piece of glass
Miss Lucy sat upon it
And it went right up her
It was, I thought, a simple equation:
You find the right person.
You do the right things.
And from that, everything goes right.
Like you have a contract with the universe, and these are the terms.
I had no doubt Ashley was the right person.
I had to hope I was doing the right things.
But everything wasn’t going right.
Some things were.
But not everything.
Ask me no more questions
And I’ll tell you no more lies
The boys are in the bathroom
Zipping up their
Miss Lucy disappears from her own story.
Flies are in the belfry
Bees are in the park
And boys and girls are kissing
In the D-A-R-K
I felt I was disappearing from my own story.
D-A-R-K
I had no control over my own story.
D-A-R-K
It was hers.
DARK DARK DARK
I had to take my SATs a third time.
Ashley knew this. I’d told her.
Before I went in, I texted her: WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO TONIGHT? It was a Saturday, and I thought we’d made plans. After a few months of going out, this was pretty routine.
Of course, I forgot to turn off my phone. So ten minutes into the SATs, my bag starts to chirp, and it will not shut up. Now, I knew I wasn’t supposed to take out my phone during the SATs, and I swear to this day that my intention was just to silence it until I was done penciling in those stupid bubbles. But as I went to hit the off button, I happened to look at the message on the screen:
WE HAVE TO TALK.
The test proctor was immediately yelling at me, asking what the hell did I think I was doing, as if I’d been about to call some math expert for help. I threw the phone back in my bag, but I couldn’t get rid of the message as easily. It was like every problem on the SATs became my problem.
5. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO TONIGHT?: WE HAVE TO TALK : : ASHLEY, I CARE ABOUT YOU:
a) LUCY, I CARE ABOUT YOU, TOO
b) LUCY, WE’RE SO COMPLETELY OVER, IT’S NOT FUNNY
c) LUCY, YOU’RE THE LOVE OF MY LIFE
d) STEAMBOAT, I CARE ABOUT YOU, TOO
6. Which of the following phrases does not belong with the others?
a) WE HAVE TO SEE MORE OF EACH OTHER
b) WE HAVE TO TALK
c) WE HAVE TO REMEMBER TO PICK UP A MOVIE
d) WE HAVE TO BE TOGETHER ALWAYS
12. If the diameter of a cone is doubled, its volume:
a) will quadruple
b) will not be enough to save your relationship with Ashley
c) will halve
d) will stay the same
Of course, all the right answers were (b).
I might as well have used that number-two pencil to fill in the hollow dots that my eyes, my ears, my mouth, and my heart had become. Not only had I not seen it coming, but I had seen its opposite coming instead.
Doofus,
I said to myself.
Idiot.
I started crying in the middle of my third try at the SATs and I couldn’t stop. I had to leave, and there was no way to explain to the proctor how a single sentence had stumped me more than any test question ever would.
All I really needed was the confirmation. And all I needed for the confirmation was a simple two-letter word spoken in her voice. I called her as soon as I got to the parking lot. I knew she’d see my number on her phone, so when she answered, she’d be answering me. So the way she said that first word—
hi
—made the landslide complete. Her
hi
wasn’t high at all—no, this
hi
was
lowwwwwwww.
The kind of
hi
that says
I’ve already scattered the ashes of our relationship somewhere over the land of yesterday.
All in two letters.
I began to cry again, and she told me she’d known I was going to be this way. I cried some more. She mentioned something about me still being her best friend in town. Not her best friend, mind you—her best friend
in town.
I wiped some snot with my sleeve. She asked me wasn’t I supposed to be in the SATs right now? I just lost it and took that phone and threw it right at my car. Which is how I managed to lose a girlfriend, break a phone, and crack a windshield all at the same time.
And then I drove over to
Miss Lucy sat upon it
And it went right up her
It was, I thought, a simple equation:
You find the right person.
You do the right things.
And from that, everything goes right.
Like you have a contract with the universe, and these are the terms.
I had no doubt Ashley was the right person.
I had to hope I was doing the right things.
But everything wasn’t going right.
Some things were.
But not everything.
Ask me no more questions
And I’ll tell you no more lies
The boys are in the bathroom
Zipping up their
Miss Lucy disappears from her own story.
Flies are in the belfry
Bees are in the park
And boys and girls are kissing
In the D-A-R-K
I felt I was disappearing from my own story.
D-A-R-K
I had no control over my own story.
D-A-R-K
It was hers.
DARK DARK DARK
I had to take my SATs a third time.
Ashley knew this. I’d told her.
Before I went in, I texted her: WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO TONIGHT? It was a Saturday, and I thought we’d made plans. After a few months of going out, this was pretty routine.
Of course, I forgot to turn off my phone. So ten minutes into the SATs, my bag starts to chirp, and it will not shut up. Now, I knew I wasn’t supposed to take out my phone during the SATs, and I swear to this day that my intention was just to silence it until I was done penciling in those stupid bubbles. But as I went to hit the off button, I happened to look at the message on the screen:
WE HAVE TO TALK.
The test proctor was immediately yelling at me, asking what the hell did I think I was doing, as if I’d been about to call some math expert for help. I threw the phone back in my bag, but I couldn’t get rid of the message as easily. It was like every problem on the SATs became my problem.
5. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO TONIGHT?: WE HAVE TO TALK : : ASHLEY, I CARE ABOUT YOU:
a) LUCY, I CARE ABOUT YOU, TOO
b) LUCY, WE’RE SO COMPLETELY OVER, IT’S NOT FUNNY
c) LUCY, YOU’RE THE LOVE OF MY LIFE
d) STEAMBOAT, I CARE ABOUT YOU, TOO
6. Which of the following phrases does not belong with the others?
a) WE HAVE TO SEE MORE OF EACH OTHER
b) WE HAVE TO TALK
c) WE HAVE TO REMEMBER TO PICK UP A MOVIE
d) WE HAVE TO BE TOGETHER ALWAYS
12. If the diameter of a cone is doubled, its volume:
a) will quadruple
b) will not be enough to save your relationship with Ashley
c) will halve
d) will stay the same
Of course, all the right answers were (b).
I might as well have used that number-two pencil to fill in the hollow dots that my eyes, my ears, my mouth, and my heart had become. Not only had I not seen it coming, but I had seen its opposite coming instead.
Doofus,
I said to myself.
Idiot.
I started crying in the middle of my third try at the SATs and I couldn’t stop. I had to leave, and there was no way to explain to the proctor how a single sentence had stumped me more than any test question ever would.
All I really needed was the confirmation. And all I needed for the confirmation was a simple two-letter word spoken in her voice. I called her as soon as I got to the parking lot. I knew she’d see my number on her phone, so when she answered, she’d be answering me. So the way she said that first word—
hi
—made the landslide complete. Her
hi
wasn’t high at all—no, this
hi
was
lowwwwwwww.
The kind of
hi
that says
I’ve already scattered the ashes of our relationship somewhere over the land of yesterday.
All in two letters.
I began to cry again, and she told me she’d known I was going to be this way. I cried some more. She mentioned something about me still being her best friend in town. Not her best friend, mind you—her best friend
in town.
I wiped some snot with my sleeve. She asked me wasn’t I supposed to be in the SATs right now? I just lost it and took that phone and threw it right at my car. Which is how I managed to lose a girlfriend, break a phone, and crack a windshield all at the same time.
And then I drove over to
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