Teddy Wayne - Loner

When I came home from the library that night I heard music from Steven’s room. “Always on My Mind” was playing on repeat. It was irritating, and I wondered if he had left it on accidentally. After the seventh cycle, I rapped on his door.

“One minute” came his voice from inside. The volume dropped and he appeared. His face was as pink as raw hamburger, his eyelashes matted and wet.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Ivana and I,” he croaked, “we… we…”

He swallowed without finishing.

“You broke up?”

He closed his eyes and nodded as if confirming a death.

“Sorry to hear that,” I said, and I was: his relationship with Ivana had kept him out of the suite.

The ends of his lips sagged gravely as he fought off tears. It was disconcerting to see him this way. I’d known Steven only to be relentlessly chipper about everything: the weather, whatever was on the menu, all the people he knew. (“Isn’t he awesome?” he’d declare about each acquaintance who stopped by our table to say hello.)

He waved me into his room and crumpled into the bean bag chair, where he delivered a long-winded, unsolicited account of how his and Ivana’s romance for the ages had met its demise.

It wasn’t him, it was her. She didn’t want to be tied down her freshman year and thought they should see other people. She felt like she couldn’t breathe. She loved him but this was the best thing for both of them. Each cliché prompted vocal ruptures and a welling up. I responded on cue with my own platitudes lifted from movies and TV shows: he’d done nothing wrong, there were other girls out there who would appreciate him more, it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

“She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known, inside and out,” he said. “And she really got me.”

Up to this point I’d managed to affect a look of sympathy, but here I nearly laughed. Forget the absurd notion of her contending with you for that title: Ivana was, by even the most charitable judgment, so distant from the winners’ circle, way up in the cheap seats, that one might almost suspect Steven of mockery.

“She’s cute,” I said, “but the world is filled with cute girls. You’ll find someone better.”

“I don’t want anyone better ,” he said. “I want her .”

“I mean better for you.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want another relationship.”

“Well,” I said, “you’ll feel better in the morning.”

He nodded through his phlegm production. “I should call my mom back,” he sniffled. “But thanks for being here for me.”

“Sure,” I told him.

As I headed toward the door, he stood and intercepted me with a hug. “You’re a good roommate,” he said.

“Not at all,” I said, wriggling out of his embrace and ducking back into my room. “Oh, and if you wouldn’t mind keeping the music down.”

Steven recovered like an inflatable clown punching bag. “I realized we’re not one hundred percent compatible, and I should find someone more suited to me, and so should she,” he told me two days later. “And don’t worry — we’re going to make sure nothing’s weird between us, so we can all hang out like before. Ivana and I decided the most important thing is the unity of the Matthews Marauders.”

Thank God for small mercies.

On Friday evening Sara and I went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She kept asking what I thought about the European collection, assuming I was now an expert in the visual arts thanks to my Renaissance to Impressionism class. I answered to the best of my midsemester survey-course abilities but gave evasive or fabricated responses to questions that flummoxed me. To compensate, I pointed at a subway advertisement during our ride home.

“Look at that ad,” I told Sara. “See how it shows just the woman’s mouth eating the candy bar? It’s isolating the one non-taboo main orifice, which takes in an edible object that becomes a phallic substitute. Now check out that bank ad. Male mouths are rarely eroticized. Instead, they’re used to imply speech or some other kind of power.”

“That’s pretty insightful,” she said. “Most guys don’t pick up on stuff like that in everyday life.”

I shrugged. “I guess I’m not like most guys.”

“Yeah.” She kissed my cheek. “You’re definitely not.”

When we reached Matthews my eyes traveled up to your fifth-floor window, warm with apricot light. You were home.

Our plan was to watch Dumbo ; when Sara had found out I’d never seen it she insisted upon a screening. But first she had to finish editing a high school student’s college essay. The tutoring organization she volunteered for matched Harvard students with Boston-area youth from underserved communities.

“I wish I could disable the thesaurus function from my kids’ computers,” she said. I looked up from my Dickinson book and at her screen, where she’d highlighted a sentence: “In college I will continue to prevail over my trials and tribulations and conquer adversity as I metamorphose my dreams into a reality.”

“That’s really bad,” I said. “I hate to say it, but are you really doing a favor helping someone who writes like that go to a good college? Won’t they be in over their head?”

“First of all, she’s not trying to get into Harvard. Second of all, it’s over their heads . And when you feel like criticizing someone, remember that all the people in the world haven’t had the advantages you’ve had.”

“I used ‘they’ because I didn’t know the writer’s gender. And I haven’t had all the advantages. Compared to some people.”

“You have , hugely,” she said. “And I said ‘all the people,’ not ‘all the advantages.’ It’s the beginning of The Great Gatsby . Don’t you remember the opening line?”

“It’s been a while since I read it. I think it was, like, seventh grade,” I lied. “It’s the last book on the Prufrock syllabus. I’ll be rereading it soon.”

“You’ll be breeding it soon?”

“I’ll be re-read-ing it soon.”

“You’re a real mumbler, you know,” she said.

We were lying on the bed, about to start the movie on her laptop, when you came out of your room. That was our riotous Friday nightlife on display for you: Dumbo , my Dickinson anthology on the floor, tickets for an upcoming performance of the Boston Philharmonic thumbtacked to the corkboard. Just a couple of unruly college kids.

“David,” you said as you passed by. Sara and I looked up, both incredulous that you would address me. “Do you know what this week’s reading is?”

“Emily Dickinson,” I replied.

“Cool.” You stepped into the hallway. “See you in class.”

It was completely unnecessary for you to ask me, right then, as you were leaving to go out. You were throwing your weight around, letting Sara know she had some competition.

“I didn’t know you were in class together,” Sara said a minute into the opening credits.

“We didn’t realize it until this week,” I said. “It’s a pretty big class.”

I followed her to it during shopping period. If I could have, I would have signed up for her other classes, too. I stayed up all night writing an essay for her while I lied to you. I’m only here because she sleeps in the next room.

Feeling Sara’s gaze on my face, I yawned.

“Did you guys sit next to each other or something?” she asked, yawning contagiously.