of whatever has happened with Kinsey. You pull your phone from your pocket, start typing into your Notes. How will she get back up?

I know it is about Kinsey because you only write things about real people. They are never characters created from blood and ink. And knowing that, your silence makes sense, but it doesn’t satiate my need to hear it straight from your lips. I want to ask: how do you know she’ll fall? How do you know she’ll care as much about whatever isn’t happening as those of us who know the two of you might add up to something better?

You say “only sunshine” to Kat as you pull her into a slow dance. I wonder if you said “only stars” to Kinsey. I wonder if you will ever just love someone to love them.

When you lead Kat to the porch, we all watch. Kinsey stops dancing and leans against Niri and they whisper back and forth. I can’t hear them from here so I try to read their lips. Kinsey’s mouth moves slow and it looks like she says fudge, but I know she must be saying fuck you because that’s what we are all thinking.

Kinsey doesn’t crumble, even as you lift Kat, and take her into the house. She is so much stronger than you. Maybe you don’t care. Maybe you care too much and that’s why you feel the need to hate fuck strange girls instead of making love to just one.

“It’ll be okay,” Grandy says, nudging me with his little grey wing.

I’m not sure that’s true. Grandy hasn’t seen enough of you to know either way. But I think about how you almost kissed Kinsey at the last party, the way you closed your eyes, and drank in her words. I remember the way you leaned in and whispered something I almost heard, but never would. And now our lives consist of the almost.

Written by: Kayla King

Photograph by: Garrett Carroll
 

Return to Sender

The cold wind makes me rush into you, and I am well aware this heat between us is not passion. The force of your face toward mine causes my lips to retreat, and you to kiss meat-covered teeth. It’s awkward now. A fallen leaf scrapes a line between us on the concrete. All I can think is how glad I am that I drove. You say, "your lip is bleeding,” and I reply, "Oh," as I hurriedly lick the sweetness away. Our feet start moving because our tongues won't, and three years later we find my car. The night ends with a hug, I hold you too long, and rub your back as an apology for earlier. There are moments between seconds in which I do not want to let go. I do, though.

If only I’d met you before the ex...

But that doesn’t stop me from saying yes to a second date.

                                                                                                      ***

I write letters to my ex because I don’t know what to do with the leftovers. Just because he wrote an expiration date on the relationship doesn’t mean I have to throw us out.

I let my best friend read the letters.

You left because you think you don’t deserve me. You don’t. Now someone else is calling me beautiful, and it’s not the same, like when you speak a word over and over again until it no longer sounds like itself. Ex is a misnomer because it implies you aren’t a part of me anymore. There’s not a hole in me big enough to let you out.

She says to me, "I don't know how he can read those words and not respond."
I shrug, "You'd be surprised."

I know in the back of her head she wonders why I do it.
She hopes I receive a return letter, a late night phone call, an unfamiliar knock at my door.

She says, "I think you guys will end up back together."
I say, "No, we won't."

She envisions him reading my letters and six digit dialing me each time.
She doesn't imagine them left unopened, set ablaze on a pyre of cigarette butts and stale chewing gum.

And I can't lie; I can't say there isn't a part of me that indulges in the futile fantasies of failed romantic gestures suddenly being appreciated for their awkward beauty like all those John Hughes movies.

But that's not why I write him.

                                                                                                      ***

On the fourth date, you made love to me like broken light bulbs—properly screwed in socket, but never turning on. Walking home uterine contractions force out evidence of tonight’s event. I smiled because you didn't even notice I was bleeding, cried because despite my efforts even my biology will reject you. It reminded me of the time I was cooking eggs and as I broke one open, I noticed the yolk was red and thought oh, my! This egg has a heart. I whisked until it wasn't there anymore, but couldn't bring myself to pour it onto the hot, buttered skillet.

As I painted dotted lines on the sidewalk like a road marking machine, I wondered if it was a mercy not to be eaten, if I cut open my cramping belly would I find the yellow that was missing on that day?


                                                                                                      ***

Associations last longer than people.
Songs, smells, locations, a sock, your hair in my brush,
mother saying, "what happened to...?"

The awkwardness of my heart put back in my chest
where it was never meant to be again,
like when you accidentally use a toothbrush that's not yours,
and you know it because the bristles don't fit the grooves of your teeth the right way.

You don't exist anymore, but you live on in all these things,
like step children I want to give back
because they were never really mine.

                                                                                                      ***

By the tenth date you said “I love you.”

I convinced you that I was a contemporary woman and those words were meaningless predilections, overused and underrepresented in today's society. I suggested instead that we speak in code, and showed you affection in the only way I still could. In bed, as your body tensed, you said, “peanut butter,” and I said, “jelly.”

I wanted to say it back. In my dreams, I run wildly into the night and collide with you, full force destruction into five second flight, punching the ground, chortling bloody I love you’s. But he stole the phrase from me. Every story you've ever told that ended with the sudden stunning realization of absence, with I was going somewhere with that, is how I feel if I attempt to string those words together. I wish I could say this to you, but these words would give you hope that there could be something between us.

This morning, you woke up and found a note next to you that simply stated, I'm allergic to peanuts.

                                                                                                      ***

My mother has a friend who was electrocuted at the age of 9. The injuries she sustained led to her arms being amputated at the shoulder and hair only grew on one side of her head. She learned how to do everything with her feet; she flips burgers, writes down grocery lists, smokes cigarettes, and even drives a car. I wonder was it ever as hard for her not to be able to hold anyone as it was for me not to be held? Did she have a fear of zippers, of slow songs, of falling down? How could she be deformed and not broken?

The ticket ripper at the movie theater was so old that he had growths on his skin like grade school mold experiments and contorted knobby trees. He said, “theater 10 is to the right,” I wanted to respond with your death is showing, but instead said “thank you,” and went to learn what it’s like to watch a film alone. I write letters to myself now.

Written by: Monica Johnson
Photograph by: Whitney Ott

Finders

Norah fell asleep with the tip of her nose pressed against the nape of Stacey’s neck. They spooned beneath a thin beige sheet as Manhattan’s winter chill crept in and mingled with the dry heat of the radiator in their tiny apartment. When Norah woke up the next morning, she could smell the scent of Stacey’s shampoo on the pillow. They had been dating for six months when they decided to live together. Norah was a college dropout working at a coffee shop in the East Village and Stacey was a dental student at Columbia University. They seemed an unlikely pair on paper, but laughter and wine dotted their i’s as moonlight and introversion crossed their t’s.

Norah watched the steam rise as she showered, washing away the previous night’s lovemaking. Their relationship was racing forward like the A train on a good day. Stacey’s parents invited Norah over for Thanksgiving and marriage was already a topic up for discussion. A few of their friends thought they were moving just a little too fast and some thought the educational disparity guaranteed trouble, but they were a seamless fit, not easily torn by societal norms.

However, a thin strand of insecurity hung loose and vulnerable from Norah’s ego. She stood in the doorway of their bedroom, holding a mug of peppermint tea up to her lips while staring at the stack of letters on a shelf above Stacey’s desk. Norah always wondered who they were from and what they said. She never saw Stacey touch them, but they weren’t accumulating dust either.

For the first time since moving into Stacey’s apartment, Norah was alone. She grabbed the pile and sat on the bed, starting from the bottom and slowly working her way to the top. The letters professed love, missing you’s, and I hope I see you soon’s, each signed with “L. Hines.” Every note was a dot on the timeline of a two year long relationship, the last one postmarked only two months earlier. Norah’s tea was not hot enough to melt the lump forming in her throat.

She placed the stack back on the shelf with care and noticed a blue spiral bound journal. Anger and curiosity prompted her hands to pick it up, open it, and place it on the desk. She sat down and glared at the first and only entry recounting a trip Stacey had taken to Idaho with this other lover eight months ago. She described the quaint bed and breakfast where they stayed for a week and referred to her companion by initials rather than by name. The entry ended abruptly, sandwiched between two photographs of the landscape and their accommodations.

Norah leaned back and stared up at the ceiling, conflicted by both the urge to scream and cry. She knew she should give Stacey the benefit of the doubt, to wait until she got home so they could discuss the matter like a mature and loving couple. Jealousy overrode ethics and common sense as Norah grabbed her peacoat and one of the letters from the shelf. Racing downstairs to the lobby, she disregarded the security guard’s greeting and went outside to hail a taxi. She read the return address from the envelope to the driver and they headed south, past the university toward Morningside Heights.

When the taxi pulled up in front of the apartment building, Norah looked up at the many windows of its facade, wondering which one harbored this mystery woman. She paid her fare and got out with some reluctance, shutting the door only when the driver hollered. She made her way up the steps and scanned the tenants’ names posted by the call panel. Running her tongue over her teeth, she pressed the button next to “L. Hines” and waited.

“Yes? Stacey?”

The voice belonged to a man.

Six seconds of eternity floated by before Norah cleared her throat and called back, “Uh, no. This is Norah. Stacey’s girlfriend. Is L. Hines there?”

The nausea formed heavy pools of saliva in her mouth before the man said, “This is he. What do you mean her girlfriend?”

Norah shook her head, wrought with dizziness and disbelief as she backed away from the call panel and sat down on a cold concrete step. She slumped forward and put her head between her knees, feeling the urge to vomit before she heard an all too familiar voice.

“Babe,” Stacey said, walking up from the street, her voice dripping with guilt and shame.

Norah didn’t look up. She knew she sat between two lovers as she heard the door open behind her and the shuffling of feet. She could feel his glare burn through her back and straight into Stacey’s heart, the disgust in his mouth as palpable as the vomit threatening to fill hers.

“You’re gay? All this time I’m wondering if you’re sleeping around with some asshole on Bleecker Street, but it’s worse! You’re a lesbian!”

Stacey stomped up the steps, brushing Norah with her coat and retaliated, “What difference does it make if I’m with a man or a woman? I swear, Liam, you're so insecure!"

“Insecure? Gee, I wonder why!"

Norah took her time standing up, bracing herself with the railing as she descended to the sidewalk. She didn’t bother to look back as the volume of their voices escalated. Pulling up her scarf over her face and stuffing her fists in her pockets, she walked toward nowhere, remembering the relationship she ended after meeting Stacey. He was a nice man with hazel eyes and ginger hair, who always kissed her goodnight beneath her left earlobe, who always thought they would last forever. Norah didn’t tell him that her someone else was a woman. She just said thank you for the memories and that she’ll always love him. The sob erupted from her lips as she realized her experiment was not worth leaving him.

 

Written by: Natasha Akery
Photograph by: Emily Blincoe

Devaluation and Bodyworks

First, just empty the overnight bag. It’s going to be put away for a little while. Or a long while. Hard to say when you’re in the heat of a losing battle with reality – a reality that steadily prods your soft parts and whispers that absolutely nothing in life is guaranteed. Not even the regular use of a trendy black bag containing replacement underwear and travel-sized shampoos. Your contract with life was written in disappearing ink.

Ha ha. Joke’s on you.

This opportunity to extract oneself should feel nothing but liberating, because at the top of your skull – the place Buddhists deem to be most sacred – this is where you always knew that your interests were never even close to marrying up with his. He of bullshit and imposter Buddhist exhortations.

But really, this is not a horrific car crash where one of us is walking away maimed.

But still.

You need to unpack. You need to be distracted from the sudden and unsavory change in your circulatory function.

Was there anything of consequence left at his house? The running joke was that you were always leaving earrings under the sofa- exactly where his kids could find them. Curse the resiliency that is the human spirit. Better off to have one’s first injury stay sliced open to fester, rather than endure what has just taken place: a tired rerun that saw you pressing ‘End’ on a conversation with a suddenly incomprehensible stranger. How do any of us hazard the chance to go through this more than once?

Is this really happening again? It’s not until particular words are spoken that you recall the heart to be housed in an elevator attached to cables that span the length of your body. This reminder only resurfaces at the moment you feel the encasement slam into your feet. A free fall triggered by a secret combination of words. A phenomenon that only ever comes when you don’t see it coming at all.

In the seconds following the one-way plummet, you begin to wonder if any effort at braking was ever applied to those supposedly reinforced cables. After all, you’ve been here before. This is not your first ride in the heart-trashing rodeo. But it would appear that the point is moot; only a Pollockian rendition of a shattered heart outline now holds court there in your heels. Sitting right there next to your Achilles tendon. It would appear that life is at least guaranteed a certain level of irony.

None of this gets any easier, the second and third time around. When you have been downsized in someone else’s world, you’ll still gravitate to places that no longer exist. It’s an impulse you’ll entertain at the expense of moving forward. You neglect yourself as your insides try to recover. Appetite, like the sense of smell, takes on a tertiary significance as hunger backs away as a vital need.

The elevator that you are certain lay splintered at your base has inexplicably regained its function – albeit imperfectly. Up and down you now feel it cycle as you step one foot in front of the other, day after day. Except every now and then you notice that it gets hung up in places where you’d rather it not linger. You wonder if your insides have gone permanently haywire. Much like the fictional contract with life, you realize that this vital organ comes with no replacement warranty in the case of eventual malfunction.

This is all for the best. On an intellectual level, you’re happy that he has decided to roll over and stare at other things. Other people. Other women who are clearly superior to you. Other women who will put up with his repellent love for 1990s Kid Rock and the canisters of Kodiak tobacco that he will leave in their cars. Your brain loves to loop through this story, but the problem is that it delivers this sermon from a place that is inaccessible to the heart. Your voice box serves a choke point impeding the elevator’s unobstructed passage, and it makes you feel as though your brain were the most useless and ineffective organ in the body. Almost as unreliable as the heart.

Like the physical need to eat and sleep, this fantastic mind of yours has ceased to appear useful in the daily conduct your new routine. The only activity commanding your attention right now radiates in that transient chamber in your chest. The heart thuds with a rumble that blocks out just about everything in your immediate surroundings. Your brain disapproves of being ignored. It continues with unpacking your toiletry bag, waiting for you to come to your senses.

It’s going to feel bad like this for a little while. The connection between the heart and the brain is the ego, and it takes some time for the two to get back in sync. Like the mediocre musician who always plucks the same three sets of chords, your heart must first have free reign to return time and time again to a sound you once interpreted as melody. This will continue until you one day discover that all of it really does sound horribly out of key. And you’ll wonder why you ever listened at all.

It will take an indeterminate and slow-moving number of days, weeks, and months before you suddenly fail to notice the jerky and irregular cadence that is now your heart’s beating norm. Slowly you’ll even forget that there’s any sort of elevator living inside your chest cavity at all – and this will be the discreet signal that you have at last recalibrated yourself. All of the stinging details will have faded.

Where did I put that stupid overnight bag? By now it’s been awhile, and life has no guarantees. It is with this dictum in mind that you return to your closet and stuff your black bag accordingly.

Get ready, tender heart, because we just might be going down again.

Written By: Megan Hallinan
Photograph By: Emily Blincoe