History

I slow-dissolve the whole ordeal in my mind as I heel it back to Ms. Hayes. In her room, everything smells the same, looks the same, feels the same. Of course it does. But something’s different. I hand her back her sweater and she puts it on and it’s three o’clock and then I leave. Just like that.

I heel it across the nearly empty student parking lot to my banger and visions of an alternative reality dance through my mind. Eve: dog-tired and greasy-haired, a roly-poly pukester perched on her chest. Nate Gray: beer-bellied and goateed, distractedly pushing a stroller with one hand as the other buzzes his flap-Jacks homoerotic come-ons in dude-bro jargon. Man-o, that betty got lucky with that negative.

I stand beside my banger and press redial on my speak. I’ve been trying to reach University Bloody Admissions all day. “Thank you for holding,” Robo-Cog singsongs. “An agent will be with you shortly.”

“Flipit,” I say and slam it shut. College is chewing me an ulcer and I haven’t even started yet.

I slide into my banger and stew in the wet, stale air. I think about Eve Brooks and I cook in the new, moist oven of an impending heartache. Not this time, I think. Not with Evelyn Goddamn Brooks. And I push her sad, wonderful mug from my mind, trying to protect the last feeble shreds of this quivering mass of muscle I call my heart. Eve Brooks—she’s too taken. She’s too straight. She’s long gone. She’s History.

Ms. Hayes? Ms. Hayes who?