Little Death
part i
Love is feeling him pull away when he’s done fucking you because you’re no longer of any use to him. Love is gently reminding him to pull out of you after reluctantly agreeing to forsake the condom, and assuring him it’s okay when he stays buried inside. It just feels so good. It’s okay. I’m on birth control. You don’t tell him you forget to take it sometimes and that with your luck you think you would fall within the 1% exception to the pill’s 99% success rate.
Love is driving to a Walmart eight miles out of your way to ensure nobody you know from school sees you trying to buy Plan B. Love is hoping the emergency contraceptives are kept unlocked so you don’t have to try and find the kindest-looking female employee in the store and ask her to unlock the case with your eyes glued to the floor. Love is hiding the box under your cardigan as you walk to checkout so no mom pushing a cart filled with six Capri sun boxes sees it and criticizes your own mother in her head for raising you to be the kind of girl who buys this sort of thing. You know you look young. Love is avoiding your cashier’s eyes because know how well pity and disapproval can mix together into a shade of brown. You want to text him “$46.85” because it’s his price to pay. You don’t.
Love is overextending your empathy—your most magnificent gift yet your worst curse—forgetting he told you he hates you, assuring your friends that it’s okay, he’s just hurt. It’s okay. Hurt people hurt people. He’s just hurting. His dad left when he was nine and they just started rebuilding their relationship. His best friend tried to kill himself when they were thirteen. You two talked on the phone one night and deduced that he might have antisocial personality disorder after forty minutes of browsing Wikipedia explanations. You want to save him. You know you can’t save him, but you want to, and you’ve always been ambitious.
Why do you flatten yourself for him? Why do you remain fixed on his doorstep, waiting for him to come wipe the dirt off his boots? You decide you aren’t in love with him because you established that “being in love” requires mutuality, but that doesn’t mean you don’t love him. You love him and you know because it makes your stomach ache to think about him suffering, to think about him with her, to think about him at all. You stay because he made your dreams come true, those dreams you had about sex in a town where no one wanted to fuck you because your skin was dark brown or your acne hadn’t faded yet or you were too high-strung. He told you that it was the best sex he’d ever had with a virgin and that you had a pretty vagina, an overall nice body, an especially nice ass. You stay because he likes to write and you’ve never met a boy with such an effortlessly good vocabulary. You stay because there’s no comfort like sharing a sense of humor with somebody. It feels like a pair of arms are wrapping around you when you two laugh at the same joke.
A slowly splintering heart. A knife permanently fixed in your abdomen. Sometimes he starts to pull it out gingerly and make like he’s going to bandage your wound. You’re going to be okay. Other times, he shoves it deeply into your guts and twists. Holds it there. Your eyes are closed, but you sense a smile playing on his lips.
Love is driving to a Walmart eight miles out of your way to ensure nobody you know from school sees you trying to buy Plan B. Love is hoping the emergency contraceptives are kept unlocked so you don’t have to try and find the kindest-looking female employee in the store and ask her to unlock the case with your eyes glued to the floor. Love is hiding the box under your cardigan as you walk to checkout so no mom pushing a cart filled with six Capri sun boxes sees it and criticizes your own mother in her head for raising you to be the kind of girl who buys this sort of thing. You know you look young. Love is avoiding your cashier’s eyes because know how well pity and disapproval can mix together into a shade of brown. You want to text him “$46.85” because it’s his price to pay. You don’t.
Love is overextending your empathy—your most magnificent gift yet your worst curse—forgetting he told you he hates you, assuring your friends that it’s okay, he’s just hurt. It’s okay. Hurt people hurt people. He’s just hurting. His dad left when he was nine and they just started rebuilding their relationship. His best friend tried to kill himself when they were thirteen. You two talked on the phone one night and deduced that he might have antisocial personality disorder after forty minutes of browsing Wikipedia explanations. You want to save him. You know you can’t save him, but you want to, and you’ve always been ambitious.
Why do you flatten yourself for him? Why do you remain fixed on his doorstep, waiting for him to come wipe the dirt off his boots? You decide you aren’t in love with him because you established that “being in love” requires mutuality, but that doesn’t mean you don’t love him. You love him and you know because it makes your stomach ache to think about him suffering, to think about him with her, to think about him at all. You stay because he made your dreams come true, those dreams you had about sex in a town where no one wanted to fuck you because your skin was dark brown or your acne hadn’t faded yet or you were too high-strung. He told you that it was the best sex he’d ever had with a virgin and that you had a pretty vagina, an overall nice body, an especially nice ass. You stay because he likes to write and you’ve never met a boy with such an effortlessly good vocabulary. You stay because there’s no comfort like sharing a sense of humor with somebody. It feels like a pair of arms are wrapping around you when you two laugh at the same joke.
A slowly splintering heart. A knife permanently fixed in your abdomen. Sometimes he starts to pull it out gingerly and make like he’s going to bandage your wound. You’re going to be okay. Other times, he shoves it deeply into your guts and twists. Holds it there. Your eyes are closed, but you sense a smile playing on his lips.