Crying in front of Johnny Rockets is a good way to let people know where you’re at emotionally. I unravel the crinkled note once more, just so that I can memorize it. So that the next time I drank to forget, this paper will sober me sick in order to remember again.

3:00PM – The Cemetery – Aug 1st
Being alone is peaceful and maddening. There’s just something so pure about being in touch with how you’re feeling. But the more you’re done, the more your thoughts start to make sense strictly to you. And that’s when you start to lose sanity- your mind starts to linger in a territory that is completely devoid of common sense. The room starts to feel distant. And you start to feel embarrassed of how ridiculous you sound within the walls of your brain. So you start to disconnect. You start to disconnect because no one could possibly ever understand. Why would they? You’re the one who’s crazy.

However, this all changes when you find someone who’s also “crazy”. And for the first time in so long, you don’t feel alone anymore. Hope is spontaneously born. And if it’s one thing people need in this world, it is someone who is willing to understand, someone who is capable of understanding, someone who understands damage, someone who views vulnerability with interest instead of weakness, someone who listens. Someone who, like you, knows what it feels like to be isolated. And for the first time, instead of feeling insane, you just feel different, and you start to embrace it.
-Brianna

The mock-vampires from “Transylvania” drew in quite an off-putting crowd for the one-room stage. Nose rings, lip rings, tongue rings. Heavy tattoos of demons with nose rings, lip rings, tongue rings- that sort of thing. The lead guitarist looks like my therapist. Lu, a.k.a therapist, has to lie to the insurance companies about the type of medical practice he’s doing. Philosophy isn’t a part of their philosophy. But prescribing Adderall is? Most likely, no. I take it, regardless.

The sounds that the band produces condone unnatural behavior amongst the wasted youths. Bobbing their heads to the rhythm as best they could, letting their limbs move at their own accord. I fear all their necks would snap off with just the right momentum, but I find myself following their lead. Every part of me gains velocity; I am the equivalent to a yellow jacket’s wings and I take flight until “I Feel Special and I Want to Die” comes to a screaming end. I nudge Ralph.

“Yo, man, check that one out.” A slight blonde pulls her white cashmere sleeves over her knuckles, looking uncomfortable and reeking of Born-Again-Catholicism. She avoids eye contact with each stranger, as if one wrong look would make her immaculately conceive. Ralph shrugs. I squint at him, “What, innocence isn’t attractive?”

Ralph switches his gaze from me, to her and back again. “It used to be,” he shifts his weight away from my positioning. “Don’t you have… a thing for Brianna, anyway?”

My jaw clenches involuntarily. I was wondering when he’d bring this up.
“You know I do. Just as I know you do.”
“Why are you always sad after you talk to her?”
“I’m not,” I raise my voice and struggle to keep it down while the next band gives our direction a sideways glance, “I think you just want me to be. And even if I were- it’s not like we always talk about the nicest things.” Ralph smirks, salutes me and averts his attention back to the runner-up band. I huff out the air I hadn’t realized I was holding in my chest, push past the Virgin Mary and step back into the lack-of-air that strikes me mercilessly with whips of ice. My jeans vibrate.

From: Brianna
Come back 2 West already!
Received - 9:54PM

To: Brianna
On my way. Hope you’re not missing me too much
Sent - 9:54PM

From:Brianna
Never that. pharaoh
Received – 10:01PM

I chuckle at “pharaoh”. Her way of making fun of my being from Cairo. I can’t help but to let my mind wander at what will await for me in her dorm as I slide my ID over the scanner and head to the elevators. Fourth floor. I look up. My face reflects off the faux-bronze ceiling and blurs when I jerk to a stop.

“ ‘bout time,” Brianna rolls her eyes as if she’d been waiting the whole afternoon. I try to think of something clever to say but come up blank at the sight of her. Overall she’s slender, but she curves at just the right times. Her outfit left little to the imagination with an all too fitting, black, long sleeved dress that had ties crisscrossing over her cleavage. My hormone-riddled brain dwells on this while she pinches my cheek and grabs my hand as I quickly shove the other into my pocket.

“Jane has gone,” she states as-a-matter-of-fact-ly, slamming the door behind her, after pushing me in. Room 302. Jane, her friend. Jane, her roommate.
“Gone where?”
“Gone.” Specificity isn’t her strong suit. My palms itch and get clammy.

She presses every square inch of her body up and against mine until I’m flanked between her and the door. “Put ‘em up,” she grins. I obey, hands above my head, and lean down to press my mouth against hers until we slide into place on the sheet-less bed. Glancing around the room while she’s busy leaving her signature on my neck, the fluorescent lights burn my eyes. I cast them down to the floor. I hadn’t remembered taking off my pants, or her -what might be a- thong for that matter, yet there they both were in a listless, submissive heap.

“What if she comes back, though?”
“Don’t be such a girl, Dave,” My face warms, reddens, and I hope that she doesn’t notice. Where was she going with this? Suddenly she made it very clear where she was going. Wait- wait, no. Was that-? I hesitate. I more than hesitate but she’s on top of me now and my lower half gets into a redundant argument with my upper intellect.

I guess love is silent now. Love is silent except for the increasingly uncomfortable smacking together of skin on skin.

Curfew will be soon. Lu has to lie to the insurance companies… to ensure that he’s making me better. I don’t feel better. Unless this is what better feels like. I’m losing more than my virginity and I’m thinking about curfew. Just concentrate. Focus. All I have to focus on is the static, violent silence.  Later, voices from the hall will wake me from my vegetative state and she pushes off of me.
“Say something,” she says, “are you okay?” I stare at her. “I want you to be okay.” 10:49PM. “S***,” she tosses my pants at me, “It’s nearly 11:00, you should get back.” I should. I should be there now, probably.
“Brianna-“
“Dave!” Emphasis on the “a” consonant. “It’d be easy to love you. But right now you have to go.”

I stop by J Rocks. on my hike back to South Hall, still unsure of what exactly I feel. Pretty sore in places I didn’t think could be sore- didn’t think could be anything except euphoric. She had stared at me like I was the prey that she needed for survival. I think it was consensual the second time. Felt good to be numb after the first. I don’t know if I wanted it at all, I know even less about what she wanted. I love her. Apparently. Is it rape if I loved her afterwards?

The vampire metal head-bangers are drinking strawberry milkshakes inside. I nod at one, who knowingly gives me the finger with a smile. Lu claims I don’t laugh enough. He doesn’t lie enough. I look around, clenching and unclenching my wisdom teeth. So many people don’t matter. They suck up oxygen and take up too much space. I connect with the ones who do, Brianna does, but I don’t pity those who don’t. We burn. We just keep burning. And in that disintegration there’s an unspoken understanding. We watch and we see, we listen and we don’t simply wait for our turn to speak, we’re here and we know. You can find our corpses at the protest.