Joe College

Joe College, Part 31

I spat mud like mucous. Tongue sanding the back of my teeth, grit against enamel. I spat before I stood. I later rinsed my mouth with water, flossed twice when we got back, three more times before bed, but four days later, I felt ghost mortar between my teeth.

My same teeth that endured years of braces, all of the orthodontics. How I'd studied myself in the mirror after my braces came off. A handsome boy, sixteen years, with a driver's license and enamel cleared of scaffolding. I was 16 and played baseball and basketball. Some weekends I wore a backward Knicks cap, smoked joints and drank beers. My mischief had been safe, boysome, life affirming. I smiled. Girls complimented my smile. My teeth had felt straight and clean.

If I'd hit a stone or the patch of trail hadn't been soft and muddy from April saturation, if I'd fallen at a different angle, those teeth would have ragged and jagged. If my tongue had been differently positioned, if my chin had hit, I could have clamped down, severed it, sliced tongue spat into dirt, bloodflood undammed.

It was in the shock of how I landed, with that clotting on my tongue. I wasn't supposed to fall. It was retaliation. I'd just tried to shove him. My childish anger. He could have been the one who lost balance. That would haunt me more. Imagine the story he would have told himself, if first I had been the one who sprained his thumb, then later the one who made him fall on that hill, especially if it had injured him –

– especially because I shoved him or what he said.

It had started so nice. I thought I was happy. I didn't know. It could be that the less you like me, the more you've understood. I'm not offended if you don't like me; I'm a different person now, part of the time. I've always tried to shield him, even years later, when from a distance it all looked so pointless.

The feel of that mud comes back easily, making it the first thing I remember, but the fall was superficial. A vanity wound. I already overdosed on hurt and platonic testosterone. His version was as correct as mine. I reject his version, but its logic is clean. His words hummed through me as I fell. My mind had been trying to reorganize – to index his account in classified files, out of plain sight, save them for a later audit or perhaps shred them permanently.

I couldn't stop.

It started when I said, "One good thing about my recent troubles, it made me get that people kind of care about me. It's something I maybe assumed, but there's a difference between assuming that and experiencing it."

["Joe, dude, it sucks that you went through this by yourself and didn't think you could talk about it. You know that people fucking love you, dude."]

I felt open. It was innocent.

["Yeah, but problems are like assholes. You know the saying."]

A small shame of it was that for few days we'd been getting along so well. Almost like in the first year we knew each other, before the night he arrived to my room and life escalated. We were able to tease each other for our quirks, get drunk together without tension, banter without subtext.

["Bro, that's no good. Don't talk that way."]

It felt like our former friendship, renewed. We should have left it that way all along. I'd forgotten how easy he could be when we weren't alternating between repression and intensity. This was the person that Michelle loved so much, not the one I'd spent two years failing to unpack.

["There was nothing you could have done for me, dude. It felt horrible, and I needed to work through it on my own."]

That day was made for a run: Here's the sun, it's all right. It was early April and the mid-50s were liberation. It stormed before the sun verbed out in mid-afternoon. Trevor changed to go with us, but at the last minute he decided to shoot hoops with some guys at the courts north of the Quad.

["You better now?"]

If Trevor had come, it wouldn't have happened.

["I mean, in the sense that it seems chronic but not fatal. There were times when I thought I might literally go insane."]

It wasn't a serious run. We started slow. It was an excuse to have the day, go through campus, lick the air. It tasted like rain and smelled like fresh dirt.

["Bro, tell me what I'm missing. I don't get why it's so bad for you."]

If we'd been running faster, it wouldn't have happened. I wouldn't have had the lung capacity to speak a complete sentence or attempt casual chat. We ran through the Quad. The grass was wet. People sat in it anyway. They sat on the marble benches, congregated on the brick plaza in front of the library, smoking Parliament Lights and gossiping. A group handed out Falun Gong leaflets.

["I only know how to be a good friend. I only understand dudes as friends. Nothing else feels right. It doesn't make sense. The idea of more than that fucks me up. It feels wrong. Not morally. As a category. They're a person to get off with or a person to be friends with. When I try to have both thoughts at the same time, I freak. The guys I feel closest to are friends. Physical stuff with guys feels like an abstract sexuality. Like it's not real. I know that's not clear. I can't have both thoughts at the same time."]

Physique of a quarterback or varsity swimmer. So odd that he hadn't been a high-school athlete, even more now that I understood his siblings' histories. You couldn't recall how soft and uncoordinated he'd been at the start of freshman year, how he gasped and fought to complete a first mile.

["Dude. Look at me and Katie. What you're saying isn't that different. Lots of us have messed-up ideas about these things. It's not a gay thing. We just, like, aren't always good about lining up emotions and attraction."]

Graduation was in six weeks. Everything was a last time.

["Could be. I can't tell. I mean, I've also thought of it as being coerced into a religion that I didn't sign up for. Like I'm supposed to have attitudes and an identity that don't feel true."]

I wasn't thinking about the bad times. I was cool with him and figured he was cool with me. I was light and easy with my words, not prepared for how badly he needed to unleash.

["Joe, dude, I feel closer to Pikachu and Goku than I do to Vishnu, and I'm not even into Pokemon or Dragonball. Help me take it up with my parents about a religion that you don't believe. This stuff is hitting you from a gay angle, but it's shit that a lot of us have to deal with."]

"One good thing about my recent troubles," I said to Chris, "it made me get that people kind of care about me. It's something I maybe assumed, but there's a difference between assuming that and experiencing it."

"Why'd you say that thing a couple minutes ago?"

"What one?"

"About experiencing the way other people care."

"Dude, just some stuff Trevor said. Nothing too crazy."

A block later. "Sounds pretty nice for you and Trevor."

"Ha. I suppose."

Another block. "It's nice how you get to be a liar and a made-up person, and then your friends praise you for it."

(every time you close your eyes)

"Yeah, like, if they knew the half of it."

"Funny." Like it wasn't.

If we'd run faster, we couldn't have talked, and it wouldn't have happened.

"What did you tell Trevor?" he said.

"Nothing. General, generic stuff. Things that I worry about. Nothing about other people. Not you."

He was quiet.

"I'd never tell anyone that stuff," I said. "You know that, dude."

"You are consistent about that."

"It would be cruel."

"Yeah," he said. "Wouldn't describe you as cruel."

"Ha. Thanks." Curiosity and confidence flicked me. "How would you describe me?"

Side-eye smirk. "For real?" He ticked up our pace. "Dishonest, conceited, manipulative. You're a great liar."

(every time you close your eyes)

I cold-throbbed, "Wow."

"You use people for attention. You mostly care about attention and praise." He paused long enough for me to defend myself, but I didn't.

"Then move on to the next stunt, next person, next crowd. Almost everything is an act, an image. You're pretty fun so you get away with it. Most people couldn't. I couldn't."

I considered cutting the next left and going directly back to Hamilton. Thwarting his bitterness, getting away from all of that. Two thoughts held me near: that if I didn't hear him out, I might never know, and that I was strong enough to absorb his words. That his thoughts were unreasonable and came from hurt, and I could manage them without offense. I couldn't stop.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"For what?"

"For what I put you through."

"You don't even know," he said. "You think it's all normal."

"None of it was normal."

"What are you apologizing for?"

"For." It was a trap. Stay vague. "All of the stress about that stuff. Not giving you a head's up about that dumb column. Mishandling our situation."

His delivery was sharp and quick. Not the standard mumbles. "You don't even know because you're so into your own thoughts. You only care about what affects you. You don't understand anything."

"Tell me, dude," I said.

His silence was strategic. I wouldn't leave it: Tell me, dude. Few things made me itch like the itch of not knowing. Of course I wanted to know: tell me about my lies, my misdeeds, my manipulations. The quiet is worse than not knowing.

He ignored my invitation. Our pace built, like he was trying to escape me or display his strength. My syllables required timing. We glided past the frat houses and into civilian blocks, where faculty and professionals lived. Civilians had cleaner gardens and porches, fewer vehicles on the curbs, cleaner paint on the sills and eaves, but the genes of their early-20th Century houses were otherwise indistinguishable from ours.

A mile or more passed. Our pace on flat terrain was somewhere in the low-7:00s. Too hard to talk. His form was good. He could have run faster, could have licked me in a footrace. An elementary school had finished a day's business. Children swung. I couldn't stop.

"Wait," I gasped, slowing, letting my lungs catch my voice. My mouth was dry. I spat. We eased back toward our earlier 9-minute pace. "Tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me what I don't understand."

"Because it's too late to matter, and you'll never change."

"But maybe," I said. "Dude. You're still my friend. Tell me how I fucked up."

A lycanthropic lip. Eye contact was a warning. His voice was cleaner and less winded.

"How about that crazy letter you wrote me. Because you were too scared to talk. So instead of having a conversation like a person, like the friend you say, I got sucker-punched."

I wanted to say something but was too startled.

"You knew you were too scared to talk to me. You even said that you had to write because you were scared of saying the wrong thing or sounding stupid. Like sounding stupid is so terrible, like it's the worst thing in the world. No one ever cared if you sounded stupid. Maybe sounding stupid would have made you sincere.

"You have no idea how I felt reading that letter. It was hell. You thought you were telling me something nice but it was like getting smacked. I almost didn't finish because I wouldn't look at you the same, but I read it all, because I didn't know who I was dealing with anymore. Like you were having a breakdown and putting all of it on me. Those ultimatums and sweeping judgments. About me, about yourself. Reading it was scary, dude. It read like you were going to end it by threatening to blackmail me or to hurt yourself. But at the end you just rambled about how much you love me. Which might have seemed real if you'd told me in person, or it didn't come after a bunch of accusations. Or like you were trying to make me feel awful about myself, because I turned out not to be the person you wanted me to be.

"All that stuff about what an important friend I was, but you couldn't even talk about it. You weren't writing to me. Didn't have anything to do with me. You needed an audience to dump your messed up thoughts, and you made me your target."

"Okay." I watched the sidewalk. I couldn't stop. "Okay."

"You never cared what I thought. You wanted a witness for your weird misery. You wanted to pin me down, make me feel bad, but God knows you couldn't afford to sound stupid."

"No," I said. I was the one reaching for words. "I tried to talk to you before. I know I tried to talk before that letter." I couldn't recall my aborted attempts at conversation; I barely remembered the contents of the letter that I'd so nervously composed.

His voice was authoritative, almost prosecutorial. It reminded me of my father when he caught me in a lie. "No you didn't. You talked about how you hated your summer in New York, and your crazy ideas about how we'd move to L.A. or Michigan together. That conversation wasn't about me. It was about how you didn't know what to do with your own life, and your answer was to pressure me with extreme scenarios that made no sense. Obviously I'd say no. That stuff isn't my life. Making those choices isn't me. That was your own problem."

Was it? I couldn't scratch out the details. It was a struggle to maintain normal form. If a bus were coming toward us, I wouldn't have noticed. I couldn't stop. I remembered him dismissing me but couldn't recall the context. "I didn't mean to do that," I said.

"Right. Did you wonder how it felt from my perspective?"

"Yes," I said. "I guess we never know how other people, like, perceive certain-"

"Because those conversations were about you. Always about you."

"No," I said.

He ignored the syllable. "Even after that crazy letter, you never talked to me. You didn't talk to me before you published your column. That truly deranged column. The fact that people didn't treat that as an awful joke – I mean. Totally mental. Then our so-called friends thought that I was the jerk, because I didn't fall all over myself about your, like, secret, or evolution, your self-acceptance, ha. Another mess you made, but you couldn't talk to me, give me any warning, didn't even acknowledge it."

Here, his voice listed into anger. It's hard enough to talk when you're running, even harder to shout a sentence. "Our friends thought I was a bad guy. Like I was judging you because you're gay. Michelle tells me I'm ruining everything, Sam and Katie think I'm a bigot." Softer: "You fucking asshole." The power of not cursing, of reserving those words, means that when the speaker swears, profanity regains its power. "You made everybody think I was an awful person. They turned against me so easily, it felt like they'd been waiting for an excuse to judge me, and there was no way I could explain without making things worse. You selfish asshole."

"No, man," I said, "that wasn't it at all."

"But everybody cares about you so much. So great for you. So great that you've experienced how much other people care. Until they stop telling you what you want to hear, and you throw them away and move on to the next crowd."

"No, dude," I said. "Never. I love you guys so much."

"Where are we even running?" he said angrily. "Where are we even? I don't even recognize where this is."

"Okay." Reprieve. "I think McKinley Park. It's like a half-mile to our left. The golf course is still ahead-"

"We're that close to McKinley Park?" Like he was angry at my estimate.

"Yeah, I think."

McKinley Park, half-wild, where we'd run so many hills. Moms, high-school cross-country teams and grad students jogged there. In a different kind of town, it would be a place where dudes dumped bodies and homeless guys encamped. The only crimes McKinley Park hosted were by freshmen who went there to smoke a joint in the woods, but that wasn't even really a crime because possession only got you a $5 ticket from a hypothetical cop.

As we turned toward the park, Chris said, "I could go on about what an amazing liar you are. All the ways that you're a hypocrite." Pause. "But I think you get the idea."

"No," I said, wanting to lose hearing. "Tell me, dude."

I couldn't stop.

A person shouldn't worry that his friends are liars. He thought that I was a gifted liar. I lied as calmly as I yawned, anticipated what people might think before any worry brushed him--

-- tell them you dozed off after we watched that movie

-- talk to that girl, that girl likes you, but she's not clingy, she doesn't get attached

-- take her out but don't lead her on, be aloof, you know how to be aloof

-- let people know you went out with her

-- kiss them if you're drunk and it feels right but don't do more than that, don't compliment them too much, don't do more than make out, if you do too much or say too many nice things it gets complicated

-- we'll tell them we went back early because you were wasted

-- nobody will notice that we didn't go, but if they do, we watched Blue Velvet and then you passed out, you were up late last night writing that paper

-- don't react when Sam talks shit because it makes you look sensitive, like it's real, like you're tense and have something to hide, you always have to joke with him, play along with the joke

and if I was so attuned to potential threats, that implied that threats were everywhere. Did that one thing look sketchy? Did that thing seem weird? Did ___________ notice that he ____________ when I was around? His brain couldn't shut off its worries.

Sometimes it felt like an awesome trick, like we partnered on a con act. I would tell him to say something, and people reacted as I predicted. He marveled at how good I was at snuffing suspicions, making it look normal.

He then understood that my tactics might not have limits. If I was so good at deceiving other people, I could have been gaming him too. He no longer knew if I was truthful or whether I did things simply for reaction.

Though he was horrified at the prospect that someone would know what we'd been up to, he didn't want to take the camouflage as far as I did. It would have better to cut it off, or to let them murmur and deny it if confronted.

For me, it was so fluid that it didn't take effort. I was immune to myself.

"Don't you even feel bad for what you did to Katie?" he said.

"What did I do to Katie?"

"Obviously you're not that stupid. Katie was into you ever since we all moved in. It's why her situation with Trevor is chaos. She likes him but she liked you more, and the whole time she was holding out for that. Then you had your drunk make-out with her at our party, just – I don't know, because you're a dick? You thought it might maintain your image? That made her think something was happening, so congratulations. Of course she freaked when you announced your situation. She was the most pissed-off one. Everybody thinks I'm the awful person now, but she said worse stuff about you than I ever did. They don't hold that against her, but everyone thinks I'm the devil."

He hated those fake dates that I coached; they were pointless, dull. He'd rather leave me to my adventures and date them for real, or he could find an easier way to cover for himself, or whatever. A whatever was fine, because he'd been fine with whatever before he met me, and now that it was back to whatever he was fine again.

It was better than never knowing, not understanding, having to maintain so many stories and performances. He liked that girl, Amanda Ford, who was so attractive, and kind to him, and never pressed the issue. She was the sort of person who he should have been with. He wanted to go out with her, had come so close to kissing her, she'd been so alive in his thoughts, he imagined conversations with her when he was alone, dreamed about her, felt sad when they parted at the end of a night, but by then he was so tangled that there was no such thing as a good idea.

It would have been better if he'd never known me

harmed Andy, discarded Matt

because that way he wouldn't have known different.

Then he'd hang out with me, and, in his telling, I was always fun to be around, because I had all of these ideas and energy. People liked me because I made things happen, he said, like Sam did, and then he felt glad that we knew each other the way that we did. That we'd gotten to be so close seemed fortunate. Seeing me made him feel better. It was fun when I was there, but when I wasn't, there were nights when he couldn't stand the idea of me. He thought of the perceived slights and condescension, all of the lies

(every time you close your eyes)

that I forced. It wasn't a friendship, not really; not a relationship; sometimes he was captive, and it continued only because he didn't know how to set the fire; sometimes his body wanted to close down; sometimes his body had so much energy that his chest flooded.

"I never would have said this if you hadn't asked," he said, "but honestly, the best thing about graduation is getting away from this. Just getting back to some kind of normal life, without ridiculous, constant – all of this stress. You're always so extreme. You talked about Chicago and New York or going to Michigan with me, which was the last thing I wanted. There's no way that was going to happen."

"Dude," I said.

"It's flattering that you think you like me so much, but you don't actually."

"No, I do."

"You only think so right now," he said, "but really, you don't."

"No," I said. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"In this fantasy world, being Joe College, complimenting yourself on your grades and classes, acting like a party star, trying to run up the number of people you think are your friends."

"No. I care so much. I fucked up."

"All imaginary. Like anyone in the real world cares how much someone knows about Dante or Faulkner, or whether you were one of the first people into Arcade Fire. That stuff is part of what makes you interesting and fun, but none of it matters. Mastering that stuff isn't morally superior to being the best at Mario Kart."

"I don't even understand what we're talking about now."

"Everything's in your head."

"All this time, I thought we got to be so close. Really, truly friends, at least."

"So did I, for a long time."

"But what? That week at your cottage."

"I didn't understand it then. I was doing what you said. I'm not doing that anymore."

"That's not what I wanted. I thought you needed to sort it out. That's why we didn't talk more. You could have brought it up. I didn't want to corner you."

"Didn't want to corner me until you wrote an essay about my life, tried to define who I was based on your own personal experiences, put the pressure on me with crazy demands."

"I fucked up."

"For real."

"Almost everything you've said is the opposite of what I thought."

"Joe."

He slowed to a stop. His voice had been clear and strong in a way I'd only rarely heard before, mostly when he was drunk. A precise and confident tenor, and not a shy half-spoken baritone.

"You're probably the most interesting person that I've ever met," he said, "but you have this idea that you're a good guy. You lie to people and mess with your friends, and status is the thing you really care about. It almost seems like you don't even care about your family. The only one you ever talk about is your brother Rob and you hate him."

(hiding from your brothers)

"I don't understand what you're saying," I said, but every observation dug deeper. Like he'd been privy to each regret and insecurity that flickered underneath the covers at 2 a.m., spoken in the voice that prosecutes your trivial misjudgments and flaws. "I don't know why you're saying all of this."

"You told me to tell you."

"I know."

This perceptive, forceful person had been hiding from us. We treated him like the family dog – projecting his personality traits as befit our moods: Chris is chill, Chris is quiet and sullen, Chris is shy, Chris is judgmental, Chris is easily pleased. The youngest in a family of alphas, carving a niche to separate himself, one that made him special from the others. Quiet, affectless. The silence gave him sway. The reason he stood out from the rest, why Michelle and Katie mothered him, Sam teased him, Trevor coached him, I shielded him. Our imaginary project who wasn't.

I wanted to cry a bit in private. I wanted to punch him and shove him to the ground. But most intensely, for several disoriented seconds, I wanted his dick down my throat. If he shoved me against a tree and fucked me dry, I would have been down for that, and getting fucked sounds like torture. His voice sounded so strong. He was smart and confident when it came time to destroy me. I smelled our sweat, saw the sweat dripping off his chin, the limp bulge in his shorts slightly emphasized by his hands on his hips. He was tall and broad and defined, his legs limber and shins flecked with mud flicked by his black Nikes.

For seconds we stared at each other, like one of us might utter something awful or conciliatory. I briefly closed my eyes

(lies,

lies)

and wanted to punish him for the choked fever dream that had overcome me.

"Your mom knows, dude," I said.

spontaneous

not even on my mind

a verbal sneeze

I couldn't stop.

"Pathetic," he said.

[Calling Shreve my husband.]

"No dude, she knows, she knew about me, she knew what we were up to." I couldn't stop. "She knew about you before you met me. She told me when I was at the lake, she told me that she was glad, dude, she was so cool about it. She loves you, dude, she just wants you to be happy, she saw how happy it seemed."

"You are a."

"I shouldnt've said it! It sounds like I'm trying to get you back. I meant to say something earlier. She probably wanted me to say something. That's why she told me."

"What did you tell her?"

"Nothing."

"What did you say?"

"Dude, nothing."

"She made an announcement."

he wouldn't believe

"You were taking a nap. Remember how we went to that store for ice cream and you kept joking about how it seemed like I was high, you kept saying that, and then at the store I bought that pack of Camels just to smoke half of one, because I was freaking out so hard."

"You said something."

"Fuck no."

"What did you say?"

"There wasn't anything to say. She said some stuff, and then I think I asked about iced coffee."

"You're trying to make me hate my own mom."

(scare your son

scare your daughter)

"No."

"You're so messed up that you're trying to poison things between me and my mom, so then I hate her, or I'll say something to her and humiliate myself."

"No, dude, your mom loves you so much. You don't have to believe me if you want, but don't hold it against your mom. She was happy about it, she loves you and wants you to be happy."

"I don't need for you to talk to me about my mom. At least I have an actual relationship with my mom."

"Your mom is awesome, Chris. I love your mom. Your whole family. Fuck."

my bubonic neurology

"What, are you upset that I caught your setup?"

"No. It all came out wrong. I shouldn't have said anything. I couldn't stop."

stop acting so gay

"You never stop when you should."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Stop."

"I will. I shouldn't have asked."

"You're the one who asked."

"I know. I just said that."

"Don't get mad at me. I never would have said any of this. Try to talk to me about my mom, turn me against my mom."

"No."

I closed my eyes

(lies,

lies)

and faced away, trying to salvage dignity, concerned by the prospect that a med student or thirtysomething lady with a yellow lab would jog past and observe conditions.

"You probably really think the things that you're saying," I said, "but that's okay."

"Relax, dude. Calm down."

"Like, that you'd rather hate me than have it hanging over your head. That's okay. I'd rather have you, like, think that you hate me than be miserable."

"Stop. Shut up."

"I will."

"I don't hate you. You didn't choose to be messed up."

"We've said enough now."

"Calm down."

"I'm trying."

"At least other people care about you. Apparently Trevor cares about you. Great."

"Now you're being mean."

He paced me in a semi-circle, hands on hips, an anxious predator. It was the posture of a bar-room fistfight from a whitetrash VHS, something with Patrick Swayze or Burt Reynolds. He busted my head with a glass pitcher of High Life. He stayed back, possibly worrying that he'd unscrewed my discretion, the damage I could cause if I turned volatile and wanted his undoing. He couldn't know that, even in my bitter shame, I was trying to compose an explanation for any stranger that might jog across us and spot me overwrought.

I knew that my shove wouldn't hurt. It was a child's gesture intended to irritate, to get attention. Uphill. Was he toying with me? I caught a smirk when he looked back. Stronger lungs. He scampered uphill while I struggled. I breathed twice with each footstrike. The soft dirt path worked my ankle muscles. He slowed so that I could catch up. Condescension. Glanced back to spot me. I struck him between the shoulder blades with an open hand. It pushed him. The sweat of his shirt leaked onto my fingers.

"The hell?" he said. Elbowed the air between us. Spat sideways and kept climbing. The hill went up. Closer to the hill. It smelled like basil and dead poplar leaves. I couldn't stop. There was no top.

I accepted the retaliation but didn't expect to hit. Running downhill, soles sometimes sliding on wet dirt. I ran as hard as I could. Maybe a six-minute pace. Don't let him beat me. He slowed. Jerked behind – did he injure himself?

Christian Riis hovered and his two hands shoved my lower back. My chin already far ahead of my body. An independent misstep and I might have fallen anyway. Arms pinwheeled. My mouth cut the dirt with a crunch of appeasement. The ground punched my nose and chin. Front teeth cut the earth like a backhoe.

I stopped. Tongue sanding the back of my teeth, grit against enamel. I gagged. Thought that I couldn't breathe as I coughed dirt from the back of my tongue. The run left my lungs roaring for air but I couldn't inhale without choking. Hacked and heaved as I cleared my mouth.

are you okay

he panicked

are you okay

dude are you okay

whoah

I couldn't answer. I touched my muddy teeth with my fingers – all present. I spat mud like mucous. I touched my nose – it wasn't broken, it hadn't hit. A superficial scrape on my upper lip, the tiniest film of blood.

Breathe and spit.

dude I'm so sorry

joe are you okay

i didn't mean for you to fall like that, seriously

seriously i wasn't trying to

are you okay

"Yeah."

"Dude, that was messed up. I'm sorry."

"I started it." Mud on my face and chin. "You fought back." I continued spitting. My nose ran and eyes watered. "I get it."

A tingle in my amygdala. A limbic seizure tickled my spine. I felt almost giddy. He looked dumb and panicked. I wanted to laugh. Everything was stupid.

I let him go. He felt true guilt. I told him I wasn't hurt. The sun was getting lower. My quads ached. Go ahead of me, I said. I'm not mad. I just need to clear my head alone. He apologized again. I told him that I started it. He waited until I showed him that I could still run. He glanced back at least twice as he ran off. I waited for him to turn and head home without me. I jogged slowly, arms and face streaked with dirt, adding at least an extra mile, running back past the Quad and the library, past the newspaper building, the art museum, the president's house.

Nobody observed my mess when I came home. After I showered I sat alone on the front porch, smoking cigarettes, listening to NPR, feeling my heart race, until I dozed on the ratted porch couch. It was cold when I woke. Later on we ordered pizzas. Nothing new passed between me and Chris. When the rest of them went out – to bars, to the library, to parties – I stayed home. I pilfered some of Trevor's pot, got high alone and watched Duck Soup on TCM.