by Emily Dalton
The front door flies open and
it’s you—
scanning the room
with a look of desperation
on your face.
I burst into tears—
the kind of crying
I do when
I hear my mother’s voice
on the phone and
lose all composure.
You kneel in front of me.
We hug for a long time
before you lean back and
look me up and down,
still holding my hands.
You reach up with your sleeve
to wipe the tears from my cheeks.
Moments later, we’re under
the covers in my bed.
You hold me close to you.
You rub my back as I
fall asleep in your arms.
I don’t even tell Grant
about the car accident.
It goes without saying
that there will not be
another visit.
TURN UP
We’re at the Hannaford supermarket
to buy vodka and whiskey.
On our way out,
we pass the vegetable aisle
and get an idea.
Later that night, at a party
in the Atwater senior suites,
we’re shouting,
“TURN UP!”
as loud as we can
and throwing
fresh turnips
at all the freshmen.
DRUNK DIALING
When I answer your 2 a.m. phone call,
your voice is fuzzy with booze,
and there’s a lot of shouting
and music in the background.
“I’m with Leopold. Come to Dub.
We want you to come smoke with us!”
“Leopold?”
We know only one Leopold,
and I’m almost positive you’re joking.
You lower your voice.
“Yes. Leopold. Em, I think he wants
to hook up with us. Or you. Or us!”
LEOPOLD TOWNSEND?!
As in, the international student from Sweden in our year,
arguably one of the hottest guys at school,
causing girls—and guys—from all four grades
to sigh with lust as he passes by?!
As in, perfect blond hair that falls just right at every angle,
tall, broad stature, measuring in at about 6’2” and 180 pounds,
piercing deep-blue eyes, lightly tanned, smooth complexion,
and, of course, that exotic Scandinavian accent?!
I do not believe you.
THEN YOU PUT HIM ON THE PHONE
and I get out of my warm bed,
back into my clothes,
and start the twenty-minute
walk to Dub Street.
I find you, Theo,
and the one and only
Leopold Townsend
sitting in the living room,
a haze of smoke hanging
in the air and cans of beer
in each of your hands.
My heart is still pounding, and
my breath is short as I crack open a beer.
“All right, well, unless y’all
need me to chaperone here . . .”
Theo smirks as he backs into the hallway.
“I bid you good night!”
The three of us—
you, Leopold, and I—
drink and listen to music
in awkward anticipation
of what is about to happen.
You and I lead by example,
stripping down to our underwear
and kissing as Leopold watches us
in a drunken daze, telling us
how sexy we are together,
how beautiful and blond.
The lights in your room are all still on,
and then I’m on all fours in my thong
between Leopold’s thick, long legs.
His left palm rests on the back of my head,
and he’s groaning a little, eyes closed,
while you rest your head on his chest.
He doesn’t seem interested in kissing you,
and the next thing I know you’re lying
on the other side of the bed,
just watching.
In the morning,
we wake up in your bed,
just the two of us,
and shriek with laughter
as we try to piece together
the epic failure that was our first threesome.
The story bounces around our social circles
and you and I feel reinvigorated,
realizing the answer to our problems
might be as simple as
hooking up with other people
together.
THE SECOND THIRD
We don’t expect to find another third
on our small campus in the month
we have left of our senior year,
but a few weeks after our night
with Leopold, we meet Mason Hewitt.
We’re at a party, and Mason is not
shy about making it clear
that he finds the two of us
very intriguing, very beautiful.
So we go back to your room.
The lights are off.
You and I get fully naked
before we help Mason out of his clothes
and into the bed between us.
At first, you’re both ravishing me,
but then you get a little more adventurous
with each other,
and in another life,
I’d probably be so into this, but
right here, right now,
I feel very unsure of
what to do with myself
while the two of you
crawl all over each other.
I slip out of the bed,
wrap a blanket around
my naked body, and
huff out of the room.
After a little while, you emerge,
wrapped in a blanket of your own,
and find me on the orange velvet couch
in the dark of the living room.
You sit down next to me.
Your eyes are searching mine
for some kind of allowance.
A few minutes later, you’re gone, and
the reality sets in, and I want
to shrink into a speck and float away.
As I lie on the couch
in the dark living room,
staring at the wall,
I try as hard as I can
to focus my attention
on the sound of a little black fly
buzzing against the windows.
If I can just concentrate
on the fly, it will drown out the noise
from your room down the hall.
But as I listen to the soft buzzing,
a fleeting question rises to the surface of
my consciousness—
How has this become my life?
The next night,
when I ask you
how it was,
your answer
breaks my
already-broken
heart:
“It all just felt really . . .
normal.”
AT LAST
We decide to stay together
as a couple
for the last week of college.
The night before graduation,
when all the seniors gather
on the football field at 5 a.m.
to watch the sunrise,
no one seems to know
where you are, and your phone
keeps going to voicemail.
As the sky turns from a deep, dark blue to light gray,
I make my way over to Dub Street, heart pounding
and head spinning,
dreading that you’re either dead in a ditch or
in bed with a guy.
I crack open the front door
and then pause, because sometimes,
when something really terrible is happening,
I can shake my head back and forth
hard enough to wake myself up.
But this time
I can’t shake the sight
of Mason’s
faded
red
sneakers
in the hallway.
GRADUATION DAY
The first person to swim from Cuba
to Florida without a shark cage
gives a very moving and empowering
commencement address at graduation
this morning.
I’m sitting here in my black robe
next to the other English majors
watching her mouth move,
but I don’t hear any of it
and
behind my sunglasses
there are tears in my eyes.
ENDING
I arrive home a college graduate.
I start the miserable process
of unpacking the car,
and it feels like I just
finished watching a long,
dramatic film—
the kind that has an unsettling,
unsatisfying ending
that leaves you feeling
empty.
At the bottom of a suitcase,
I come upon an unfamiliar
orange manila envelope.
Across the back of it,
written in black marker,
there’s a note.
It’s addressed to: Babe My Babe.
Your messy, swirly handwriting.
The note says that despite your actions, you hope I know
there’s no part of you that doesn’t love me.
That even though it hurts, we are worth it.
That no one makes you feel the way I do.
That you’ve been loving me for way too long to ever stop.
Love,
Max (Babe Your Babe)
I sit down on the driveway and cry
tears that look like raindrops
when they hit the asphalt.
Soon I’m wailing, and
an image of you
watching me ugly-cry
on the pavement
flashes through my mind,
and I start to laugh.
I’m laughing and crying amid
a pile of bedding-stuffed garbage bags.
And now I’m not so sure
that this is the end.
RELOCATING
You get a job at a school
for teenagers with special needs
in New York City.
A month after that,
I get a job at a hip
young ad agency in the East Village,
and now I’m moving to New York, too.
We settle into separate apartments in Brooklyn.
You in Bushwick, me in Gowanus.
I don’t know how or why, but
the future we’ve always joked about—
how you’d be a teacher and stay-at-home dad
and I’d be a breadwinning business mom—
is beginning to align, as if
the universe is laughing at our joke
as it rearranges our postgrad constellations.
An urban relocation of Max and Emily World.
We’re living in the real world,
the adult world, but still acting
like our college selves.
I stare out the window of my apartment,
my gaze resting on the fluorescent red clock
of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower.
With its tapered obelisk
thrusting high and its dome top,
this is the very structure that prompted
the “World’s Most Phallic Building” contest in 2003.
All evening, we’ve been fighting
about our relationship status.
Laughing softly to myself,
I turn to look at you.
“Do you ever feel like your whole life
is just one big dick joke?”
KEVIN
The leaves on the potted trees
are turning the same colors
as they do up north in Vermont,
but there’s something misplaced
about autumn foliage in New York City.
As the era of dating apps dawns upon us,
our relationship hinges on which one of us
will find an interest in someone new first.
We set our profiles to both genders,
swiping through males and females alike.
I match with a boy named Kevin.
He’s a year older and works
a variety of freelance jobs in film.
The physical chemistry is there,
and we share enough interests
to make it worth more than a few dates.
Maybe Kevin will be the one
who can help me see the light,
help me believe in anything other
than you.
I avoid bringing him along with me
to parties and make sure you’re not
there before inviting him to come.
I see you every now and then . . .
I ask you whether you’ll meet Kevin,
but you have absolutely no desire to.
The last thing you say to me
before we stop talking
isn’t exactly to me
because it’s a note you leave
on my computer that
refers to me in the third person.
You write that you’re realizing Emily
has been searching for something more all along.
She’s been searching for art. And you have, too.
You just thought you’d found it already.
In Emily.
She was your art.
You were never Emily’s art.
You were always her disaster.
ABOVE ALL
Ramona and Sophie throw a party
at their apartment in Williamsburg.
I stand at their kitchen counter,
mixing whiskey and ginger ale,
when Sophie mentions something I
haven’t yet heard about you.
“He’s going to Australia for the summer?”
I sip my drink and try to act casual.
The smell of marijuana
wafts from the fire escape,
and I follow it out the window.
At the other end of the grated platform,
standing in a small circle of friends,
there you are.
A few moments pass before we make eye contact,
and when we do, I stealthily flash my personal spliff,
and you make your way over to me.
You’re not exactly smiling, but
you’re not frowning, eit
her.
“Hey.”
Your distant, cordial tone
makes my heart hurt.
Gesturing to my hand, you hold up a lighter.
You point up the metal rungs that lead to the roof.
I wonder why we haven’t spoken in such a long time.
You start up the ladder, never looking down
before you disappear over the parapet.
I tuck the spliff into my bra and follow.
I find you sitting on a low divider wall
on the other side of the roof,
gazing at the faded contours of the sunset.
You tell me that your flight is on Wednesday at 4 a.m.
“A long one, isn’t it?” I say.
You tip your head to the side
and exhale a puff of smoke.
“That’s what he said,” you joke.
“Oh, it’s what he said, now?” I reply,
and you give me a sarcastic, unenthused look.
We talk about what we’ve been listening to lately.
I play you a few songs from my phone.
We laugh, and I study your face—
the scruff of your dirty blond beard,
your long, dark eyelashes,
and your thick, unruly eyebrows.
I reach up and feel the hairs
in between your brows with one finger.
You ask about my family.
I pick at my cuticles as I fill you in.
You notice the old habit and
gently pull my hand away from the other.
Before letting go, you squeeze it,
and we look into each other’s eyes.
For a moment, I’m back in sophomore year,
standing across from you at the pong table,
realizing how stupid I’ve been
for denying my love for you.
The spliff is gone, and the sounds
from the party below are getting
a bit louder as more people arrive.
“You’re going to be safe while you’re there,
right, Max?” I ask.
I can see your mind working.
The thoughts and feelings floating
in the air between us seem too raveled to pin down.
But I encourage you to try anyway.
I can’t help myself.
“Nothing is not worth saying to me
if you want to say it.”
“It’s just a shitty and fucked-up
but beautiful feeling, Em,” you say.
“It’s like the whole world stops
or disappears
when I’m up on this roof with you,
and it’s just the two of us . . .
and I just want to live up here
like this
with you
forever,
in our world together.
And it’s sad
