4
There’s another trick. Here, I’ll show you,” she tells me. “Take a couple of seconds with each of the following lines. . . . No, I promise it will be worth it. Close your eyes. Imagine yourself walking down a road. Look around the road. What time of day is it? What does the road look like? Are there people on it? Do you feel safe?
“At the end of the road there is a ladder,” she says seriously (she is majoring in psychology at Columbia). “What does the ladder look like? Is it made out of metal or wood? Is it sturdy? How tall is it? Would you feel safe climbing it? Next to the ladder, there is a box. What is the box made out of? How big is it? Is there anything inside of it? Is it open or closed? Where is it compared to the ladder?
“Picture a storm coming in over your head. It then clears away,” she continues, really feeling it now. “Look up at the horizon. What do you see? Is it clear?” (I am grabbing at her now, but she pushes my hands away, pins my arms beneath her knees.)
“Go through this again and remember it like a movie,” she says, giggling. “The road represents how you see your own life and the path you are taking. It’s whether you see it as safe or dangerous and whether the people in it are good or bad. The ladder represents your relationships and friendships and whether they are strong and safe, and how important they are to you. The box represents how you see yourself, how strong you are and whether you are open or closed. Finally, the horizon represents how you see your future and whether you are hopeful or fearful.”
This was the first time we were together, when the band was just starting, when everyone was young and didn’t know any better. We were in my bedroom at my parents’ place because I hadn’t moved out yet. The bedroom is still exactly the same if you go there today. Same twin beds (“To keep the girls from staying over,” my mom would joke), same posters on the wall, same window looking out onto the same street. Frozen in time. We had just met a few weeks ago. I saw Her standing alone by the jukebox—one of those giant, gold-plated numbers with the colored lights and the bubbling water in the frame (the whole situation was so clichéd)—wearing a hoodie, chewing on Her thumb, Her wide eyes dancing around the room. She looked like a fawn separated from Her mother, spindly and unsure, waiting to be hit in the dark by the car called me. She looked like a sure thing.
I remember walking up to Her and dropping some terrible line. She laughed, but not in the good way. I asked what Her name was, and she just sipped on Her drink. She played it cool, just stared at me with those big, round eyes, yet to be blackened by mascara or life. It drove me wild. I remember the way I could feel my heart beating, as if it were up in my throat, and I remember thinking that I should probably just walk away. Imagine what my life would be like if I had?
But instead, I insisted. I pressed close to Her ear, begged Her, “Come on, just tell me your name.” She laughed (in the good way this time), called me persistent, told me Her name.
I tell Her my name. I have just offered Her the first piece of me. Time stands still, the way it does during a car crash. Bent metal and busted glass. My words hang heavy in the air, spiraling in slow motion. Leaden. We have creased time, made a pocket and stepped inside. Her and I, enveloped and alone. All sound fades away, all the edges blur. Such is the case in moments like these.
“I like you,” she says. “You’re brave.”
I’m not. I’m a total coward, only she doesn’t know that yet. We watch the band finish their set, standing next to each other with our hands stuffed deep into our pockets, neither of us sure what to do or say next. Occasionally, we sway into one another, accidentally (but on purpose), and we laugh nervously. I steal a glance at Her in the dark of the club, watch those big eyes quiver slightly whenever the light shifts. She’s concentrating hard, focused on the stage like a shipwrecked sailor scanning the horizon for rescue. She needs to be saved because she’s afraid of what will happen next. I want to reach out and hold Her hand—it’s such a simple, beautiful act, when you think about it—I want to let Her know that she can let go of the horizon and sink to the bottom with me.
I notice so many things about Her in this instant, things that I will never find in anyone else on the planet: the way she bites Her lower lip, the freckles on Her nose, the curve of Her neck. She’s amazing. I want to feel Her to make sure she’s real. I want to possess Her. I feel my left hand moving from my pocket. It has a mind of its own and it’s going in.
But then, the lights come on. Kids bump into us as they make their way to the door. Some red-faced kid spills a beer on my sneakers. Her roommate emerges from the crowd. The guys are standing back by the bar, and they’re calling for me to go—there’s a house party around the corner. Free beer and fistfights. I ask Her if she wants to go with us, say her roommate can come too (she knifes me with her eyes), and the games begin. Everyone who has ever interacted with anyone of the opposite sex knows exactly how this will turn out. There are politics at play, loyalties to obey. She will say no because she has to go home with Her roommate, and then I will ask Her for Her phone number, and she’ll give it to me knowing that I’ll probably never call Her, and I never will, and she’ll swear off boys for a while, because we’re all a*sholes, until she meets another guy just like me, and the whole cycle repeats itself, over and over, until she’s lying on Her deathbed, closet stuffed with bridesmaid’s dresses, totally alone and unloved, knowing that half the men in Chicago are walking around with Her number entered into their cell phones, and none of them thought enough of Her to ever call Her back.
That’s how this is supposed to happen. Only, it doesn’t. She says yes. Her roommate storms off in a huff, the first casualty in a war that will last for years. We grab coats and head out into the night. It’s brutally cold, the wind tears right through us as we walk down Fullerton, and I offer Her my scarf. She says she doesn’t want it, but I wrap it around Her head anyway. I wanted to protect Her from everything back then.
The party is typical: suburban kids getting urban drunk. Shitty couches. Stolen road signs. Loud punk rock is blasting through tinny speakers; you can hear the cones ripping with each note. They push hot air back into the room, make smoke rings with their vibrations. It’s crowded and sweaty, and we lose our coats somewhere after the front door. The guys slip off into various corners of the room. She and I make our way into the kitchen, shouting to each other over the din. She’s sitting next to me on the counter, Indian style. I lean in next to Her to hear Her words, and she pours them into my ear. I am getting drunk on them. Arms reach between us, opening the fridge, fumbling for lighters, but we don’t notice. We don’t stop. We’re alone together now, surrounded by a million strangers.
She tells me she moved out of her parents’ house a few weeks ago. Not because Her mom is a bitch or Her dad is a drunk or anything like that; Anya (that’s Her roommate) just has a better Internet connection. I’m not sure if that’s a joke, so I just go “Mmmm,” take a drink of my beer. She’s got me on the ropes. She has a younger sister. I tell Her I have a younger brother. She says she wants to go to Columbia next year; I say I already go there and maybe we can room together. She just goes “Mmmm” and takes a drink of Her beer. Maybe she didn’t hear me. Things are getting critical now. Time to be bold.
“Hey, let’s go outside for a second. I wanna smoke a cigarette.”
“Why don’t you just smoke in here?” she asks. “Everyone else is.”
I make up some story about my asthma. I don’t even have asthma. I don’t smoke, either. She probably knows this, but I get up and she follows me. We push our way outside, and now we’re standing on Fullerton again, without our coats. It’s freezing.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” she says.
“I don’t,” I shoot back, and I grab Her tight. I pull Her close to me and we kiss. A sudden jolt goes through Her body, an icy bolt of shock, but then I feel Her shoulders go limp, feel the warmth push its way through Her body. She moves Her arms from Her sides and wraps them around my back. She moves Her left hand onto the back of my neck. Chicago does her worst, blows her hardest, but she can’t pull us apart. She moans softly as I move my hand up Her back. I feel her soft skin run through my calloused fingers. It’s so warm. I push Her against the frame of the door. Our tongues move in unison, giving pieces of ourselves to each other (imagine the possibilities of shared DNA). This could probably go further, right here on the street, but I don’t let it. I pull away. We stare at each other, Her big eyes just happy slits, lips curled around Her teeth in some blissed-out grin. Neither of us cares that we’re not wearing our coats.
I say something stupid like “That was nice,” and she answers with something like “Yeah.” Then we head back into the party, this time with Her hand in mine. No one is aware of what happened down on the street, that magical transference, that melding of spirit and body, but I have the proof right here in my hand, and I’m not letting go. I have a girlfriend now, with big, beautiful eyes and a neck like a swan’s, perfection in a hoodie. And she’s not letting go either.
• • •
Later—much later—she would tell me that she came to the bar that night hoping I would be there. When she saw me, she ditched Her roommate and stood right in front of me at the jukebox. She laughed when she told me all this, rolled right over in bed to shove it in my face. She had set the trap and I had snared my leg in it. Tried to chew it off. To be honest, none of it really bothered me all that much.