Tao Lin: Bed

“That’s not right,” the teenager said. “You were lucky. Rematch.”

“Good job,” Chelsea said. There was something dark and tall in the far corner, past a few billiards tables, and she glanced at it.

“Skill,” said Chelsea’s dad.

The teenager had a hand in his pocket, low and feeling for quarters, and he looked at Chelsea, and Chelsea looked down at the teenager’s shoes — they were green — then elsewhere, and then made eye contact with her dad, by accident, and looked away. But he’d been watching her, so Chelsea looked back; he was grinning, and she felt sorry for him, for having created her — for having brought such a shy and cheerless thing into this quickly passing world — and wanted to go away, for three months (three would be enough, if she really tried, and worked hard), to learn about talking and feelings and relationships, and come back, then, confident as a friend, real and laughing as a daughter.

“I won,” said Chelsea’s dad, and went to give Chelsea a high-five, but missed, as they were standing too close.

“My fault,” he said. “That was my fault.”

“Oh,” Chelsea said.

And he stepped back a little and tried again, but Chelsea, distracted now by something — maybe the plant in the far corner, standing and waiting like a person in a dream, or maybe the green shoe or some other thing that was out there and longing, to be looked at, and taken — wasn’t ready, and their hands, his then hers, passed through the air in a kind of wave, a little goodbye.