“That’s what you think?”
“It’s true, ain’t it?”
“I wasn’t trying to make you feel like that. I didn’t even know you cared.”
“Why? Because I don’t got feelings? Y’all women kill me. You upset because how I act with you but if I was to act different you’d tell me it wasn’t like that.”
I was tired. “What do you want from me?”
He flicked his lighter, sparking blue. “Nothing.”
While I was getting my bag from the lockers, two hands covered my eyes. “Guess who, bitch.”
I slipped my bag over my shoulder.
“What, you’re not speaking today?” Milan was tying her braids up in a giant bun, looking in the mirror on the wall.
“Sorry.”
She scrunched her nose. “What’s wrong?”
Ryen in the dark hallway, rushing down the steps after sleeping with the actress.
“Nothing. I’m late for class.” Shuffling past her, “I’ll text you!”
She closed the locker I’d left open. It was Saturday. She must’ve known I didn’t have class.
Chapter 66
I applied for jobs all evening. An internship at the local radio station, a managerial position at Chick-fil-A. Thumbing through my DMs, I responded to all the men who’d ever offered me money for pictures of my feet and reposted the ad renting our basement. In bed, I watched tradwives on TikTok baking cereal from scratch, always beautiful in their dresses, greeting their husbands with big, white smiles. They made it look so easy. To just do what so many women had done before.
When I FaceTimed Jay, he was at the beach, his phone propped against his backpack. It was like he was lying with me. Foam crawled up the sand behind him like a small army racing toward land.
“I have an answer.” I’d bitten all the tips of my nails off in the hours leading up to this call. Now my fingers were wrapped in bandages like some kind of inverted Edward Scissorhands.
Jay was looking away, but now he faced me. “You do?”
“I’m ready to be—” I gagged on the word. “M-monogamous.”
“Cat.”
“What?”
He laughed. “You could barely even say it.”
This made me mad. “No, listen, I’ve thought about it for months, okay? And, and, this is what I’ve decided.”
He watched me closely. It took me a moment to understand it wasn’t suspicion that fogged up his eyes but sadness. Softly, he said, “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I thought of the tradwives: Their desires were simple, their happiness, uncomplicated, all they had to do was keep walking straight down the path in front of them. The house, the husband, the kids,everyone already knew the script, and wasn’t that nice? Like singing along to a song whose words everyone around you knew by heart. All I had to do was read my lines, all I had to do was join the choir. I was too tired to do anything more.
Jay wiped his thumb over the screen to clear away the blurriness. “You don’t have to do this for me, you know?”
I swallowed. I didn’t know who else I’d be doing this for. “I know.”
“I have to be honest, I’m relieved.”
As he rolled onto his stomach, I saw the birthmark on his back shaped like Morocco. In his dorm room I used to lazily press my finger to it until it paled under the pressure. He’d aged in small ways since then: slightly more hair above his lips, some of the softness from his face gone, but he looked the same as when we met.
