Soul and Fire
by Christopher Bell

​I spend too much time thinking about her.  Some would say time wasted, but they don’t know what they’re talking about.  It hit too fast.  I had plans to shop around in college, especially after all the pain from high school.  For a moment, I was convinced it made things with Meg better.  We pretended to be different people from the beginning.  She had this skinny librarian thing going, mixed with just a dash of rebellion.  Turns out the latter part came with daddy issues.  I knew what I was into: Twin Peaks, Talking Heads and Total Recall.  Meg had too much fun figuring it out like the rest.
 
There were a lot more my first year at Vickroy, about ten of us comingling with unseen consequences.  I thought she was into James.  He was uncharacteristically smug, bragging endlessly about happenings in some shit hometown.  We all told stories about the people we’d humored, trying to top the prospective status quo.  Willie was the worst, an endless slew of falsities stuck dangling in his front teeth.  Stacy finally told us he was a virgin after they’d messed around, and he came in his pants.  I couldn’t say much, and the same went for Meg.
 
Our first time was incredibly awkward.  She didn’t really enjoy it until the third.  We were just getting our rhythms right after ditching history when Brett interrupted, said they’d dismissed early.  My roommate and I never worked out a routine.  Meg said she always felt uncomfortable around him after that.  I considered whether something else was going on, but Brett spent more time in the room than I did; claimed to be writing some kind of masterpiece when he wasn’t playing Street Fighter.
 
James dropped out after that first semester.  Meg’s roommate, Kerry, started dating Doug, and we all lost track of each other.  Stacy made a play for George, and Willie spent more and more time with the Rugby team.  I didn’t care about any of them; too many hours wasted satisfying their egos.  We had our VHS collections, some signature hang-outs and the first advent of pillow talk.  I was immediately straightforward, resurfaced embarrassments cracking her right up.  She kept me at a distance until after New Year’s.
 
Spring was probably the best time of my life; making claims we couldn’t support, jumping at tattered opportunities.  I liked when she went crazy, pulling my arm down the sidewalk towards misconstrued hysteria.  We stole bottles from frat parties, drank red wine in graveyards, and fornicated under waning daylight.  Here was this person I thought I knew finally coming alive.  It was a privilege standing next to her, faking it a little better given the circumstances.  The others made their assumptions as we did with them, a powder keg of post-adolescent theatrics.
 
There were a few fights, all of which I took her side, even when it was just the two of us at each other’s throats.  We didn’t talk about the future, but the summer came too fast.  Living back home had a supreme effect, coordinating working-class schedules with vehicle availability and the sting of old familiars speculating.  Her high school friends found me unamusing.  Mine would’ve jumped at the chance to take advantage.  We’d hang on the phone too long; listening to the background noise, surprised by how little there was to say.
 
I couldn’t make sense of it all until our return to Vickroy.  Meg seemed less excited to begin again.  Brett said she probably got with somebody over the summer.  I shut that down quickly, making him sleep in the common area for the night.  It took a little longer to get her in the mood, but afterwards she was all smiles.  I hadn’t said I love you for a while, so I whispered it as she left for class the next morning.  Meg repeated the words, but her tone shifted just enough.  Maybe we’d been falling out of love since the beginning.
 
We got plastered with her new roommate, Lindsey, at some party.  Meg made too many friends, roping me into corners with stoners and their wives.  I always got worse anxiety when high, but that night she made the transition far smoother, saying what I needed to hear as we rushed back to her room, screwing with unperceptive eyes.  Selfishly we requested too much from the other, rolling over, making plays for dominance.  For the first time, I couldn’t finish, which made it difficult for her to keep trying.
 
That weekend, we retreated to our landmarks, but found the scenery unamusing.  I felt stupider with each question, attempting to make her smile or give me the slightest indication that things would work out.  She barely touched her Chinese food, while I observed fresh couples in the surrounding space, how the town and its syllabus hadn’t gotten to them yet.  A part of me longed for the summer, where each moment represented something more by default.  Now in limbo, all that planning meant very little.
 
She avoided me on Sunday and Monday then stopped by after class.  We usually grabbed lunch, but like before, she wasn’t very hungry.  “So can we just sit down for a moment?” Meg suggested.
 
I nodded and joined her on the hard mattress. “So what’s going on?”
 
“Marvin, I’ve been trying to think of a good way to tell you this.”
 
“You wanna break up, right?”
 
“Yeah, I think so, but I want us to be friends.  I don’t know if I could handle a life here without you in it.”
 
“Something tells me you’ll manage just fine,” I scoffed.
 
“Don’t do that.  You knew this was coming.”
 
“Yeah, but only because you don’t seem happy.”
 
“I’m not.”
 
“And there’s nothing I can do about it, right?”
 
“I’m not sure there is, and I’m really sorry about that, but ya know what I think it is?”
 
“What?”
 
“We used each other to get away from everyone else, but it’s not good living your life in a shell.”
 
“I would’ve gone out more, done whatever you wanted.”
 
“Yeah, but what did you want?” The question made me second-guess why we were together in the first place.
 
“I want you, but maybe not the person you think you are right now.”
 
“I’m still just figuring things out, okay?  And it may take some time, but I’m pretty sure we both need this.”
 
“You don’t know what I need.”
 
“I can’t do this with you right now.”  She stood up somewhere between sad and relieved.
 
“Do you have your eye on someone else?”
 
“No, of course not.”
 
“I just wonder if you’ll think about me at all when you do.”
 
“Will you still think about me?”
 
“I have yet to stop.”
 
“We’ll talk soon.”
 
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
 
“Yeah, I know.  Neither of us really does,” she walked out.
 
I considered shouting down the hallway, but playground names wouldn’t sum us up.  We never talked about it being over, just everything else, the dense hilarity ingrained in each day.  I tried to cry, but couldn’t, grabbing my Walkman and slumming to class in a melancholic stupor.  Somewhere in the middle of it all, I didn’t feel or hear anything.  The other bodies passed right through me on their way to wherever.
 
A week later, and it hasn’t stopped feeling this way.  I haven’t seen her.  Brett said when he did, she said hello, but there wasn’t enough time to ask about me.  I know it’s bound to happen, and when it does, I’ll maybe feel something again, however wrecked and twisted it happens to be.  There’s a girl in my research methods class who occasionally stares, and another in my cultural studies that seems pretty into New Order.  I have yet to raise my hand and make my opinion known.
 
When I do, they’ll take notice, and then she’ll see me with them sometime soon, and wonder why it didn’t take longer, and when we’re alone again, I’ll tell her the truth, just like before, and she’ll feel good knowing, but will still hold it against me.  Now it’s just a waiting game to see who needs the other one first.  It’s a real shame too.  Saying goodbye was so much fun.