Bless me, void, for I have sinned.
I drove Sara away, and my sadness is heavy and thick, like a choking red fog. Sometimes I can almost see it, the tinges of crimson at the edge of my vision, the way they came in the fifth grade when for no reason Brian Rogers twisted the arm off my Luke Skywalker figure, leaving a naked plastic socket. Mr. Jones sent me home for a week for bloodying Brian's nose and blackening both eyes, even though it was all his fault.
But there's no red in my vision now. This confession is doing me good. I don't have anyone to tell about the way Sara broke my heart, so I'm telling no one.
[email protected], get it? I'll type it all here, in this window with its hungry cursor. I'm using one of those web pages that lets you send anonymous email, and when I press submit my confession will disappear, the server trying to deliver it to an address that doesn't exist. I like to think it will keep bouncing back and forth across Chicago, across the world, an endless digital whisper telling how much I loved her.
And I did. Oh, how I did. From the first moment I saw her sitting barefoot on the field where the jocks play Frisbee, watching the sun settle behind dingy administration buildings. She wore a sundress the color of fresh cream, not like the short-shorts and belly shirt of most of the skanks around here wear. The light shone golden through her dark hair, and the dress stuck to the sweat in the small of her back. My stomach turned upside down and I thought to myself, oh man. So this is what it feels like.
And I went right on thinking that until a month later, when I finally got lucky and found myself in the cafeteria line behind her. I was dying for something to say, and when I noticed she had an art history textbook, I asked her if she knew what Van Gogh said when his landlady called him to dinner.
No, she said.
And I cupped my hand to my ear and said, What?
She only laughed a little, but it was only a little joke.
She told me her name, Sara Wheaton, and we chatted while a dour server slapped pale macaroni into Styrofoam bowls. When I asked if I could join her for lunch, she smiled like it was silly question, and that's how we got started.
She was the best thing that ever happened to me. Every guy in college—in the city—wanted her, wanted to be with her. But she was mine. It was the only time I'd ever had something so beautiful.
Our first time, she bled a little, but said she didn't mind. Afterwards, I lay beside her, listening to the shattering rumble of the Brown Line. The El tracks ran just above my window, and the train was loud as an earthquake, but not near loud as my heart. I lay in the shitty bed in my shitty basement apartment on a shitty block of Wilton and felt better than I ever had before. I could do anything. Just by thinking about it, I could have blown the ceiling clean off and let the sun shine in so I would never be alone in the dark again.
Why did you go, Sara? Oh, god.
It must be evening. On the radio, the blues have given way to a news anchor teasing headlines. Another Southside apartment caught fire, another body was found, another alderman lied. I don't know why they call it news.
It's true what they say about confession, though, how it eases the pain. I even feel strong enough to talk about Mark.
May roaches lay eggs in his eyes.
Mark, who lived in a Lincoln Avenue loft full of furniture his parents paid for. Mark, right wing for the soccer team. Bastard. I knew what went on in his head when they met to work on their class project.
Don't be silly, she said. Trust me. It's just homework. He's just a friend.
But I'd seen the way he looked at my girlfriend, the way he laughed at my clothes. He was just another bully, rich with things he hadn't earned. Like Brian from fifth grade. He had everything, but it wasn't enough. It's never enough for people like that. Not until they have what's yours.
May the brakes fail on the SUV his parents leased for him.
I know, I know. This is supposed to be a confession, and confessions aren't about blame. But if you'd seen the way he looked at her….
Truth, though? She wasn't innocent. Those first months our life was perfect, like a fall day when the sky is so blue it burns. But her group meetings started to stretch longer. And last week she wore a cashmere sweater and the corduroy jeans that fit too tight.
It's the end of the semester, she said. We have a lot to finish.
What about the jeans? What about the cashmere?
I thought you liked the way I dress.
I tried to explain how I did like it, but for me, not for Mark, who was just another smarmy little rich kid from Kenilworth, the same as all the other smarmy little rich kids from Kenilworth. A drone, a suckup, buying round after round at McGee's, throwing down money he hadn't had to earn. He didn't deserve to see her looking this way. That was supposed to be for me, for us, and I tried to tell her.
But it didn't come out right.