500 Words or Less

by Juleah del Rosario

  Famous last words.

  I continued to watch and saw

  the tip of Jordan’s board

  barrel down the hill.

  He hit the jump

  and for a moment

  you saw the pavement below

  as Jordan and his board sailed over.

  Then you saw

  the front edge of his board nick

  the guardrail

  on the other side of the road.

  There was a blur of whiteness

  accompanied by numerous expletives.

  When the camera came to rest,

  it was staring back at the face of Ben,

  who was howling with laughter.

  “That was fucking awesome,”

  he said.

  Then you could hear Jordan say,

  with a hoarseness,

  “I think I broke my wrist, man.”

  The video went black

  and the screen asked us to replay.

  I didn’t need the video to replay.

  It replayed on its own

  in my mind.

  Except this time

  I imagined Ben flying off that jump,

  soaring across that road.

  I imagined an oncoming truck

  barreling down the highway,

  the way my imagination

  kept barreling down

  this horror.

  I tried to make it stop,

  and I did.

  But the fear

  of being cold

  and alone

  resurfaced,

  and I imagined

  the sight of roadkill,

  on the side of

  a snowy mountain highway.

  To self-destruct

  “What were you trying to do, Jordan?

  Self-destruct?”

  I said.

  “Always,” he replied,

  turning back around in his seat,

  and slipping his phone into a pocket.

  I had this theory that our school was divided

  into two types of people,

  not between jocks and preps,

  or honors and non-honors,

  or popular and unpopular.

  I had a theory that it was divided

  by how we were programmed to live.

  There were those of us like

  Kitty, Ashok, and Laurel,

  careful and contented,

  pragmatic and happy.

  They existed to wake up tomorrow,

  always a new day,

  because wasn’t that the way we were supposed to exist

  as humans?

  To keep living.

  Then there are those of us who lived

  differently.

  Jordan, Miranda, and me.

  We charged forward.

  We took risks.

  We strived for greatness

  in every moment,

  because every night we fell asleep thinking

  this was it;

  there wasn’t going to be

  a tomorrow.

  But every morning

  when the alarm clock went off,

  we would lie in our beds,

  shocked

  that despite everything we did

  the previous day

  to run our bodies

  into the ground,

  we continued

  to wake up.

  Ben was one of us.

  He hid it so well,

  and I loved him

  and I hated him

  for being this way.

  He pretended he was happy

  when he was sad.

  He pretended he didn’t care

  about anything,

  not college,

  not grades,

  quite often

  not even me.

  He pretended everything

  would magically work

  in his favor.

  He denied that he understood me at all.

  “Why do you have to study all the time?

  Why can’t you come over?”

  he would plead on the phone.

  But he aced the same tests as me.

  He studied when no one was looking.

  He fretted about his future

  when no one was around.

  He worried about his worth

  alone,

  like the rest of us.

  Self-destruction seeped from his pores.

  I knew this because

  I smelled it.

  It was the bourbon and beer

  that excreted from his skin

  in the early-morning hours on a Sunday.

  When he rolled over in bed

  and opened his eyes

  after a hard night of partying,

  I wasn’t the first thing he noticed.

  For a brief moment

  his eyes looked at me

  with an expression of shock

  that his own body was

  still breathing,

  his heart

  still beating,

  his eyes

  still seeing.

  Then Ben would smile awkwardly

  and say,

  “Morning, gorgeous.”

  I could have died

  every time

  he said that

  with half-drunk, groggy eyes.

  But I never did.

  Cursors

  I see my empty heart,

  which blinks like a cursor

  on a blank white screen,

  waiting.

  I try

  typing words:

  I wish I could tell you why

  I went up to that room

  with Jordan.

  I wish I could say

  why I pine and pine

  for you, Ben.

  Is it enough to say

  that the wanting

  is the something

  that holds me together?

  It’s the hope that simmers.

  But I stare at black marks

  against a harsh white light

  and like

  nothing that I see.

  I hit the backspace

  until it becomes

  a screen

  of words unwritten,

  of life unexpressed,

  the moments we bury,

  that feeling

  we don’t feel.

  A cursor

  because

  what is more lonely

  than a solitary cursor?

  Best party ever forgotten

  The new girl was having a party,

  and I was there

  with Kitty and Ashok.

  People said it was uh-mazing.

  That there were signature cocktails,

  or rather mocktails,

  because her parents were

  making the drinks.

  People said there was a DJ

  in the basement

  from the fancier school

  with an endowment

  that could support

  a small country.

  People said he was hot,

  along with the other guys

  the new girl invited

  from her old school,

  which I never realized

  until just now

  was the same school

  that Ben transferred to.

  “Holy shit,”

  Kitty said.

  Her hand flew over her mouth.

  “Don’t turn around, Nic.”

  But of course

  I turned around.

  “Ben,”

  I breathed.

  The last thing you wanted

  Was for your ex-boyfriend to look

  so damn good.

  Looking so damn good

  Ben in his jacket and tie

  that made him look like

  a proper young man,

  the kind you took home to your parents,

  the kind you snuck out of your house
for,

  the kind you ended up with,

  for whatever forever means.

  Ben with his floppy brown hair

  pushed to the side,

  which made him look

  like he rolled out of bed,

  effortlessly attractive,

  effortlessly yours.

  Ben with his coaxing half smile,

  which you thought was saying,

  Talk to me.

  So that’s what you decided

  to do.

  When I stared into his eyes

  I was not getting the

  I’m-so-happy-to-see-you-I-want-to-be-with-you

  eyes.

  I was getting something along the lines of

  We’re-at-the-grocery-store-and-we-ran-into-each-other-in-the-cereal-aisle-so-how-are-you

  eyes.

  “Hi.”

  I broke the ice.

  Literally.

  Jamming a straw

  up and down

  against frozen cubes

  in a glass

  filled with ginger ale

  and shattered dreams.

  “Nic. Hey.

  How’s the party?”

  Ben said.

  I could have asked him the same question.

  I could have asked a million questions.

  How are you?

  What have you been up to?

  Do you miss me?

  But I stood there in front of him,

  drinking from a now-empty glass

  and gnawing on the end of a straw,

  just staring and forgetting

  that no words had come out.

  His head tilted.

  His brow furrowed.

  “Are you okay?”

  Ben asked.

  Of course not.

  “I’m great,”

  I said.

  I smiled.

  I wish I felt

  the realness of a smile

  on my skin.

  But I was numb.

  He nodded tentatively.

  I opened my mouth to say something else,

  maybe to change the conversation,

  maybe to say I’m sorry,

  but I closed it again,

  swallowing thick air.

  Ben’s eyes changed.

  The tension he held on his brow melted.

  In all the years I had known him,

  I had never seen the expression

  he now bared on his face.

  It was like all the questions

  had been answered.

  It happened

  Ben was in love.

  And he wasn’t looking at me.

  She had pale skin,

  auburn hair,

  a crooked smile,

  and slightly crooked teeth.

  She was fucking

  adorable.

  “Nic, this is . . . ,”

  Ben began,

  but I didn’t want him

  to finish the sentence.

  I didn’t give a shit what her name was.

  I know

  As I walked away

  Jordan muttered,

  “You can’t have him back, Nic.”

  He stood at the edge of the room,

  by the doorway

  that led to the foyer,

  that led to the front door.

  “I know.”

  I more than knew.

  I felt it.

  It was like snuffing out a candle

  with a pewter cone

  and watching the smoke

  curl around the underside

  of my heart.

  It was like smoke

  slipping away

  through my stomach.

  “You were watching us?”

  I said to Jordan.

  “You knew about her?”

  Jordan leaned arrogantly

  against the doorframe,

  like the transitional space

  was his

  to own.

  But Jordan reached out

  for my hand

  and squeezed it

  like it meant something,

  and maybe it did, because

  I exhaled, not realizing

  I was holding

  my breath.

  “We broke him,

  Nic,”

  Jordan whispered.

  And maybe

  a small part of me

  escaped.

  Honda Civics

  I folded over

  like a ball of kneaded dough

  in the backseat of

  Kitty’s Honda Civic.

  “Um, what’s going on back there?”

  Ashok said to Kitty

  from the passenger seat.

  Passengers,

  weren’t we all just passengers

  in life?

  “Nic, are you okay?”

  Ashok asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine.

  “She’s not fine,”

  Kitty said.

  “She saw her ex-boyfriend with . . .”

  With that adorable fucking girl,

  the girl Ben—my Ben—was in LOVE with.

  “That girl is so basic,”

  Ashok said.

  “I can hear you.

  I’m still back here.”

  Ashok turned around.

  “Real talk, Nic.

  You’re so much more.”

  I was more than basic,

  that’s for sure.

  More complicated,

  more precarious,

  more flawed.

  Ashok turned back to face

  the windshield.

  “I hope you take that

  as a compliment,

  by the way.”

  Attempting not to text someone

  I wanted, I wanted, I wanted

  to text

  Ben.

  To say all the things

  I should have said to him

  at the party,

  when we were together.

  Kitty and I sat in my driveway

  after dropping off Ashok,

  the car still running

  but me not wanting to move

  from the backseat.

  Kitty eyed me from the rearview mirror.

  She knew everything.

  She turned around.

  She grabbed for my phone.

  “Don’t do it, Nic.

  It’s not worth it.”

  I loosened my grip.

  The phone fell

  into her hands.

  “I miss him so much.

  I love him.”

  She sighed.

  “I know, Nic.

  You might always love him.”

  The phone buzzed

  I rolled over to check it.

  I still wanted it to be Ben.

  Every time.

  Jordan.

  Hey.

  Hi?

  Come over.

  Why?

  . . .

  I watched until the screen went gray

  and then black.

  I set the phone down.

  I rolled over.

  I pulled a pillow over my face

  so I wouldn’t stare at the ceiling,

  so I wouldn’t wonder why

  Jordan said, Come over,

  at one in the morning.

  Like I was his.

  We should talk.

  . . .

  I got out of bed,

  slid on a pair of jeans,

  pulled a sweatshirt out of the laundry,

  and put on a good bra—

  the black lace kind.

  The stalker

  I opened the front door

  to no parents,

  no Jordan.

  I slipped through the halls

  and up the stairs

  to where I remembered

  his room.

  He lay in his bed,

  alrea
dy asleep,

  snoring, guttural.

  I felt like a stalker

  invading his space,

  his privacy,

  as I lay my head

  on Jordan’s chest.

  How many of us knew

  that Jordan breathed from his stomach

  in spurts, in a struggle

  between diaphragm and lungs?

  It was like an old car shaking

  with not enough gas.

  I was wide-awake and listening,

  and wanting

  to know

  why I was here.

  But I knew

  why he texted me,

  why we were supposed

  to talk.

  I knew in the way

  he squeezed my hand,

  the way he breathed

  unsteady.

  I was here

  because we broke

  Ben,

  and in doing so,

  we may have

  broken

  ourselves.

  I listened

  to Jordan sleep.

  At some point, something

  rattled loose.

  The struggle was over.

  His chest rose and fell, steady

  breathing

  like a normal person.

  Silence lingered

  In the morning,

  I listened for signs of life.

  Dishes being unloaded.

  Voices hushed or hummed.

  Bare soles plodding on hardwood.

  Coffee grinding.

  All I heard was Jordan.

  The air pushing

  its way through his nostrils

  into his chest

  into his lungs

  and back out again.

  Jordan slept,

  and I untangled myself

  from the sheets.

  I picked my clothes

  off the floor,

  clothes that landed there

  after Jordan awoke

  in the middle of the night

  and found me

  curled next to him.

  When we held each other

  fiercely.

  When we wanted so badly

  to feel.

  I fished under the bed,

  as I had done before,

  for a shirt,

  and slipped out of his room.

  Downstairs, nothing

  looked like the Parker house

  I remembered.

  Unopened mail

  lay in toppled stacks.

  Dishes

  remained unwashed.

  A wall clock

  with an hour hand

  stuck between twelve and one.

  There were signs

  of family,

  but no one

  was home,

  except Jordan,

  alone.

  I knew the sound

  of silence

  that lingered

  in the halls

  of an empty home.

  And for a moment I felt

  like my heart was a sponge for sadness,