Michelle Masood

After Mark Bessen

1:

The boy shows you his dead girlfriend’s harmonica and you’re almost impressed. He can’t play. You pretend you can. You let him call you the same things he called her because everyone copes with grief in different ways, and you know you’re such a good person for this, and he loves you, and he’s never met a woman like you. He says you make him feel so incompetent, calls you so pretty and has anyone ever told you that you are so beautiful? He says you would be best friends with his dead girlfriend and you tell him that you’re sure she was very beautiful & didn’t deserve it. He’s in tears now. It’s probably your fault—you’re not great at this. The trees watch you like scythes ready for you to damn him to a worse fate. You tell him not to kill himself, and it’s like feeding a wild dog. He walks you to every class, tries to kiss you under the stairwell when no one’s looking, and pretends he didn’t say her name. He writes a story about a man who looks suspiciously like him killing and eating his girlfriend because isn’t it so romantic? It’s not his fault he was upset. All he wants is for the girl he loves to be completely entwined with him. Bodies converged like galaxies or rivers or cars. He names the love interest after you. He makes you edit it. You see his body as a loaded gun with a busted safety. It deserves gentle hands so it doesn’t go off again. Some sick, selfish part of you wants it far away. He gives you all of his pain & tells you that he’d probably be dead if not for you. You blush a little. Then he says he’d probably kill himself if you leave. He doesn’t mean it as a threat. He’s a good guy going through a bad time. It’s not his fault he’s upset. If you’re lucky, you’ll go to different colleges and run. You’ll never feel so free in your life. Like the air inside your lungs is finally your own.

2:

The boy shows you his dead girlfriend’s harmonica, and you’re almost impressed, but mainly disturbed. It could be worse. He invited you to an isolated corner of the park, where your only witnesses would be the mildew growing on the bench. You have a whistle in your pocket. You know to yell Fire! rather than Creep! Your friend is shadowing to make sure you get back to class safely, but she’s too far to hear much, other than his attempts to play. It’s bad. Really bad. He sounds like a bird, or a pitchy train. He sounds like he wants you tied down to the track. Anyways, you tell him you’re sorry for his loss and whatever, but he should really try to work it out in therapy. Far away from you. He avoids eye contact, says he’s reading the text on your very blank shirt, and that you are so much like her, and that she was so pretty, and did you know you’re the same blond she was? He calls himself pathetic and you want to agree, but really, you just want to eat your lunch. He tells you about his nightmares—you’re chasing him down; you’re running away; you’re standing there, beautiful as ever with his heart in one hand and a knife in the other. You don’t tell him this is how your nightmares go too. Trapped too close to a strange man, choking on the smell of sweat. You tune him out in lieu of watching a crow feasting on what used to be a squirrel—it’s hard to tell. You envy the crow because it can leave at any moment. You envy the carrion because it doesn’t have to hear this conversation. You’re trying to figure out the nicest way to turn him down, if there was time for you to say anything. At least he’s stopped playing the harmonica. You cut him off and tell him that you’re sure his dead girlfriend was very sweet and that you’re so sorry he can’t sleep at night without your warm body next to him, but he needs to stop texting you at three in the morning about it. You try being nice, but it’s hard considering he hasn’t looked you in the eye once.

3:

The boy shows you his dead girlfriend’s harmonica and you’re bold over. He can’t play, but it’s kind of charming. You sweep the harmonica away and play a gorgeous song about a gorgeous woman. While he’s awestruck, you let your skin fall away like a burlap sack to reveal that underneath, you’re his dead girlfriend. You still love him and wow, he’s gotten so handsome in the past few years. You’re so sorry for being gone for so long, but he saved you, and now it’s your turn to save him. You kill his dad. You feed the body to the crows. You get rid of the harmonica. Who put a stupid harmonica into this story anyways? This is a love story where no one died. Where you’re alive which means there’s no crying or victims. You’re alive, so you watch the greatest teen romance of the past century. When the characters start talking about cigarettes, you’re hearing him talk about love. You tie his hair back & tell him he looks so pretty like that. You kiss on the couch like teenagers. Remarkably cancer-free, non-suicidal teenagers, with poor choice in movies. Nothing better ever comes out. He still can’t play the harmonica. His hair stays tied and you stay connected at the mouth. You spend forever 14 and alive and in love.

4:

The boy shows you his dead girlfriend’s harmonica. You’re not even slightly impressed. You think it’s weird. He has a reputation for this—a set of lines he uses on every girl he meets. This time, he compares you to sour candy and calls you the most noticeable person in class as if he knew your name before November. He says you’re the smartest woman he knows. You’re so seductive and such a novel concept to him. You’re the light at the end of a dark tunnel, then something about your eyes, loving you—he’s sure it was fate that brought you together, maybe something on how you’re so much like his dead girlfriend, but you miss the rest. You leave. You block his number on your way to class.