Gray - By Pete Wentz Page 0,4

should do that.”

I think he said it to me, but I’m not paying attention anymore. I’m thinking about Chicago. And getting back on my medication. But mostly I’m thinking of Her. I’ve been trying not to . . . it’s because we’re in this restaurant. We used to waste the night away in that place on Clark Street, just Her and I and two cups of coffee, still wrapped in our sweaters, the cold still tingling in our legs. We’d sit on the same side of the booth and hold hands under the table, watch the flurries of snow whip around on the street. Eventually, she’d have to go home and I’d walk Her outside, hold Her tight to keep Her warm. The buttons on one side of Her coat never snapped on the other side. They were for fashion, not function, she would tell me. Then she would kiss me and say something like “You’re beautiful for a boy” and make me laugh, and I’d watch Her get into Her car and drive up Clark, take a right on Newport, and disappear. And I’d go back inside and finish both our cups of coffee, just because.

Now I am here in Dallas, eating something made out of tofu. I don’t even remember what I ordered. The Disaster is hitting on our waitress, talking to her like an old plantation owner (“Why, hell-ooooo there, darlin’ ”) even though we’re in Texas. All the South is the same to him since he’s, in theory, Southern himself. Our road manager is laughing so hard he’s nearly crying. The Disaster can have her—the waitress, that is—I don’t even care anymore. I never really did. She just reminded me of someone else. You can probably guess who.

We’ve been broken up for so long now, but I still feel as if I were cheating on Her all the time. My whole life is an affair. I owe it all to Her. Her. She made me, she put me here. We fought about that. We fought about a lot of things, but I still miss Her. She is Chicago to me, the humid summers and the lake-effect winters. When I’m homesick, it’s for Her.

We pay our bill and leave, but not before the Disaster lets the waitress know that we’re playing tonight at the arena named after the airline and if she wants to come and check out the show, she should just give him a call. He doesn’t tell her that he’s just a guitar tech. It doesn’t matter, either. She’s not going to call. The SUV makes its way back into the heart of Dallas, the skyscrapers growing larger by the second, until they swallow us whole. There is something intensely foreign about Texas, like secession is imminent. Or death. Both are definite possibilities.

I miss home again. I miss Her. It’s impossible for me not to. Chicago won’t let me go. I realize that I left my sunglasses back at the restaurant, but I don’t care enough to go back and get them. Maybe she’ll find them—the waitress—and think I left them for her or something. I decide that would be okay. In the front seat of the SUV, the Disaster is shouting about wizards again.

3

Now I’m back on the bus, alone. The light on my laptop pulses white on black, like Morse code, sending distress signals into the dark. This ship is obviously sinking. I’m thinking about that waitress, about how I should’ve tried harder. I’m thinking about getting back on my medication. But mostly, I’m thinking about the last time I saw Her. It didn’t go well.

Her lips curl when she’s talking about the Q. Her middle name begins with Q, but she’s not like that, you know? She’s regular. She’s normal just like me. But Her lips still curl in the most exquisite way. You should see it in person. I’m not doing it justice. I call Her up because I want to hear Her lips cup the air around the receiver. I want Her to put the receiver to Her chest, so I can hear Her blood. I want to tell Her to build me a model of San Francisco, because I have a great idea for a disaster. I was drunk if you couldn’t have guessed. She must be on Her computer because the phone just keeps ringing. She can’t be bothered to pick it up. Right now I want to shoot those fucking Harvard kids who started Facebook in