Page 80 of Cackle

I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but there’s a nagging evil inside me, a little devil brandishing its pitchfork, compelling me. Punishing me. Its sole mission is to deprive me of any momentary relief I might have if I were to escape the hard evidence of my heartbreak.

Eventually, the screen blurs and my eyeballs recline.

I shut my laptop.

I put myself in the shower. I turn the water as hot as it will go so I can disappear into the steam, let it transport me somewhere else. If I can’t see anything, I can pretend I’m anywhere.

I pretend I’m in the spa of that Italian villa from the luxury real estate show.

I pretend I’m in a Diane Lane movie. I masturbate.

Afterward, I put on soft cotton pajamas and carry a sleeve of crackers and a glass of water into my bedroom. I settle in bed and eat the crackers slowly while staring out the window. I’m too lazy to get up and close the curtain.

It’s a mystery hour. The sun has been setting earlier and earlier. The daylight selfish, sparing. Soon my entire day will be spent in darkness. The drive to work. Teaching in my basement classroom. My drive home after.

Why bother to get up at all?

I put the remaining crackers on my nightstand and roll over. I didn’t brush my teeth today and I can smell my own breath. Acrid. Stale. My hair is still wet from the shower. I couldn’t be bothered to dry it, and I know when I wake up, it’ll be a tangled nightmare. I’m also 99 percent sure I forgot to put on deodorant.

I should just live like this. Abandon my ablutions. Let my teeth go yellow with rot, gums red and receding. Allow my skin to break out, forget exfoliation. Let the dead flakes congregate, create societies of zits on my face. Evil empires.

I should let my hair gnarl together. Form a giant nestlike mass on top of my head. I could keep things in there. Credit cards. Snacks.

I should develop a smell so terrible that no one will ever come near me. Create a force field of stink.

Wouldn’t that be easier? To be left alone in my misery. To lean into what I feel, match my exterior to my interior.

I won’t do it, though. I’ll wake up in the morning and floss and brush my teeth and my hair. I’ll put on deodorant and perfume. A little mascara. Apply some tinted lip gloss.

I’m not brave enough to be who I am.

HOPE IS STUPID

“Can I have lunch in here, Miss Crane?”

Madison stands in the doorway of my classroom, holding a thermos in one hand and a copy of The New Yorker in the other. I would much prefer to be alone for the opportunity to put my head down on my desk and whimper softly to myself for the next forty-five minutes, but . . . I’d feel guilty saying no to a student who’s just looking for somewhere to be. I’ve been that kid.

I still am that kid.

“Sure,” I say.

She sits in the desk directly across from mine. “Beth is absent today and I cannot deal with the rest of them. I cannot.”

She unscrews her thermos. I get a whiff of an earthy smell.

“It’s kombucha,” she says. “I brew it myself. It’s really good for you.”

“Is that all you have?”

“I eat. Don’t worry,” she says. “I just don’t really believe in lunch.”

She opens The New Yorker and I gather a stack of papers that I’ve been putting off grading.

When the bell rings, she screws the top back on her thermos and smiles sweetly.

“Thank you for letting me hang in here, Miss Crane,” she says on her way out, her eyes wide, her expression earnest. She looks so young right now. She is young. It’s easy to forget that kids these days don’t act like kids.

Kids these days. Oof. Let me just disintegrate into dust and be carried off by a gentle breeze.