Clean Break

by Erin McLellan

  Eat sashimi

  Fly in an airplane

  Ride the subway

  See a famous person in the wild

  Live somewhere with a view that’s not pasture

  See a musical on Broadway

  Read Moby Dick or similar classic (Shakespeare per suggestion)

  I’d never be brave enough to do most of those things, and they were all so small. I was a fussy asshole who’d never put raw fish in my mouth, and the thought of the germs on an airplane made me itchy with discomfort. I certainly had no intention of reading Shakespeare. Not now. It was moot. Dumb. Impossible.

  Lists had never failed me before, but this one was. With shaking hands, I folded it into quarters. Then eighths. Then again and again until the paper could no longer be creased.

  I put it into the top drawer of my desk. I’d throw it away tomorrow, once I was sure I didn’t want it anymore. I added Throw away Bucket List to my to-do list.

  I had another appointment with Dr. Dimond today, and I’d managed to go a whole week without checking expiration dates when eating. I’d fallen asleep the night before without running Travis’s expression when he’d broken up with me through my head, over and over. Without warping all of our conversations, all of our times together into something ugly. All in all, I was doing okay.

  Mostly.

  I could focus on the looming graduation and my new role at the farm without Travis taking up so much bandwidth in my head. He was still there, in the background, though.

  Case in point—I turned on my laptop and an email chain with Dr. Greer from the week of my breakup with Travis popped up. I studied the emails every day, hoping they would be different. They never were.

  * * *

  To: Connor Blume

  From: Dr. Vincent Greer

  Subject: Class partners

  * * *

  I spoke with Travis today. You do not need to partner with him any longer. You are welcome to complete the partner discussion questions on your own for the remainder of the semester.

  * * *

  On another note, have you thought about your job situation as we discussed several weeks ago? Please know that I’m here to talk to you about it again if you need a sounding board.

  * * *

  As always,

  Dr. Greer

  * * *

  To: Dr. Vincent Greer

  From: Connor Blume

  Subject: RE: Class partners

  * * *

  Thank you.

  * * *

  I’ve thought about our discussion a lot, and I’ve decided it is the most practical to stay in Elkville. I appreciate your help.

  * * *

  Connor

  * * *

  To: Connor Blume

  From: Dr. Vincent Greer

  Subject: RE: RE: Class partners

  * * *

  One last thing—remember that what you decide today or a year from now or ten years from now is not forever. You’re allowed to change your mind.

  * * *

  As always,

  Dr. Greer

  * * *

  I traced his last email with my fingers. My family needed me. There was no reason to do anything different. No reason to change.

  I had to drag myself to Entomology 101. It was painful being in the same room as Travis. He never looked at me, but today he did. Today, he glanced at me and tripped over his own feet.

  The distress in his eyes had to be my imagination. I had no doubt he cared about me, but he’d been pulling away for weeks before we ended things. I was the one who’d kept dragging him back in. I was the one who’d pushed and pushed, who’d upped the intimacy. He was fine.

  He’d handed me the key to something inherent, something innate inside me. Then he’d walked away. I didn’t know how to resolve the emptiness in my heart that he’d left behind.

  Would I like spanking other people? Kissing other people? Holding other people down?

  Probably.

  But not yet.

  Would I like being as vulnerable with someone else as I’d been with him?

  I doubted it.

  Travis packed up his bag and left class early. My body longed to follow him, to check on him. God, just to hear his voice again. He’d answered a question in class last week, and it had physically hurt.

  Normally, when I left class, I loitered in the fourth-floor hallway for ten minutes, hoping against hope that he’d show up too.

  I never allowed myself longer than ten minutes. He never showed up.

  Today, I didn’t go to the fourth floor. He’d left class early. There was no chance he’d be there. I needed to grow up, move on, and stop acting like a lovesick fool.

  I pulled out my to-do list and added all three of those items to it, though they were immeasurable. How did you gauge that you’d moved on?

  After class, I hiked across campus to the Spectrum Center. I had no idea if Desi would be there, but I needed my best friend. I hadn’t told her much about me and Travis, even though she’d asked. Telling her would make it real. Would make the pain something that I wasn’t enduring in my dark bedroom alone. Maybe it was time to bring that pain into the light.

  Maybe I’d feel better afterward.

  Alex was at the front desk.

  “Is Desi working?” I asked him.

  He popped his gum and grinned. Heat flushed my skin, and it was good to know that I was not immune to pretty men smiling at me.

  “She’s in the quiet study lounge, if you want to talk to her.”

  “Thanks, Alex.”

  The smile slid off his face. “Dude, are you okay?”

  I sighed. “Is it that obvious?”

  “You seem sad, and you normally seem expressionless. So yes.”

  That surprised a laugh out of me, and right at that moment, Desi skipped out of the study lounge.

  “Connor. Hi.”

  “Hey. I was, umm, maybe we could—” Why was it suddenly hard to talk? “Want to get some food? I’d love to hang out.”

  “Sure.” She frowned. “What’s wrong with you? You look upset.”

  “Told you,” Alex quipped.

  I wrapped my arms around my stomach. “Uh, guy trouble?” I said, unsure how to explain.

  “Fucking Travis,” Desi snarled. Then she was hugging me.

  That was what I’d needed. Perhaps I didn’t want to talk about it. I’d simply needed to not feel alone for a second.

  When Desi pulled back, she held my shoulders. “I’m so sorry. Breakups are the worst, and they’re in the air right now. End of the school year and all that.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure if it made me feel better or worse to know that my relationship with Travis could so easily be boiled down to that.

  Alex caught my eye and smiled kindly. “Love sucks, man. Trust me. But it gets easier. If you allow yourself to be mad, moving on is easier.”

  I nodded.

  Maybe anger was exactly what I needed.

  Maybe it could burn away all the pain.

  It wouldn’t be hard to drum up some anger toward Travis. I was angry that he’d let me fall for him. I was angry that he’d said one thing, then acted differently. He hadn’t treated me like a fuck buddy. He’d treated me like he cared, and it’d scrambled all my emotions until I didn’t know which way was up.

  Mostly, I was angry with myself. It wouldn’t be hard to stoke that ugly emotion until it flamed hot and strong and burned away everything else.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  TRAVIS

  Graduation came and went.

  I should have been proud and excited about graduating, about starting this new adventure.

  I wasn’t.

  I stayed with my family in Texas for two weeks before starting my internship with SAFE Asylum. During those two weeks, I spent most of my time nursing a broken heart. It was weird that I’d managed to more or less keep it together when I was seeing Connor every other day, but now that our time had officially hit its deadline, I felt p
ositively sick.

  After two days of playing Rocket League with Jesse and walking the cross-country track in the evening, my mom managed to corner me. I spilled the beans embarrassingly fast, telling her all about my heartache.

  She patted my cheek. “This feels big and hard because you’re young. But that pain will diminish in time. First loves are always difficult to recover from.”

  My mom—the realist.

  “Who was your first love?”

  She glanced to the side. “Your father.”

  “Oh, so you’ve never actually had to recover from one, huh?”

  She laughed. “You’ll be okay. You’re going to move to St. Louis for the summer, and you’ll forget all about it. Trust me.”

  I prayed she wasn’t wrong. That was how desperate I was to recover from this. I was praying about it.

  The first week in St. Louis passed in a blink. I was busy settling into my new role there. This summer I’d get to assist with certain intake cases, whereas last summer, I’d mostly made copies and filed stuff.

  I longed to tell Connor about every bit of my day, from the mundane to the celebrations. And SAFE Asylum made a point to celebrate the good stuff because so often they dealt with horror and hardship. After the first successful asylum case I assisted on—in the form of note-taking but assistance nonetheless—I almost texted Connor.

  Instead, I sent a message to Joel. He responded, Sounds cool.

  Next, I called Roy, still trying to stem that impulse to reach out to Connor. Roy and I talked summer jobs, their new girlfriend, and an amateur drag show they’d participated in. It helped distract me for a few minutes, but at the end of the call, Roy got all introspective and asked, “How’s the broken heart?”

  I mumbled that it was healing, called them a jerk for bringing it up, blew a kiss through the line, and we got the fuck off the phone.

  That night, I drove to a nearby track at a high school and walked it, feeling the crackle of summer heat in the air and hearing the fiddle of cricket songs. I couldn’t run anymore, but I could be here, somewhere that I used to feel alive and right and happy.

  As the sun crept below the trees and I took the final turn, a sudden pain hit me. Not in my ankle. But my heart. Like muscle-memory heartache. I’d been brokenhearted before, when I’d lost the ability to fly down a course similar to this. The memory of that made my current despair jump to the surface. I stopped and pressed my palms to my eye sockets. Memories of Connor—of his laugh, his taste, his kisses, the sometimes random twang in his voice—bombarded me until I was crying in the middle of a high school track in St. Louis.

  I had no idea how to resolve this. How to feel better.

  It was Dad who suggested the letters a week later. He said it might help me move on. Really, he was just a sentimental soul who’d raised a sentimental fool.

  If Mom was a realist, Dad was a romantic. I’d thought I’d taken after Mom in that regard. Until I started writing my ex letters, scrawling out my messy emotions, spilling every thought and fear and feeling onto the page. Knowing he’d never read them.

  * * *

  Dear Connor,

  * * *

  Today I met a man who fled Iraq. He had the second nicest laugh I’ve ever heard—after yours of course. I can’t imagine being able to laugh after seeing the things he’s seen. I’m happy I’m here, in St. Louis, where I’m meant to be, but I miss you.

  * * *

  Dear Connor,

  * * *

  I haven’t seen you in sixty days. It hurts. A fellow intern tried to kiss me today after work. We all live in this hostel-style facility, and several of us had been watching a movie. I hadn’t realized he was into me. Or maybe I’m still too messed up over you to clock the flirting. We had a good laugh after I turned him down. If I ever see you again, I hope you have lots of stories to tell.

  * * *

  By the end of the summer, my letters might as well have been a diary. I liked to think it was helping, but it probably wasn’t. It was just making me hold on to the Connor in my heart.

  * * *

  Hey lover,

  * * *

  I alphabetized for four hours today and thought of you. I bet you’re good at that. We had a difficult referral yesterday—a teenager detained at the border. She’s trans. My heart hurts for her. I wish you were here, telling me a story that doesn’t make the world seem so grim. Sometimes I imagine ways we could be together—you in Elkville, me here or Oklahoma City. Like permanent long distance. It seems impossible, except in my heart where it feels like a fairytale. One with a happy ending.

  * * *

  I wrote one last letter to Connor the night before I moved to Oklahoma City. I needed to go cold turkey. I needed to focus on my future. On moving on. On law school, which would not be a cakewalk.

  A clean break. That was what he’d asked for. I needed to make that break again, but this time in my heart.

  * * *

  Dear Connor,

  * * *

  I think about you every day. I’ll love you every day.

  CONNOR

  After graduation, I stepped into a management roll at the Feed Store, which had been easy. I was also in the middle of transitioning into my role as my parents’ business manager, which was more complicated than I’d anticipated. Maybe I was just dragging my extremely reluctant feet.

  I moved into the trailer on the west end of the farm and tried not to snarl at every person I interacted with. It wasn’t working particularly well, but some people deserved it.

  Two weeks after graduation, a few of the old timers at the Feed Store got into an argument. I wasn’t paying attention, too preoccupied with scheduling incoming shipments to hear them. Then a few of Dr. Mudd’s words filtered through to me. Wall and illegals and anchor babies and a few phrases that were much, much worse.

  “Hey,” I said from the register. The men ignored me, their voices rising. “Hey!”

  The shouting stopped.

  “Language like that will not be allowed in here,” I said. “Full stop.”

  Dr. Mudd’s face shifted to an ugly blistered red. “I didn’t say anything wrong.”

  “You did.”

  “I have a right to my opinion. Free speech.”

  I took a deep breath. Would I be dealing with this bullshit forever?

  “You will not use hate speech in this store. I have a right to ask you to leave. It’s not like you’ve bought anything in ten years anyway.”

  He turned his back on me and drained the coffee from his cup. He was still talking shit, his words barely audible, but I caught his mumbled, “Fucking fairy.”

  “Dr. Mudd,” I said, voice as sharp as a knife. “Get out.”

  He left.

  No one had ever called me that, which was a reflection of my own privilege, for sure. I’d never felt so close to violence in my entire life. My hands were shaking, my vision blurry, and face burning hot.

  I walked back into the office and called Dad.

  He gave me a hug when he arrived, and I almost broke down then and there. Almost told him I couldn’t do this. There was the possibility that I’d face hate speech anywhere, but it hurt more coming from close to home.

  I saved my meltdown for that night, when I couldn’t sleep. When I couldn’t stop hearing Travis’s voice in my head, mingled with Dr. Mudd’s, and my dad’s, like a big orchestra of fucked up. The intrusive thoughts hit me like a hammer the moment I laid down in bed, and I didn’t have the energy to combat them.

  The next morning I woke up and slogged on.

  May turned to June, and the Oklahoma heat became unbearable. During the first week in June, after a long, dusty day of work, I walked the fences surrounding my family’s registered herd and felt caged in myself. Stuck and angry as a prized bull.

  When I got back to the double-wide, I found my bucket list in the stuff I’d cleaned out of my desk at school. I’d never thrown it away. I taped it to my refrigerator and cracked open a beer. Then another beer. And a
couple more.

  I nearly texted Travis. I’d been tempted before, but never when my inhibitions were low. I’d thought it’d get easier, that my anger would smooth the way.

  It hadn’t.

  Losing him was just one additional thing that sucked, and frankly, the world was sucky all around. I could have done things differently. I could have ended things in a way that meant I didn’t lose him completely.

  I hated that I’d lost him completely. We could have been friends.

  My thumbs hovered over the keyboard on my cell. Instead of texting Travis, though, I sent out a slurry message to my sister.

  Len, need help want to txt ex need tostop.

  I fell asleep on my couch before she responded.

  When I woke up the next morning, she was making coffee in my kitchen.

  “Hello, darling brother.”

  “Hey, sis.”

  I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. My mouth was dry and my stomach a little sloshy, but my head felt okay.

  “Want some coffee?”

  “I don’t drink coffee.”

  “Why do you have instant then?”

  “I don’t.”

  “You do. I found it in the cabinet above the refrigerator.”

  “That isn’t mine.” I couldn’t reach that cabinet without a step stool, so I had never checked out the inside. She’d undoubtedly climbed onto the counter to get to it. “That coffee has probably been in there for five years. Don’t drink it.”