Bobbi closed the oven and tossed her potholders on the counter. “What is going on with you?”
If he didn’t answer, she would keep prodding. Bobbi’s stubbornness about helping the people she loved could occasionally be obsessive. The last time he tried to freeze her out of one of his dark moods, she’d planted herself on his couch for a week.
But each time he tried to pinpoint a specific thing that was bothering him, the opposite thing felt just as true: He was lonely, but he was also tired of being around people. He was bored, but the things he enjoyed weren’t appealing. Sometimes it felt like he was existing underwater, looking up at everyone thriving above the surface, breathing the stale air he couldn’t stomach. But he couldn’t say that to Bobbi. She’d lecture him about wasting time running the laundromat and tell him to research art schools again. He loved drawing, but he hated school. Or school hated him. Every teacher unlucky enough to have him walk through their door had been relieved to see him walk back out again.
When he was young, Nathan would get in trouble for daydreaming while he was supposed to be paying attention. It came to a head when his fifth-grade teacher, Donald Green, said that he would be better off repeating the same grade next year. Nathan was sent to a guidance counselor who suggested he keep a journal to help him focus. But he was a shitty writer. Now he knew it was the dyslexia, but back then, the idea of trying to put what was in his head down on paper made him want to give up on education completely.
So he’d started drawing. Doodling at first, and then illustrations of his teacher’s lessons. His grades had improved, which led to accusations of cheating. The notebook was used as evidence of his laziness during parent-teacher conferences.
In high school, Nathan tried becoming someone else. He stopped drawing, joined the wrestling team, and learned to flirt. It worked for a while, but then the rumors started. He was an asshole only looking to get laid. He only liked white girls. He had a monster dick that made some girl cry when he tried to fuck her. It was like being back in Green’s class, with his patronizing warnings not to bother trying—he would never be more than this.
Nathan needed somewhere to put all that rage and frustration. At first, it was heavy layers of graphite pressed so hard into the paper that it would rip before he finished. Then it was oils and acrylics, plus numbing himself with such a myopic pursuit of perfection that he’d lose time, like he was working while blackout drunk. Eventually, he learned to let other things fuel his work. Friends. A fandom community. Things that made him feel good about himself, instead of trapping him in a dark place he’d done his best to leave behind.
Sometimes he envied people who could put their messed-up feelings into words. Like Rachel. Sitting next to her while she worked through her tangled emotions had lit him up inside. Now he was restless and resentful of that younger version of himself who’d committed to staying strong and silent as a way of coping with life.
He met Bobbi’s eyes. “You’ve been in love before, right?”
Her brow furrowed. “Yeah. Why?”
“How did you know?”
She turned on the oven light and knelt to look at the dish inside. “I just knew.” She stood and fixed him with a direct stare. “Did you meet someone?”
He thought about Rachel with her perfect bow lips. He could swear there were moments when they’d swayed closer, like magnets surrendering to their natural pull.
“No,” he answered. Because he didn’t. Not the way Bobbi meant it. “No, it was just a conversation. The subject came up and it’s been on my mind ever since.”
Bobbi wiped her hands against her apron. “I’m not surprised you haven’t. I’ve seen the girls you date. Your taste is garbage.”
“I dated you.”
“Oh, fuck off.” Bobbi propped her elbows on the counter. “We were in eighth grade and you kissed me once, on a dare.”
“I was nervous.”
“You were ambivalent. You always are. You asked me to be your girlfriend because we were already friends, and I was literally the girl in closest proximity.” She paused and he thought back to the half-hearted note he’d slipped her in English class. Bobbi had read it, snorted a laugh, and written, This is a sentence fragment, instead of saying yes.
“You always choose the path of least resistance,” Bobbi said. “That’s not how you fall in love.”
Nathan thought about the last time he saw his ex-girlfriend Nina. He’d run into her at the grocery store and learned she was engaged to an accountant in the Treasury Department with three small kids she referred to as “our littles.” She’d asked if Nathan wanted to get lunch sometime, which was good, right? That was how relationships should end; polite and easy, not as some bitter stain that would never wear off.