A Tale of Star-Crossed Lovers
Frost clung to what was left of my parents’ front lawn, rendering the grass holographic. A premature dark blue sky cut short what little conversation we had over dinner. I wasn’t sure if it was because I wanted to smoke a joint without being subjected to TSA-level screening, because I missed John, or because my parents were on the brink of divorce, but I longed to be back in Texas. It was Thanksgiving Eve, or as washed up college kids of the Northeast called it, “Blackout Wednesday.” People were deranged enough to want to get drunk with the same people they took their first ever sips of Svedka with. They’d stuff cash from their fathers’ unattended wallets into the pockets of their own waxed coats, a premeditated bribe to the underpaid bouncer to let them into the bar. Perhaps it was a testament to my own maturity that this was my biggest nightmare. Or maybe I was just an anti-social bitch.
Hayden though, in a shocking hiatus from her usual nights in manifesting with crystals, wanted to go.
“Dude, this is the only night a year we can show all these losers how pretty we got in college,” she reminded me on the phone. “You’re telling me no part of you wants Vic to see you fifteen pounds down?” I hated that she was right. I pictured myself with a fresh blowout and a tequila sour, flashing a smile at the girl who slept with my high school boyfriend. As thrilling as that image was, it wasn’t enough to sway me. I didn’t care to be around anyone from my past, especially now that I was seeing John.
“What if we train into the city? I can get a reservation at Jean’s,” I told Hayden. She said she’d think about it, which really meant she’d see if Alice was in. They both reluctantly agreed, probably because I told them that after a few martinis, we could go dance in the restaurant’s speakeasy club downstairs.
* * *
John called me while I was on the train. I had become entranced by the shape of his initials on my phone and the dopamine rush that came with them. It had only been a week, but I missed him. The night before we left for home, we took IQ tests drunk in bed. He scored a 138 somehow, blowing me out of the park, but he insisted it was a glitch because I was the most brilliant person he’d ever met. We lay there and talked about our childhoods: his emotionally unavailable father, mine. How police patrolled the driveways of our homes as neighbors called on behalf of the screaming next door. I missed how he’d come and study with me, plopping his legs over mine, reading through my papers even though he sucked at English as I pretended to understand organic chemistry. I smiled as I remembered how he took me to the gun range, cheering me on as my shell casings fell to the floor, my bullets not even close to hitting the target.
He told me he was back home in Houston and getting ready to go hit the bars with his high school alumni. If it was possible for anything John said to turn me off, this would be it. I had no clue people from actual cities also opted to pregame Thanksgiving that way.
“Don’t forget about me!” I reminded him, half-joking, primarily to gauge his reaction.
“I could never,” he assured me. He debated between different collared shirts in the mirror and I laughed at his metrosexual fashion show. I picked at the peeling red leather of the Metro North seats until the conductor came to scan my ticket.
We had only been seeing each other for a couple of months, but John was nothing like my previous boyfriends. I didn’t have to pretend with him, I just was. We weren’t boyfriend-and-girlfriend yet, but we weren’t just hooking up either. We were that awful, purgatorial third thing.
“You better not get with anyone tonight,” he said.
“Wasn’t planning on it. You?”
“Nope. I would never.” The train started through an area with no service and the call cut out.
Happy we’re on the same page. See you next week, I texted him.
* * *
Alice and I wore the same outfit to dinner: tight brown turtlenecks and short black mini skirts. She was wearing tights, I wasn’t. A disco ball pushed shafts of purple light around the dim restaurant.
“Shut up, Bella, he is so cute. And so your type,” Hayden cooed at John’s picture, twirling a blond curl around her finger. I didn’t think I had a type, but once Hayden mentioned it, I shrugged in agreement.
“We have never been dating people at the same time. John and Patrick need to meet and we’ll be best family friends,” Alice envisioned the same delusional future that I did, but one of us had to stick to rationale.
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Alice. He’s graduating next semester, and I'm going abroad. And plus, we’re not really anything. You don’t know how UT works. It’s a man’s school. Every week there’s a new date party with a blonde girl that isn’t me,” I told her, my cheeks suddenly hot.
“Ah, the art of the situationship,” Hayden laughed.
“Aren’t you guys going on a trip together next month? That is not a situationship,” Alice offered between sips of her drink.
“It’s not a trip, it’s for one night. We haven’t hung out since summer and this is how you want to spend our time? Can’t we talk about how my parents haven’t been sleeping in the same bed since I got home?”
“Your dad must have a terrible snoring problem,” Hayden laughed. “Is he a Capricorn?”
With that, we drank the rest of our martinis until all that were left were the candied lemons at the bottom of the glasses. We picked at the overpriced caesar salad we ordered, which ended up being a few pieces of unchopped lettuce topped with parm cheese. We frowned at the bill until Hayden put down her parents’ credit card.
Downstairs, in what was supposed to be one of the most exclusive clubs in New York, pretentious gentrifiers with pornstaches and Sambas were on the prowl. I wasn’t interested in anyone there, let alone anyone besides John, so I just watched the clock, waiting for enough time to pass so that I could go find an excuse to go home and hear his voice. Alice, though, flirted as much as she could in a turtleneck. Her victim wouldn’t quit talking about the magazine he wrote for in college. He made it abundantly clear that he wrote for The Harvard Lampoon, but was insistent upon being vague. (“When I wrote for my college humor magazine back in Boston,” he said.)
“Dude,” Hayden said eventually, cutting off his Valedictorian-wet-dream, “are you going to buy her a drink or what?”
* * *
At three in the morning, John finally called me from his bed, his eyes red and his parents asleep. I had waited up for him.
“This girl from high school wouldn’t leave me alone all night. I could’ve sworn she was a lesbian,” he said, slurring his words. I sat on my parents’ couch, the walls melting into one another in my drunkenness. A plate of diner-style cheese fries stifled what would’ve been a petty response. My own baby pictures sitting on the mantle taunted me in my obliteration.
“3 more sleeps,” he told me. “Then we’re back together.” I thought about how quiet he had to be when he came home, if he had to tiptoe to not wake his parents, or if his room was even close to theirs. His boyish grin – a byproduct of one too many beers – against his plaid, creasing sheets made me think of him as a little kid again.
We talked about our nights, which both seemed to be fairly unremarkable. If we were together, he said, it would’ve been a lot more fun.
“Goodnight, John,” I told him as my eyelids fell heavy far past my usual bedtime. I hung up and left my phone unlocked by my pillow, a simulation of him beside me in bed. I tried to get to sleep, but I was stuck counting sheep and dreaming of him, his smell, his sheets.
* * *
My brother refused to wear khaki pants to Thanksgiving, I ran out of Excedrin, and my mom told me that she and my dad were taking separate cars to my aunt’s house. I was feeling so grateful. I stood in my mom’s bathroom, eying her reflection in the mirror as she covered up the dark circles under her eyes and ran a brush through her graying hair.
“I don’t think I have any other choice,” she told me through teary eyes. Though I wasn’t particularly fond of my father, my stomach churned as I imagined him alone in a small apartment reheating frozen waffles and watching reruns of The Brady Bunch. My mom argued that he’d be fine and probably start dating a 25 year old. My biggest fear was having a relationship like theirs. One that relied on familiarity, not love or compatibility or excitement. My mom told me that she loved my dad like a brother, not a husband. What a strange thing to tell your child.
I entrusted John with what my mother had told me.
“Are they really getting divorced?” He texted back quickly.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen my mom cry in years.”
“I’m sorry, Bella. We’ll talk about it back in Austin. Try to enjoy the day. Happy Thanksgiving – I’m really thankful you came into my life.” I usually would wince at this cringe-worthy sentiment, but I smiled instead.
I kept John in the back of my mind as my mother and I drove down I-84 in silence, the boys trailing behind in my dad’s pickup. I pictured everyone else in traffic grappling with their own Thanksgiving struggles: a stale love, no family at all, or something in between. I reminded myself of what he had told me. Two more sleeps to go.
* * *
John picked me up from the airport in a button-up henley and plaid pajama pants. I didn’t know if I was supposed to hug him or kiss him so I eked out a weird mix of the two. We drove home mostly in silence, communicating primarily through red-light kisses and hand squeezes. Everything felt right again.
Once we got back to his house, I hugged his roommates hello while he took a shower. They were great, like he was. When he was done, he came and grabbed me.
“She’s all mine now, sorry!” He shouted to his roommates as he carried me over his shoulder into his bedroom. I lay between his legs and we watched a polite amount of our show until we ended up tangled together below the sheets. We fit together perfectly.
“I missed this,” he whispered under his breath. Once he finished, he fell beside me, sketching shapes on my back with his index finger so I could fall asleep.
“I really, really, really like you, Bella,” he told me. I wasn’t sure if he thought I was asleep already or if he wanted me to hear. If a man ever says he “really” likes you, he’s either trying to tell you he loves you without saying it, or he did something really, really shady. Or, as in my case, both. I didn’t respond.
* * *
I woke up before him the next morning. I kissed him on the forehead and snuck out of his room so I could go brush my teeth back at my apartment. I texted my friends to see if anyone could give me a ride home. No one could, so I walked, breathing in the dewy smell of the early morning walk-of-shame.
I was surprised to see Libby sitting crosslegged on my couch when I arrived home.
“Libby, hey!” I eyed my roommates behind her, but they looked away.
“Hi! How was home? It looked amazing,” she pried. We hadn’t spoken much since sophomore year, so her sudden interest was offputting. She followed me into my room as I went to change out of John’s boxers and into my own sweats.
“John slept with someone else over break. The night before Thanksgiving,” she spat out eventually after asking a few performative questions to soften the blow.
“Okay, thank you for telling me, I assumed that he had. It doesn’t count if we’re not in the same zip code, right?” I laughed, but my heart dropped inside of my stomach. I didn’t hear anything she said after this, my ears rang with anger. The room felt empty, and I wanted to destroy it.
Once Libby left, probably beaming in her humbling revelation, my roommates crowded around my bedside like I was in hospice. They reached out to hold my hand, but I swatted them away. I thought for a moment maybe Libby had made it up – it couldn’t be possible. He made this serious. It was supposed to be a hookup, but he told me he liked me. He invited me on that stupid trip. He pried everything out of me. To believe it was a lie was only wishful thinking.
I texted him that we needed to talk and he knew exactly what it was about. He tried to protest his innocence a few times before giving up. Please let me explain, I was drunk, what about the trip?
I felt small again, a little girl with pigtails wishing I was tall enough for a rollercoaster ride.
* * *
I lay in the bath, soap covering my body, which was thinner than usual. I hadn’t been able to eat since I found out about what John did. The lights were off, and I was trying to cry to Coldplay but nothing would come out. Not because I wasn’t upset, but because of the barrier set by 150 milligrams of Zoloft.
“Hey, I’d love to talk in person if you’re available between three and six,” I looked at my phone, read John’s text, and thought about dropping it in the tub.
“If you stop texting me like you’re an HR rep, maybe,” I retorted, putting my phone back on silent. I wanted him to disturb me so badly, to bang on my door with flowers and a frown and a proposal, but I also wanted him to just leave me alone and let me move on. We had two weeks until he could’ve just never spoken to me again, why’d he have to ruin this?
I knew my roommates would kill me if they knew I had responded. It’d be even worse if they knew I wanted to stay. Or at least to drive out to West Texas like we had planned.
He laughed at my message, which pissed me off even more.
“And don’t cancel our trip yet. Let’s talk,” I added.
* * *
John never cried. He told me that his father had gotten rid of that ability long ago. So when we sat in his car on the corner of my apartment and his eyes were coated with tears, I knew that nothing would come from them. He smelled different, like he hadn’t been eating, emptiness eroding his stomach.
“I made a mistake. I thought we were going to just cut it off after you left next semester, and I took advantage of that. I’m sorry,” he reached for my hand. I pulled it away and into the sleeve of my sweatshirt. I had mastered the “woe-is-me-but-I’m-still-pretty-when-I’m-sad” look: pajamas, but with curled hair, dripping mascara, and a flatter stomach.
He brought me a Diet Dr. Pepper from the gas station next to my apartment. If he had ever listened to me, he’d know I only drank Diet Coke. I let it sit in the cup holder, fizzing away into flatness.
“I see myself falling deeply in love with you,” he told me. I turned to him, watching as his freckled nose wrinkled, and asked him how that could possibly be true.
“Let me show you. After this weekend, I’ll never bother you again, if that’s what you want.” It could never be what I wanted, I thought, for he was the only person I’d met in college that truly got me. But I told him that we had a deal. I stepped out of his car, pushing my own door open for the first time in months. I wiped the mascara from my cheeks, an act toeing the line between performance and true despair.
I felt a bit better about things as I headed up the elevator to my room, until I remembered that I had to tell my roommates the news.
“You just got cheated on and –” Auburn’s reaction was expected.
“Auburn, he couldn’t have cheated on me if we were never even together, and I don’t know why you care more than I do,” I unintentionally raised my voice. I still didn’t know if it was out of embarrassment that she was right, or because I genuinely believed that he hadn’t done anything that wrong.
“Because, I care about you and I’m not naive enough to waste the last week we have all together with some scumbag who just fucked another girl.” She got me there. But I’d be seeing him in Marfa.
* * *
He put my bags in the car just as my parents did in preparation for a road trip after they had ripped each other a new one in the kitchen right before. He moved them so delicately, as if the bags were made of glass, just like I was. As he sat in the driver’s seat, I became irrationally annoyed. He got to sit beside the same girl he knew a week ago, while I was stuck grappling with the loss of someone I wasn’t sure ever existed.
We had a six hour and twenty seven minute drive ahead of us. That was six hours and twenty seven minutes that he’d try to talk about anything besides what had happened and I’d chime in with a, “I just think it’s crazy how…” until he gave me a different response than what he offered last time.
With that in mind, I ignored him for a majority of the ride, singing along to Jason Isbell songs he didn’t know while he tried to hum to the melody.
“You want Sonic?” He asked me as we approached a rest stop. Only an hour had gone by and I had already lost my appetite. I wasn’t hungry, I told him, but he got me fries anyway. I ate some of them, wiping my salted fingers on the leather seats of his truck. The pit in my stomach tightened as I realized I needed to pee. I squatted behind the drive-thru while he watched.
“Look away, please.” He scoffed, knowing he’d already seen every inch of my body. I wanted him to unlearn it, to unlearn me. I wanted him to forget who I was, to be forced to mourn me. He turned around and tapped his toe against the gravel.
Once I was done, we continued on our drive and I looked out the window like I was in an emo-teen music video. I created the soundtrack, and in a few short frames, Austin skyscrapers faded into unattended honky tonks and soon into nothing but vast land.
* * *
We drove down Highway 67 until we reached the gimmicky Prada store in Valentine. It made little sense to me why this was such an attraction, you couldn’t even go inside, but we pulled over anyway. I was far more impressed by the strokes of yellow and pink that melted into the cloudless sky behind the small building. The gold sun set slowly, draping weeds and plants in silhouette. A stocky man in a red trailer was blocking the whole thing, anyway, so I tugged at John’s arm, letting him know we should just keep on. Instead, he walked to a fence that held locks of the loved and unloved, until the man moved on. I stared into the distance, a set of graffitied railroad tracks separating us and the mountains. No one drove on the road while we were there, so I stood right in the middle, admiring the innateness of the hills ahead. They melted into the orange horizon, becoming one with the sky.
“Want me to take a picture of y’all?” An older man asked, interrupting my much-needed moment of solitude and admiration of the West Texas skies.
“No, it’s ok,” “Yes, that’d be great.”
I sighed in resignation as I passed the man my phone.
“Smile!” He instructed us, showing his own toothless grin behind the camera.
I forced out whatever I could, but it definitely wasn’t a smile. We looked like uncomfortable siblings on a Christmas card.
* * *
By the time we made it into town, it was dark. The grocery store was the only building I’d seen that looked manmade. Lowe’s stood in stark contrast to the earthy cement buildings beside it and was laden with the smell of overripe peaches and linoleum floors. We walked down the aisles holding hands, throwing everything we needed to make chicken parmesan into the cart. Playing house with John was nice for a moment, but I reminded myself that that’s all that it was: playing.
After we checked out, he loaded the grocery bags onto my lap and started towards the home he rented for the night. As he drove, I kept my eyes on the houses off the side streets, lights on indicative that people were there, happy and home. I couldn’t fathom people living out here, down these gravel roads. The town was steeped in silence, feeling more like an Instagrammable installation than a town with schools and jobs and families.
In classic male fashion, John couldn’t figure out which one was the house he booked on AirBnb, so we drove down at least three gravel driveways before the plastered number by the door matched the one on his phone.
“1614. This is us,” he huffed as he pushed the car door open. He brought our bags inside without being told to do so as I walked around the home, exploring and analyzing his taste. It was an appealing place, far more modern than I’d expected. Though it was small – a bed, a small table, and a stovetop were the only pieces of furniture in there, separated by a few feet, not a wall – it was beautiful.
It was right on the edge of town. The front door faced a barren field, but the rest of the walls were wholly glass. I watched the sky turn a deep navy, an atmospheric color that I didn’t necessarily recognize, speckled with white stars. I told John he could go admire the sky while I breaded the chicken, practically begging him to let me have one more moment of peace before we were stuck in this box together the rest of the night. Instead, he came up behind me and grabbed my waist. I flinched.
“This is great, isn’t it? I’m so happy you decided to come.”
“Yeah, it’s awesome.” It was. I hadn’t seen stars in years. I fell more in love with Texas that night than I did out of love with John. With glasses of Chianti and the low hum of our shared playlist, we sat on the patio, admiring the galaxy. He pulled me closer to him, a tasselled blanket around us.
“Isn’t it crazy how these stars exist every night and we don’t see them where we’re at?” He tried to sound prophetic, but ended up sounding pretty dumb. In a way, though, looking at the stars with him, just a drive away from campus, helped me realize that there was so much out there for me – a whole galaxy waiting for me to find it. As much as I wanted it to be John, he wasn’t who I thought he was. I wasn’t in the mood to think about this any longer, so I went inside to get another glass of wine. A few glasses later, we ended up back in bed, the expanse outside still visible over his shoulder. He looked at me longingly. I stayed staring at the patterns of greenery outside, the water tower in the distance, and the low light of a bonfire ahead. I wondered if this was how it started for my mother too, loving someone out of habit instead of hope.
“Can I please, please, kiss you,” he asked, whispering as he hovered over me. I hardly let him touch me at all since everything had happened. It might have been because of the wine, but I didn’t say no. He leaned down over me and kissed me, his fingers cold from the chilled sky outside as they traced my neck. I kept my eyes open, following the pulse of the brightest star outside. I wished upon that star, that I could force myself to see John the same again, that I wouldn’t have to give it all up right here. That I wouldn’t have a relationship like my parents did, that he hadn’t broken my trust. It felt nice, us being like this again. But I knew that I was leaving whatever happened between us in this quiet town, where it could get lost in the wind and in cornmeal pancakes and Orion’s belt.
