there’s fault in my stars.
The drive over the bridge was excruciatingly slow. Where is everyone going right now? I hadn’t eaten all day, for good reason. It’s not just like, “Oh, I was working so much and had so many meetings and, well, you know, I just forgot to eat!” My heart was a garbage pile, each day a new thought, a new sadness, discarded right on top of it. Hunger was the last thing I could feel. I could barely open my mouth without a mouse-ish hiccup of pain rushing out. Could I even physically chew? Yet I promised my friend David that I would come to visit in the sleepy suburbs.
The cars were packed inches around each other, yet I still sang. Fuck that, I belted with wild abandon. My voice cracked. I cried as the words pierced the air. I didn’t feel like I had much left in me. Every word after the other emptied me a bit more.
I’ve got a right to be wrong
I’ve been held down to long
I’ve got to break free
So I can finally breathe
I’ve got a right to be wrong
Got to sing my own song
I might be singing out of key
But it sure feels good to me
I’ve got a right to be wrong
So just leave me alone
Saul’s Diner was the only thing open at this hour. Old school New York deli-slash-diner, black and white checkered floors, ungodly large and comfy red booths, dismissive waiters.
“They have really good Matzo Ball soup,” David huffed as we ran across the street, me holding my hands around myself. I never bring a jacket anywhere, despite the temperature.
I squinted my left eye at David, my left cheek edging its way to my eyelid, left lower lip turning down.
“I know, it’s the Jew in me,” said David.
I tried to crack a smile. It’s not like David did anything to hurt me. He’s the one that is here with me. But this sadness consumed all of me. Come on, you know what a smile is. You had just smiled a couple of weeks ago, I know it. Come on, you can do it. I wondered if this is how The Joker felt when he smiled in The Dark Knight. I doubt he really meant to smile at all. Maybe it was his only way of feeling remotely relatable to everyone else around him.
The smile was so bad that I had to sheepishly laugh. Wow, how the fuck did I make it to this point? Confused anger.
I decided to be overly nice to the waiter. It’s the Californian in me.
“I don’t know why you Californians are so nice to everyone,” David questioned into the air.
“Well, why are East Coasters so passive?”
“They don’t know you. They just want to do their job. There’s no reason in being nice to you.”
Licking my lips, I pretended the grilled cheese and a root beer were going to hit the spot. “This is exactly what I need right now,” I poured over each word, as lusciously annoying as a Lana Del Rey song.
Real-time pause. Here come the real-time words.
He already knew the whole story. I’d been living it over and over again for the thirtieth time today.
I tend not to make eye contact when I’m upset. It’s the last barrier I have before I start crying. There’s something about looking back at a human being who’s looking at you. You begin to feel your bones and your skin even more when you look at someone else. Commence waterworks.
David attempted words in between choking on a hot matzo ball. “I had to watch someone I love very much get married, and it was torture,” he said as he looked at me unwaveringly.
“I don’t even want to say her name.”
His eyelids became a touch pink. I could see the projection in his eyes play back those moments. Her walking down the aisle, flowers in her hair, the biggest, most real smile you’d ever seen in the entire world. The first dance. Everyone crying the second they’re announced as “Mr. and Mrs ____.” The toast that he stood up and shakingly gave with a half-empty, sweaty champagne glass in hand.
My hands desperately found my necklace, like a smoker with the shakes needing a cigarette fix. I threaded my ring through the chain. I fiddled with it until I got it back onto my my finger again. He’s somewhere in that ring, and it’s comforting.
yet people’s voices swirling in my head with
you’regoingtobeokay,thingshappenforareason,wowyoudodgedabullet,whydoyouwanttobewithsomeonewhodoesnttreatyouwellanyway
iknowilovehim,iknowthereissomewhereinhisheartthatlovesme,willtheworldberightagain, hestheoneformeijustknowit
I looked at David and gave him a Joker smile.
Email me when Ashley Batz publishes or recommends stories