Page 31

Story: Near Miss

Beckett

I don’t mean to fall in love with her.

I try pretty hard not to, actually.

I can’t be certain when it happened, but if someone cuts me open when I die, I’d guess it might be written there on the inside of me, and it might say something about the time we sat knee to knee on the floor of the bookstore, and she read me passages from a book about the fall of Soviet Russia in that voice of hers.

Or maybe it’ll be about the night she fell asleep on the couch with one cheek pressed to my chest, and I stayed there watching the streetlights paint something more beautiful than the Mona Lisa across her face.

It could be when she drew what she swore was a fully accurate lymphatic system on the steam in my bathroom mirror.

I’m not really sure.

But I am sure she’s everywhere and nowhere.

And I am sure that real me must be a masochist, because he’ll take any scraps she gives, and he does it with a smile.

There’s not much I can do about that—so I kick, and kick, and kick.