text: He often found that bus rides were oddly conducive to a particular kind of reminiscence. Sitting in his little row, with eyes glazed over, he reached back into his prepubescent self. He was at the kitchen counter, grueling over math homework. Intro to fractions: a real killer. None of the questions actually involved a fraction, and he’d completed most of the sheet without much trouble, yet there was one extra credit question on the back that he wanted to get right. Thinking back, he couldn’t be sure why he wanted to solve it so bad. It was elementary school, he couldn’t have cared much about his “grades.” Maybe it was a sense of perfectionism instilled in him by his upbringing, but he never much cared about that as much as he probably should have. In all likelihood, he surmised, he had probably wanted to simply prove that he could, most likely out of simple, run-of-the-mill childhood insecurity. He asked Mom for help. This was the only time he could ever remember asking her for help with homework. She always seemed too busy, and he always thought he could do these things on his own. Still, this time she helped. He refrained from trying to psychoanalyze his mother at this moment. The question that had stumped him was generously simple in hindsight. It was only asking how you would represent three of something out of a group of four. The problem was, he had never seen a fraction before. When he explained his issue to Mom, she pulled out four cookies from the cookie jar. She had baked them the day previous. Mom always liked to bake. Mom always had an unhealthy relationship with food. She laid the cookies in front of him and said, “You have three of these cookies. So, how many of the cookies do you have?” As an adult, he could see that she worded this extremely vaguely. He replied, “Three.” For what felt like hours, she kept repeating those same two sentences to him, and everytime he’d say “Three.” She’d group off the three cookies and he’d say “Three.” She’d raise her voice and he’d say “Three.” He had started crying. Mom looked very frustrated. Scoffing, she grabbed the paper from him, wrote three fourths, and walked away. He felt very fragile in that moment. Mom wasn't a great teacher. His stop came too quickly. He was surprised at how far ahead in time he’d managed to travel with that little sequence. The walk home was comparatively thoughtless. It was just the same procedure of motions - steps, turns, doors opening - that he’d gone through most other days. That sense of unimportance seemed dully significant to some recess of him. The apartment extended no greeting, and his bed found him in record time. He didn’t bother getting under the covers. He lay there for what felt like too long, then checked the time. 7:34 PM. The day was still young. He thought about all the things he could do, maybe should do with all this time on his hands. Read something, listen to music, work out, go for a walk, meet new people, watch a movie, play some video games maybe. He juggled the idea of these things in his head and decided that yeah, maybe he should do something, yet he knew that the second he moved his chest would be crushed by the lead ball that was laying on it. He was never much for parties. He’d made a fool of himself at enough of them. This one seemed to carry on far too long. The swirl of people and voices became dizzying if he focused on it for too long. He hugged the wall like he did the first time he went ice skating. He could feel the life of the room echoing through him. He didn’t like the feeling. It used to be that when he felt like this at parties, he’d go off by himself for long enough that all the holes in his body would close up again, and he could have another drink and maybe talk to someone after. Now, he knew that someone was bound to notice, especially in a cramped space like this, and leaving now would be especially dramatic. He resigned himself to getting comfortable and hoping no one struck up conversation. When he finally deemed it socially acceptable to leave, he did with only marginal deliberation. He would’ve said bye to the people he knew there, but then again, would he have? Walking out into the night air was at first a relief. The first few steps felt like a consolation, and the cool air cleared the dust out of his lungs, but then the air started to stream into him so fast he felt like he was being played like a harmonica. He was leaking all over. The walk back to his car became more hurried than he’d intended, and he made sure to expunge what was left of that foreign invader in his rib cage before getting in. The thought of music at a time like this seemed contrived, and more than a little childish. He put music on anyway - something with no words. As he drove, he imagined himself in a movie. What would he look like? How would the writers and producers deem fit to package him? What parts of him would be cast aside first in pursuit of digestibility? He imagined to an outsider the thought might seem vaguely anti-consumerist, but really it was nothing so high concept. It was an honest consideration. The streets were mostly empty, which was good. The thought of sharing the road right now made him feel strangely sick. He didn’t know what he’d do when he got home. The apartment complex was quiet enough. He parked where he found a spot; he never much cared about things like getting good parking. He thought about that tendency as he walked, and he realized how alienated that made him feel from the people around him. Everyone he talked to always had some kind of mundane complaint. Their food had to be fresh. They couldn’t drink Pepsi products. They didn’t like this or that actor. The temperature was too much this or that way. He had always resigned himself to these things. There wasn’t much point in agonizing over things like that, right? As he was unlocking his door, he saw a woman coming down the opposite end of the hallway. He looked at her for a second. She was pretty enough. He stopped looking. He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. He knew how easy it was to make the people around him uncomfortable. The thought made him want to cry. He wouldn’t. He unlocked the door and stepped inside. As the door shut, he looked into the pitch black of the apartment. There was one dull, silver streak tearing through the living room. He seized. He stood enveloped by that darkness for a time. He felt like if he were to move, the space around him would collapse in on itself and splinter into a billion tiny fragments that could never be pieced together again. Not because it would be impossible really, but because he lacked the grace, patience and inclination to put any of it back together. He flipped the light on. The room maintained. He considered what his first move should be, and resolved that he’d eat something. He had some microwave food, and the experience was pleasant enough. Really, it was just an attempt to delay the inevitable. He would eventually lay down in bed, with that same sensation of a snake coiling around his lungs and he wouldn’t know what to do about it. Some of his coworkers were really nice. He was friends with some of them. They were something of a group. They’d go out to bars together and drink and smoke and watch movies and do whatever they felt like. He hadn’t expected to spend as much time with these people as he had recently, but that wasn’t a bad thing. He had been enjoying himself. There was a lot of fun to be had with them. Still, there was really one reason more than any other for his continued participation. He’d liked her for about a year now. He couldn’t really remember the last time he’d “liked” someone. In all honesty, he wasn’t quite sure what that meant anymore, all he knew was that he felt it for her. Still, he had no intention of doing anything about it. Friday, they would all go together on a little pub crawl, and eventually get really high. Those nights always came and went in a bit of a blur, but that was the fun of it all. The week was a continuous stream of mostly undefined impressions, but the weekend was virile and fatalistic. It felt like there were stakes, even if he made sure there really weren’t any. This Friday would be no different. Somehow, he wasn’t sure how to feel about that. The music seemed louder than usual tonight. He’d had his fair share to drink, yet he couldn’t shake this feeling of cold lucidity that held him. It wasn’t the ideal mindset when you’re in the middle of a dance hall. He found himself idling again. That fact made him uncomfortable. If he didn’t get up to something soon, then he’d be in for it. When he saw her friend coming over, he knew it was too late. “Go ask her to dance.” He hated the lecturing, but it was only fair. Everyone knew what was going on, and everyone could see he was doing nothing about it. He thought on some level that their goading was a little unfair, because they didn’t know his reason for inactivity, but at the same time he knew that he really didn’t either. He looked at her friend with playful disdain. “What, are you calling me pussy?” “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Go.” She was being a good friend to him for this, yet at the same time he couldn’t help but feel a little resentful. Prodding him into action meant prodding the source of his inaction, and that was something that no one was supposed to even be aware of. Of course, she wasn’t aware of it directly, but even being able to touch it tangentially felt like an assault. He gathered that he really didn’t have much of a choice. It was time to stop pussying out. He walked up to her, and found that he couldn’t think in that moment, which was for the best. If he could, he’d just think about what he was about to say and it would tumble out of his mouth completely twisted. “Hey, are we gonna dance?” He was relieved at how casual it sounded. He knew her well enough now to know that they were somewhat alike in their anxiety, and because of that she was eerily in tune with the insecurities at bare in him at any given moment. The grace with which he executed the line was like a verbal suit of armor. “Yes, but I can’t dance.” He figured she’d say something of the sort. “That’s great!” he said as he took her hand and led her to the dance floor, “Neither can I.” He’d love to have been able to say that the dance was evidently special to any onlooker, but in all actuality it wasn’t. It was actually a bit awkward. Neither of them, in reality, were very good at dancing. More than once they lost rhythm, or bumped into someone else. He spun her around a few times and even dipped her. The whole time they danced they just made comments about how off-beat they were, yet he couldn’t help but feel like it meant something. Being so close to her in that moment, feeling the skin of her hand against his, and the way their bodies moved together. It was the first time that night that his lucidity counted for something. He felt fortunate that this feeling would be hard to forget. After their dance was over, he felt like he came away with something. Looking at her then, as they made their way off the dancefloor, her face bathed in flickering and flaring multicolored lights, he understood that she probably didn’t feel the same way, and while that knowledge made him feel raw, naked, and vulnerable, he was okay with it. At least he got to make her happy, even if for a moment. After all the dancing was over, and the hall emptied, they made pilgrimage back to her friend's apartment. The weed gave way to a new, uncomfortable dimension of social awareness, but that was unavoidable. They watched a stupid comedy, and then proceeded to watch the whole series. Of course, he was forced to sit next to her on the couch. He’d expected as much. It made everyone giddy to see him squirm. So he sat next to her and watched. He knew her penchant for early nights, so he figured she’d go up to her room soon. That’s exactly the reason he was so shocked when she laid across his lap. An hour must have passed before he built up the courage to touch her. He felt conflicted for being so hesitant, but also couldn’t shake the feeling that if he did touch her something terrible would happen. As the night went on, and each movie blended into the next, came to hold her as she drifted off to sleep. He still felt that same sense of uneasiness, that same edge, but the scent of her hair and the warmth of her skin made those feelings unimportant. He’d bathe in this feeling for now, and not think about anything else. He’d invited her over to his place to watch some movies. He felt nervous. At this point they’d gone out on a few undeniable dates. He was getting more and more comfortable around her, but still, having her at his place, just the two of them, it felt like he was showing too much of his hand. When she came, he decided he’d skip the game of pretending like they weren’t going to end up laying together, pressed as close as they could be. All of his doubt started to fade when he held her again, and he could be in that moment, drowning in her presence. They watched one movie, and then put on another. The movie stopped being so important. Where they’d actively been watching, commenting, joking, and laughing through the first one, the second was met with silence. They laid facing each other, legs intertwined. His cheek was pressed against hers, and his hand was buried in her hair, cradling the back of her head. He felt frozen in time, like his slightest move could cause her to shatter. He wanted to hold her so close that she would sink into him and they’d become one, so that he’d be able to feel her fingers, arms, and legs under his skin. He moved his face so that he could press his forehead against hers. As he did, their corners of their lips brushed. His heart punched him in the chest. He found himself surprisingly short of breath. He froze there, with their faces an inch away from each other. The time that passed like that had no concern for punctuality. He felt his arms contract, pulling her in, a fraction of an inch a second. He was helpless. She was everything in that moment. When their lips finally met, his chest caved inward and blew out of his back, leaving a hole where his solar plexus would have been, and the violence of the situation was unspeakable. He said goodbye to every solitary vestige that clung to him and the spaces he’d occupied in the days he’d walked the Earth. His bedsheets. His car. His books. His mom. The cookies. Fractions. Jealousy. Intimacy. The feeling of being slowly strangled. The poison in his veins. The fact that he’d wanted to make something special. The fact that he’d never known he was disabled, maybe? He’d never be able to paint his life on canvas. He’d never be able to embellish his death with words. He’d never truly face himself. He’d never see her again. All was as it was meant to be. Maybe one day he’d find the bones of the person he once was and build a house with them. He could only dream.