The Disappearing Heart Technique

My boyfriend’s been dead for two months. Perhaps the hardest part of it all is the fact that he left so much behind for me to deal with, yet took nothing of me with him. Love notes, clothes, the vision of him in my bed. Sharing a bath towel because we loved having each others’ smells on us. I was blindly, foolishly, and debilitatingly in love with him, and now I have no idea what the fuck to do with myself.

It hurts too much to think about the happy memories, because I know they’re never going to happen again. I try to focus on the struggles, the arguments, with the hope it will make moving on easier. Even when I force myself to consider all of his flaws, I think about how much I loved those, too, and how I wish I’d expressed that to him better while he was around.

I hate that I’m haunted by him, but he cannot be haunted by me. I find myself wondering how this happened, or rather, did it happen at all? How is it that we were together, here, kissing, laughing, talking, only two months ago, and now we’re not? Did I dream it? Was he ever really here? Have I simply woken up?

I made him a mixtape for his birthday. I had no idea what to get him. I made him a card to go along with it that said:

“Happy birthday, Peter -

I made you a mixtape.

I don’t always know what to say to you, but I know how you make me feel, which is so many things. I hope when you listen to it, you’ll feel all the things I feel, too.

Love,
Tamara”

He wasn’t a romantic person. His gestures of affection were quiet and simple, yet they were observant of my needs. When he read the card, he didn’t say anything. He had a small smile on his face, and he walked over to me and held me. I loved him so deeply in that moment. I’ve had trouble remembering what he smelled like. I think maybe it was something sweet… with that hint of saltiness that comes from all burly, heavy-lifting men.

A few weeks after his birthday, I took the ferry to ________ _________ to see him. When I walked into his house, the birthday card I’d written him and the mix tape were sitting in the same place they were the last time I’d been there. “Did you get to listen to the mix tape yet?” He said no. That was the last time I went to his house. I rarely ever took the ferry before we started dating. In retrospect, I think the only time I ever rode it was for when I was going to see him. I’m not sure I’d ever be able to ride on one of those again without instinctively feeling like I would eventually be arriving at his house.

When I think about the last time I saw him, at my apartment, I think of all the things I would have said and done differently had I known it would have been the last time I was going to see him. We argued that night, although the reason for the argument has disappeared from my memory. I think it was just tension that had built up over time, finally combusting from something as stupid as not being able to agree on what movie to watch. It’s hard to make peace with the fact that this was our last moment together.

I’ve felt so heavy in my heart since then and have let it weigh me down. I’m tired of my eyes being swollen from crying all the time. I really thought it would be easier for me to move on from this if I convinced myself he was dead, but all it does is romanticize a remarkably unromantic relationship.

As for the “love notes”, it was just one little post-it that said “I LOVE TAMARA” because I asked him to demonstrate his handwriting, and he asked me what he should write. No clothes either, except a shirt he outgrew and had completely forgotten he’d given to me. Such small things that meant everything to me, while the birthday card I wrote him was probably tossed in the trash long ago.

I thought his gestures of affection were quiet and simple, and observant of my needs, but I never understood why he would squirm anytime I touched him. He usually humored me, but always made it a point to tell me how obligated he felt having to simply hold my hand in public. He never listened to the mix tape I made him either. It was a quiet enough gift to feel so incredibly sentimental to me at the time, but simple enough to convince myself now that it was just a piece of shit gift.

In a way it does feel like he died. It doesn’t seem like the person I was in love with exists anymore, but perhaps he never existed at all. The last time he contacted me, he told me he missed me and thought about me, but needed to think things over. Four days later, a seemingly disconnected phone line and a social media profile that has apparently vanished. There was never a goodbye or an explanation; he truly ceased being in my life. I find myself shaking my head during the day, in a way that says “Damn, how did I let this happen?” I’m fascinated by the prospect of caring for someone so little that you can actually make yourselves completely disappear from one another.

It still hurts, obviously, but less because I miss him, and more because I’m disappointed in my judge of character. I willfully opened the gates and welcomed harm. I’m beginning to learn the benefits of bitterness while suffering the repercussions: Skin thickening, heart hardening.

I never liked riding that fucking ferry anyway.

Written by: Rebecca Lee

Photograph by: Marshall Blevins

The Clearing

                          Continued from West, This is It, The Story of Everything, and Living the Dream

“So Chuck is really okay with us having a bonfire out here?” Dena asked.

“Yeah, it’s cool,” Jennifer said. “I think this place used to belong to his mom or something. But then they tore the house down. I don’t know.”

Dena swore as a thorny vine wrapped itself around her bare leg, almost making her drop the cooler of ice.

“Fucking jungle.”

“Mowing doesn’t seem to be high on Chuck’s to-do list,” Jennifer said, laughing.

They came to a clearing someone had hacked in the weeds. Dena gathered limbs and sticks while Jennifer scuffed a makeshift pit with the heel of her boot.

“We’ll just get everything set up and light it when Shelly gets here with the beer,” Jennifer said. “So what’s the deal with Chris, anyway? Is he coming later or not?”

Dena snorted.

“Maybe? He’s trying to get Bon Iver tickets, which basically means he’s camped out in front of the laptop clicking refresh for two hours until the disappointment sets in. That’s why we didn’t leave after lunch.”

“Where’s the concert?”

“LA. Next month.”

“He’s got it all planned out, doesn’t he?” Jennifer rolled her eyes and crouched in the dirt to dislodge an uncooperative rock.

“I know, right?” Dena’s eyes traced Jennifer’s spine from her black-and-pink ponytail down to the bare skin above her jeans, where her tank top was riding up. She had those tiny, shadowy dimples on her lower back, as if someone had held her waist from behind and left lasting thumbprints.

“You should stay here for a while,” Jennifer said. “LA's crap. I bet Chuck would give you a job.”

“I only know how to change tires.”

“Maybe he could use you in the office? Or grading our quizzes.”

“I’m super impartial,” Dena said, elbowing Jennifer in the ribs as she bent to unload kindling into the fire pit. “I can’t stay in Texas. It’s Texas, no offense. And it’s too fucking hot.”

“Are we in Texas? Austin is not Texas,” Jennifer said, arranging the firewood into a teepee.

“Denial’s the first stage of grief, you know.”

Jennifer didn’t answer. She pursed her lips, then sat down on the cooler.

“Not that you’re grieving,” Dena backtracked. “I mean, there are worse places to be from.” Jennifer sloshed fire starter on the branches. “Sorry, I’m totally projecting,” Dena said. “It’s been kind of a shitty year.”

“You should just leave him. He doesn’t really seem to get you.”

“Who, Chris? What do you mean?” Dena probed, her heart picking up. She took a step closer to Jennifer, watching her extract a half-smoked cigarette from her pack, then flick her thumb across the wheel of her American flag BIC to light it.

“Just the way he is around you. Like you’re some fixture that’ll always be there,” Jennifer said, standing and blowing a trail of smoke over her bare shoulder. “Like you could be anybody.”

“Shit,” Dena whispered.

“Sorry. That’s what I see. But I’ve only known you for a week, right?”

Jennifer reached to tug on the hem of her tank top.

Dena saw her own hand move to Jennifer’s wrist, saw it slide around her bare waist, saw it pull Jennifer close to her, until they were hipbone to hipbone.

Jennifer’s eyes locked on Dena’s, surprised, but not offended. It was the look of a girl who was often wanted, but also in control. Dena remembered watching her stomp down the sidewalk by the Starbucks. Goddess of grunge. She felt Jennifer’s hand stroke the back of her neck, then grip a fistful of her hair. Defense--or intensity? She paused for half a second until she heard Jennifer’s breath quicken.

Dena pulled her closer and kissed her. Her lips were softer than she’d expected, her tongue slow and smoky. Dena ran the tip of her finger under the waistband of Jennifer’s jeans, then up, until she found the indentation of one dimple. Jennifer tugged Dena’s hair, sending a jolt through her body. Then she unbuttoned Dena’s chambray shirt, leaving her in her bra and cutoffs, the breezeless Texas heat intensifying like a blanket, like a cocoon--forcing them closer.

“Is there anyone around?” Dena breathed.

“Shelly won’t be here until five,” Jennifer said, prying her feet from her boots as Dena slid her hand up the front of her tank top.

They flattened a nest in the weeds, not caring about briars or dirt. They didn’t think of their own individual histories--identities or proclivities or commitments. They were outside of their stories. Or were they? Dena could feel something inside herself unfold, the bulb of sadness she kept nestled in her core beginning to loosen, to bloom. Jennifer gasped.

“Slow down?” Dena asked.

“Smoke!”

“Fuck!”

It billowed ten feet high, at least, and so thick they couldn’t see as they tried to dress, grabbing shirts and stumbling back to the clearing.

“Your cigarette--” Dena coughed.

“This isn’t my fault! Why the fuck is there so much smoke?”

Jennifer staggered around until she found the cooler.

“A little help?!”

The two women, half-dressed in each other’s clothes, upended the cooler of ice and melted water onto the fire pit.

As the fire hissed and the smoke died down, Jennifer crouched to look closer.

“What the fuck--all this wood is green, Dena!”

“How was I supposed to know? You think I’ve ever done this before? You must have dropped your cigarette!”

“I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t--hadn’t--”

“I’m sorry, okay? Jesus. Look, it’s okay if you’re straight or--I mean, I am, too. Mostly.”

“No, no--it’s whatever,” Jennifer said, locating her jeans and sliding back into them. “There is something you need to know about me, though, okay?”

She took off Dena’s chambray shirt and tossed it to her. Dena looked at Jennifer, standing in the still-smoky clearing, wearing only her jeans. Her breasts were small and pert, but uneven. Her hair had come out of its ponytail and was adorned with bits of dry grass. Dena knew that even if Jennifer could see herself, she would be entirely unapologetic.

“What is it?”

“I have a kid,” Jennifer said.

“What? I don’t understand.”

Jennifer turned her head in the direction of a rustling sound.

“Hello, hello! Girl scouts! Where are you? I come bearing s’mores and concert tickets!”

As Chris entered the clearing, a breeze, the first of the day, carried the remaining smoke away from where they stood. It was all in view: the green branches, the upturned cooler, Jennifer’s tank top pulling tight across Dena’s stomach, their shoes scattered apart, Jennifer’s arms, still not ashamed, still not crossing over her bare chest.

“Dena?”

Chris dropped his grocery bag of graham crackers, and the bulb inside Dena’s heart curled up tight.


Written by: Dot Dannenberg 
Photograph by: Marshall Blevins

Cyclones in Kansas

“Pass me those papers will ya, Thea."

His fingers always draw my attention. They seem more capable than the rest of him, like they belong on a different person. His arms are okay, and his eyes are nice enough, but his hands, his fingers, always pull me in. Whether they are picking away at guitar strings or unbuttoning my jeans, I just can’t help but marvel at them in action.

“You start them at the same time and turn down the movie volume. It totally works?”

I turn my attention away from his mouth and back to his hands. I would much rather watch those capable fingers as they roll the joint than listen to another one of his half-true stories. He holds the first puff of smoke in his lungs, and continues talking without expelling any air. Then he leans back and breathes the cloud up into the rafters.

It smells like crap in here, and it makes me want to gag. The shop, which is busy Monday to Friday, is home only to us on weekends. His dad said it was okay for him to bring some friends over to hang out in the break room when the shop is closed. He doesn’t mind about the occasional night of drinking, and he pretends not to know about the pot. We always open the doors wide on Sundays, and the place is aired out before the mechanics arrive on Monday, covered up by the smell of motor oil and gasoline.

I take the offered joint from his fingers, though I don’t really want any. The thought of the skunky smoke in my mouth makes me want to vomit again, so I pass it back to him without bothering to take a toke. He doesn’t notice.

“I watched that movie a million times as a kid without having any idea how trippy it was.”

I manage a grunt to make it look like I care what he is telling me. Satisfied, he continues talking, leaving me to my thoughts, thoughts I don’t want to think anymore.

He taps out the ember of the joint against his shoe before stuffing it in his cigarette pack and shuffling closer to me.

“So you wanna watch with us next weekend?”

“What?”

“The Dark Side of the Moon thing.”

“I don’t know.”

He tugs a strand of hair from my ponytail and twists it around his finger. I am again watching his hands, trying to ignore the rest of him pushed up against me.

“You feel okay?”

“Fine.”

“No more puking?”

“I’m fine.”

He starts kissing my neck and his hands leave my hair.

"No, I can't."

"What's the harm? It's not like it matters now anyway."

"I'm not having sex an hour before I get there. Fuck off."

I push away and go outside to call Aunt Milly. She answers on the first ring. She said she understood that I had to see him, but I know she worried he would change my mind. He always talks so big, so full of bullshit. I guess she thinks I could fall for it, in my condition; that I might run away with him.

Back in the garage, he is stretched out on the couch smoking the rest of the joint. I pull my school backpack out from under his feet.

"K, so I'm leaving, I guess."

"Wanna come back over after?"

"I don’t think so."

"Call me when it’s done. I just can't be there when they do it. Ya know?"

I nod. Of course I know. I don't want to be there either.

                                                                                                   ***

One more hour until I get to be on the other side of this, done with the waiting, done with the vomiting, done with the fucking conversations that always end up at the same place.

“Health card?”

“Yes, I have her card right here.” I watch Milly pull the stack of plastic from a flap in her purse, a card for each of us kids.

I try to stand taller as I enter the waiting room. I don’t want to look so young among these women in their polished shoes with their ruby-painted lips. I am old enough, old enough to understand, old enough to consent, old enough to pay the price, but I don’t look it. I feel their eyes on me, I feel their pity, and I look down at the scuffed toes of my red leather boots, clunking my heels together, wishing I was home.

“It’s okay, Thea. This will all be over soon. One day, when you’re ready, you will have a real baby.”

I wish Milly would stop fidgeting, stop touching me so much. It doesn’t help me; maybe it helps her. They call my name, and I walk away from her. This part I have to do alone. I can share the rest with her. She wants to take the guilt, the sin, away for me, but when it comes down to it, I am walking on my own two legs.

                                                                                                   ***

They said it wouldn't hurt much, and they were right, but the tight, pinchy feeling drives me nuts anyway. The nurse, the same one who handed me a blue gown when I arrived, strokes my hair like Milly used to do when I was little. She smiles at me, but I can’t smile back, not with the rubber mask clamped tight against my face. I suck the gas deep into my lungs. As the world begins to stutter, I picture a black hole, swirling in the dead, flat centre of my body; deep where my insides are being scraped clean. I focus all my thoughts on the twirling mess of anti-matter filling me up.

The hungry tornado gobbles the contents of my womb, leaving me empty. Alone again with my own black and blue heart.

The cramps confirm that it’s over. The question has been answered, the decision has been made, I will not be a mother today. I will go back to being just Thea, Thea the lonely, the selfish. My body knows it’s done, confirmed by the ache, and later the finality of the bright, slick blood. Done.

Gone.

Alone.

Written by: Sarah Scott
Photograph by: Marshall Blevins