I AWAKE TO the feeling of dead weight pressed against my back on the other side of the duvet, and know it must be Jerry, who apparently believes we are members of the most peculiar puppy litter in town. My knees are tucked up into my chest and I’m holding them against me almost desperately. Sun streams through my bedroom window, setting the whole room in a kind of angelic glow.
One unusually balmy day last fall, my dad asked if I wanted to come and watch a soccer match at Columbia. He’s not big into sports, but he likes soccer more than the rest, and one of his students was playing. Unfortunately, that student ended up taking a pretty rough fall, flipping over and landing on his shoulder. The whole crowd quieted down as the coach and referees dashed to his side, the player curled up in a little ball, legs tucked into his chest as he held his shoulder with his opposite hand.
As they escorted him off the field, my father explained to me in a hushed tone that in times of extreme stress or trauma, humans of all ages will resort back to the fetal position, because it is an instinctual way to protect all our vital organs and because it reminds us of the safest place we all began, the womb. As I gave my usual nod to signal that I had heard and understood his latest factoid, he added, “And, in case this information should ever prove crucial to your welfare, it is also the best position to survive a bear attack in the wild.”
As I lie under the covers now, in a position that can only be described as completely fetal, I see his point. It does seem to hurt a little less this way. The pain that started thudding through me when I opened my eyes. That even if Dream Max would always be here, Real Max had broken my heart.
But if that’s the case, then what is he doing in our dreams? How can he wrestle with me in piles of foam and remind me of the parts of him I love, if he’s only going to take it away?
“Make up your mind, Max,” I say out loud.
“Bug?” My dad’s voice comes through quietly and crackly out of nowhere.
“Dad?” I ask. “Where are you?”
“Bug, if you can hear me,” he continues, still sounding a million miles away, “find the large rectangular phone that looks like it was purchased for a corporate law office in the early to mid nineteen-nineties.”
Am I still dreaming? I think to myself as I stand on my bed in my PJs, scanning the room, until my eyes fall on a beige phone with a million lines and lights on a small table in the corner, a real eyesore among the painted Chinese lamps and silk pillows.
Cautiously, I pick up the receiver. “Hello?”
“You found it!” my dad says, sounding loud and clear now, and far too jovial for this early hour. “Exciting stuff! Aren’t these neat? I think Nan bought them after we left.”
“What is it, exactly?” I ask, rubbing my eyes and peering down at the phone. “And seriously, where are you?”
My dad lets out a laugh. “I’m in the kitchen. And it’s called an intercom. It helps you call directly within the house, from floor to floor. Beats shouting up the stairs. Cool, right?”
“Yeah, really cool,” I say tiredly. “Was there anything else?” I wince a little at my tone. It’s not his fault I feel this way.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, there is,” he says dryly. “Two things. One, I am your father and you will not sass me so early in the day. Two, as a result of point one, it is my legal obligation to tell you that you’re going to be late for school if you don’t get your butt downstairs in the next ten minutes.”
If you Google “how to mend a broken heart,” which I did on my phone while brushing my teeth this morning, you get more search results than you could probably read in a year. Some of the advice is okay (Make a list of everything you hated about them! Don’t be afraid to laugh! Go to the gym and Work. It. Out!). And some of it is terrible (Find someone new immediately! Post pictures of you and that person on social media to make your ex jealous! Make a voodoo doll of them and Light. It. Up!). But I know of a much better cure-all: music. I scoured my library until I found the perfect genre for my mood, and currently I’ve got a bunch of folk rolling around in my ears. Somber thoughtful fellows like Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley, Elliot Smith, and James Vincent McMorrow. They sing about love and loneliness and you know they just get it. What it feels like to lose something. Of course, half of them are also dead. I listen to them all as I bike to school and keep listening as I trudge up through the main stairway of the administrative building and make my way down the hall.
Which is where I am unfortunately forced to stop short, once I see Max waiting for me up ahead. Truthfully he looks a little ridiculous, just standing there watching me, his eyes large and maybe even a little glassy. Today he’s wearing some dark brown khakis and a gray-blue sweater, which makes his eyes pop against his skin. Max opens his mouth as though he’s about to say something, and I realize that his presence, set against my overindulgent heartache mix, makes me feel like we might actually be the main characters in a romantic drama. And now is the moment where he starts crying and I start crying and we run to each other and then—