by Emily Dalton
I mean, you’re gay.”
The hopelessness on your face
softens into disappointment—
I should know better; I should know you better.
“I wish you could just see me as me
and not try to label me with stupid words.”
I want to tell you that there has never been
and there will never be
any word
in any language
worthy
of labeling you—
worthy of saying
how I see you.
ZANDER
A week has passed since I told you about Rob.
I walk into your suite on the sixth floor
to find Theo and Ramona standing in the common room.
Ramona is wrapped in a towel,
and Theo is drinking a can of High Life.
“Is Max here? I think I left my bag in his room.”
“He’s in there. With Zander,” Ramona says
in her signature monotone and points to the bathroom door.
The only Zander I know
is a gay guy
on the swim team
who you’ve been with
once or twice before—
the one who we laughed about
and imitated in robot voices.
I stare at the bathroom door
and hear the shower running.
I hear banging on the shower walls
and squeaking against the linoleum.
Ramona nods, and Theo chuckles.
I can’t help but notice the unfamiliar pair
of sneakers on the floor next to your boots.
Then, the unfamiliar leather jacket hanging
over your desk chair.
Part of me feels terrified of actually seeing you
with this other guy, but then
a sense of peace, even happiness,
washes over.
You’re hooking up with guys again!
We can just be friends, after all!
Maybe now everything can go back
to the way it was before.
Now I can talk freely with you about Rob,
and we can giggle about the details,
and you can tell me all about shower time with Zander,
and then we can compare notes on hetero and homo pleasure.
The shower is still running.
I sling my backpack over one shoulder,
wave goodbye to Theo and Ramona,
and leave the suite, smiling to myself.
BUT WHEN YOU AND I HANG OUT
it feels like a forced visit
between child and divorced parent.
And the more I feel
the strength of our bond deflating,
the less attracted I feel to Rob,
like losing you is his fault
in some sideways manner.
That he can’t even come close
to making me feel the way that you do
only darkens the void.
When I’m with Rob now, some switch
inside my brain flips, and suddenly
I’m the girl I was in high school:
a girl who gave an admirable performance
but was not exactly herself.
This girl is committed to finding a strong, masculine husband
who will devote himself to taking care of her.
She’s stuck thinking that she needs taking care of.
This girl hasn’t yet considered it possible
that something different could
make her even happier . . . or
that she might be strong enough to take care of herself.
With Rob,
it seems,
I find myself
in character.
He’s just so nice to me,
so easily pleased by how well I play the girlfriend.
It seems foolish to fantasize about something else—
about something more real.
A PREGAME IN ROB AND DOUGLAS’S DORM
The drink of choice is straight shots of cheap liquor.
I look around through the dim light, wondering
whether you’ve arrived yet.
An hour or so later Rob is shouting, “Let’s go!”
and pulling me to the beer pong table.
I laugh as I take a Ping-Pong ball from his hand
and then look across the table
to measure up our opponents.
And there they are . . .
those icy blue eyes.
They stare straight into mine
from across the table.
They’re all it takes to sober me up—
those eyes that see through my straightened hair
and dark mascara and still perceive beauty;
those eyes that can absorb all my pain
and reflect it back to me as something to feel proud of,
something that makes me strong and unique;
those eyes that have come to feel like home.
Next to you, Douglas is busy rearranging cups.
I watch your eyes as they move from me to Rob
and then back to me again.
The blue inside deepens
and then empties to a dull, distant glare.
For a split second, I wonder whether you
might just carry on and play.
You drop your neon orange
Ping-Pong ball into one of the cups.
You lean in to whisper a few words to Douglas,
then weakly pat his back and leave the table.
I watch you disappear into the hallway,
and, without another thought,
I tell Rob to find someone else to play with
and dash out after you.
The door to the far stairwell is closing.
I run down and swing it back open,
pulling with such desperate ferocity that
the handle leaves a dent in the adjacent wall.
You’re halfway down the flight of stairs
when I shout after you.
You stop without turning and stand still
on the steps for a moment.
When you face me, your eyes pierce my heart,
and the expression on your face is unlike anything
I’ve seen before—a heart-wrenching mix
of agony and resignation—
and no trace of anger.
Your voice comes out soft and sad,
“Don’t worry about it,” as you turn back down the stairs.
I rush after you and grab your arm on the landing.
“Max, please, wait. I hate this. I don’t want it to be like this.”
Your head tilts as you breathe out
and look me straight in the eyes.
“You don’t want it to be like what?”
I stare back at you, my heart pounding and my mind racing.
“Max, I miss you so goddamn much. I miss us.
And I don’t know what to do.”
The trace of anger that had been
absent from your face before
begins surfacing, welling in your eyes
and creasing the lines between them.
You’re about to walk away from me as I hesitate in replying.
“I’m sorry, Max! I panicked, okay?
Everything got so confusing and weird
and scary between us, and I panicked!”
“You panicked so much that the only thing
you could possibly think to do
was start hooking
up with my friend?
What did you even have to panic about?”
“About falling in love with you, Max!
About falling head over heels in love with you
and then losing it all—that’s what!”
I choke up in shock and fear and regret
as I speak out loud this truth
I’ve been hiding, even from myself, for months.
The tension in your face slackens.
You take a step toward me.
I look into your eyes—
drains, slowly sucking me from reality,
out into an ocean of some sublime unknown.
“You’re in love with me?”
“I don’t know! Like, yes, Max!
I think I’m in love with you.”
I wipe my eyes and turn away from you.
There’s relief in finally saying the words,
but a tainted sense of it.
Even after all the kissing and cuddling,
after seeing each other naked
and touching each other’s bodies,
I’ve been holding on to the hope
that we can return to being best friends.
Max and Emily World, right?
But saying those words—
admitting them to myself and to you—
puts it all in jeopardy.
You exhale, and your brow is furrowed again.
You lean back against the wall and look up
to the ceiling.
You close your eyes.
“Well, fuck, Em.
I’m in love with you, too.”
IN YOUR EYES, I’M AS BIG AS THE SKY
It’s a gorgeous spring day, full of sunshine
and warmth and budding new life.
We press the pieces of mushroom,
like seashell fragments,
into the peanut-buttered bread,
then blanket it with another slice.
It’s Sophie, Theo, Paul, you, and me.
Each of us holding a small square of sandwich,
we cheers before biting into the day.
There’s a subtle, acrid crunch.
I chew
and chew
and chew.
We wind through a field dotted with round bales of hay
wrapped in white plastic, like giant marshmallows
or globs of mozzarella cheese.
You climb on top of one,
sit with your legs dangling over the edge.
We come upon a stream with a narrow walking bridge.
Just a few planks of wood, barely wide enough
for two side-by-side bodies.
The five of us sit on the bridge, pulling apart cattails
and soaking our feet in the cool stream water.
Glimmers of sunlight dance around on the surface.
A pair of joggers approach,
and instead of following the four of you
to the other side of the bridge to make room,
I step down into the water,
and everyone laughs as my legs disappear into the stream
and my feet squish into the muck at the bottom.
Bright green reeds shoot up from the streambed
and sway around me,
calmly letting the current pull them
one way and the soft wind another.
Standing here next to the footbridge,
submerged in the stream from the waist down,
I realize, even after the runners have passed,
that I’m in no rush to get back out.
I’m doing something intuitive,
unexpected,
different from everyone else.
And I feel genuinely good
about doing my own thing, without an ounce
of concern about what anyone else thinks of me.
No fear of getting wet, of sinking my feet
into the unknown texture of the streambed,
of creepy-crawly creatures dwelling beneath the surface.
Today,
with the sun shining overhead
and reflecting off the ripples,
and the bright green stems
gracefully bending back and forth
against the current, the water feels
inviting and refreshing, and the mud at the bottom
oozes sensually between my toes.
I crane my head toward the sky and smile
at its unapologetic expanse.
And in this crystalline moment,
I love the endless blue for letting me feel
so inconsequential and small, like I can do and feel
whatever I want and it won’t make any difference.
When I bring my attention back down to earth,
we lock eyes, and you smile at me
from the other side of the bridge.
And just like that,
I’m big again.
Big
but, somehow,
still free.
WHAT WOULD MICHELLE OBAMA DO?
It’s Sunday morning,
and we wake up in your bed
still totally drunk,
and we’re hung up
on how unfair it is that Michelle Obama
has to stay inside all the time.
She stares at me from the corner of your room—
a life-size cardboard cutout—
as we debate getting out of bed.
“What would Michelle Obama do?” I ask.
“She would go outside and organize
a Zumba class on Battell Beach,” you declare.
“She so would,” I reply flatly.
Twenty minutes later, we’re walking
across the big open lawn that is Battell Beach,
holding Michelle between us.
We’re quite the threesome—
Michelle in her formal turquoise pantsuit,
you in sweatpants and flip-flops,
and me in the tight dress from last night
under one of your soft flannels.
As we make our way to the dining hall,
students stop and stare.
Some of them shoot us judgmental glares,
some just laugh, and others,
the best of them, shout things like,
“Oh my god! It’s the First Lady!” or
“Hi, Michelle! I love you!”
We allow photos and take them
for the random students
who want to pose with the First Lady
as we carry her through the breakfast line,
sit with her in the dining hall,
and lounge with her outside in Adirondack chairs.
Our friends text us about the celebrity spotting,
and a few of them come out to hang.
Anyone who doesn’t know us would assume
we’re conducting some kind of political
or social experiment for a class.
But those who do know us know the truth:
We’re stirring up as much chaos
with as little effort as we can,
just for our own stupid entertainment,
here inside Max and Emily World.
LAST DAY OF SOPHOMORE YEAR
We’re sitting on the stone wall behind Ross.
It’s late and dark outside,
but I can see your face glowing
in the orange light of the burning end
of the spliff we pass back and forth.
I’m leaving tomorrow morning.
You’re staying on campus a few mor
e days.
And since I’ll be in Prague and you’ll be in Berlin
studying abroad next semester, neither of us knows
when we’ll see each other next.
“Why does time have to happen like it does?”
I ask you, more as a rhetorical lament.
“Because we have lives to live
before we can really be together.”
I turn to you, taken aback by such a statement.
“Really be together?”
“Yeah. Together forever.”
I snort, but then I realize
there’s no sarcasm in your voice.
“We would have the best wedding ever, wouldn’t we?”
I smile, envisioning
the laughter,
the silly dance moves,
the beaming faces watching it all happen.
Your arm is around me,
and I can feel the warmth
of tears behind my eyes
as I move in closer to rest
my head on your chest.
Visions of boyfriends past
flash through my mind,
and I realize
how silly I was to have thought I’d known love
before this.
HEADING WEST
I take a job working at a dude ranch
for the summer with my sister, Laura.
We pack up Laura’s car, Jane Honda,
and drive out to Creede in Mineral County, Colorado
near the headwaters of the Rio Grande.
Working on the 4UR Ranch—
an all-inclusive luxury resort-type of ranch—
is like summer camp for adults.
I’m on the housekeeping staff,
so each day, we’re divided into teams of two
and make our way through the guest cabins,
one team to a room, until all the rooms are clean.
We ride from cabin to cabin
in golf carts filled with supplies.
We make the beds, vacuum,
clean the bathrooms, and restock.
Downtime on the ranch consists of
casting an aimless fly rod into the Rio;
competing to find the most antler sheds
during hikes through the mountains;
sucking the sweet nectar from Indian paintbrush wildflowers;
lounging on the back porch of a staff cabin,
soaking in the hot, dry sunshine,
listening to banjo music and
the echoing pops of BBs hitting beer cans.
I figure I’ll be spending most of my free time
this summer on adventures with Laura,
or on the phone with you,
but then I meet Val.
VALERIE
She’s one of my four bunkmates.
