I didn’t like this part of myself, this part that censored, and Stuart did everything out of love, and he did so much. He would never hold it above my head, but I would. Every time I repeated myself, every time I forgot where I had put my phone, every time I couldn’t take Puppy for a walk, it hung above my head.
But I could still do most things. Most everything. Just not all the time. See, Stu?
I swallowed. I thought of myself just a couple of months ago, flitting around like no big deal, thinking I was going to live on my own in New York.
But it’s not that you don’t fall, it’s that you get back up, right? Right. Stuart waited while I psyched myself up, a little encouraging smile on his face.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“I want to do this.”
I gripped the rungs like I was hanging off a cliff. Stuart asked if I wanted help, his hands floating around my calves. I said no, and though I had to wait a moment after each step, I pushed off strong. I made it up both ladders, and by the time I sat down on the flat, warm tar, I was breathing and happy like I had won a marathon. I realized I would do it all over again just for that feeling, like I was back in the world and the world was good. Even if it made me tired.
Stuart went to a cooler that sat in the center and cracked opened a beer.
“My friend Sammie!” Coop was lounging next to a girl in an American flag bikini. He was wearing his favorite THAT GOOD GOOD tank top. I looked around a circle of people I was probably supposed to know, their heads in red, white, and blue bandannas and plumes of cigarette smoke, and goddamn, it was great to see Coop. It’s hard to describe the feeling of relief I had, Future Sam, really knowing someone else up there on the roof. He was just so, I don’t know, nonblurry. Then I realized the last time I had felt that out-in-the-world feeling was at the Potholes, with Coop. So it made sense.
“Hey, Coop,” I said, still taking deep breaths. I pointed to the opening in the roof. “I made it up both ladders.”
“Well, cheers to you!” he said, tilting his head, holding up a beer. He swigged it and set down the empty bottle.
“Yes, cheers to you!” Stuart called from the cooler, and turned back to Ross Nervig, who had pulled him into a discussion about poetry.
“Anyone want a water?” Coop asked, getting up. “I’m going to switch to water.”
“I’ll have a water,” I said.
Coop brought me a sweating bottle and sat back down next to Hot Katie. Hot Katie who he was supposedly not dating.
After a minute, I noticed a dark shape land on her leg. She screamed and stood. Coop turned from the girl he was talking to on his other side.
“Get away from him!” I screamed at Katie.
“What?” she shouted, taken aback, still whacking the air.
“Please move!” I motioned her away from Coop.
Coop realized what was happening and scrambled to the other side of the roof.
“He’s allergic to bees,” I said, quieter.
“Is it gone?” Coop asked me.
“It’s gone,” I told him.
Thanks, he mouthed.
For the next hour or so I tried out my newfound small-talking on a few people, trying to remember things about them.
At every quiet moment, I quizzed myself: Becca is in Washington, DC, Lynn decided against taking that internship after all, Jeff is working at Ross Nervig’s dad’s contracting business. Becca: DC, Lynn: no internship, Jeff: Nervig’s dad.
Soon I was feeling bleary. I had taken my pain meds after I came up the ladder, and the sleepiness crept in.
When Stuart swooped down to kiss me, I whispered, “Hey.”
“Hey,” he said. His eyes were sleepy, too, but for a different reason.
“I think I gotta go,” I said.
“No,” he said, frowning.
“My—what’s the thing, with the gas—my tank is low,” I said.
“Okay, well, just wait one second and we’ll go home.”
“You are home!”
Stuart talked warm and soft in my ear. “You can stay here. I’ll bring you some water.”
I lifted my hand to his shirt and pulled him closer. “No. You stay with your friends. You relax. I mean it.”
“How about I just kiss you?” he said, and planted his lips on mine, sloppy and salty until I had to laugh.
“Stu-ey, now!” Ross was yelling, pointing at the sky, a book in his hands like a Viking conqueror with his ax.
The fireworks had started.
“One second, baby, I promised Ross I would read this Ginsberg,” he said, slurring a bit, and scrambled over to his friend. I laughed again to myself. Coop was looking at me. I shrugged and smiled.
“Everyone! I wanna read this,” Stuart yelled as the golden strips of light popped behind him. He looked at the book. He looked at the book, and lines from “America” rumbled out of his gut with great intensity. Verses about hopelessness, about giving it one’s all but still having nothing.