Boyfriend Island

Broken flip-flop Boyfriend. Leaky floatie Boyfriend. Greasy sunscreen Boyfriend. Uneven table leg Boyfriend. Flickering flashlight Boyfriend. Mildewey towel Boyfriend. Lit-up check engine light Boyfriend. Phone charger that can only charge when you hold it a very specific way Boyfriend. Flat soda Boyfriend. Flat tire Boyfriend. The Killers CD but it skips on every song Boyfriend. Hangnail Boyfriend. 

I’m sorry, but these were literally the options. This couldn’t be right. When I showed Crystal The Catalog she said, isn’t it so exciting? Insinuating her catalog looked the same as mine, and excited her. I guess I need a phone charger. He came all coiled up. When I hold his left arm above his head and put his leg across my lap, he kind of works. My phone charges so damn slow, though. Sara got Flickering Light. He sits at the end of the table and adds a weird off-fluorescent ambiance. We’re having dinner together. It’s a couples dinner. Crystal said, do a couples dinner! I’d said I was feeling weird about the Phone Charger. He barely charges, I said. She said, but he’s such a great guy! She thought a couples dinner would help me feel better about being in a couple. I invited Crystal and her Boyfriend, and she asked if it was okay if she invited her friend Sara and her Boyfriend. She said Sara was feeling weird too, and this could help us both. Crystal ended up cancelling because her Boyfriend asked her to go to the other side of the Island, last minute. Next time, I said. I don’t know if there will be a next time, after what I just saw on Instagram. But Sara and her guy are here, and the butternut squash pasta with vodka sauce is ready. I put Nina Simone on the record player. I top off our white wine. 

 

Crystal’s post. They went to a waterfall. He got down on one knee. In the picture, she’s smiling huge, bangs all wet from the waterfall splash and stuck to her forehead. Her caption says, Flat Soda Forever. The easiest yes. Flat Soda Forever. I zoom into his barely-carbonated eyes. I feel a chill. I comment, So happy for you. I love your love. 

I plate up the pasta and bring it over to the table. Flickering Light says, My favorite! Sara says, this looks great, Tegan. iPhone Charger says, you rock, babe. Do I? I wonder what makes a person “rock.” Rock and Roll, I think. Maybe to Rock with a capital R you need to have a ‘Roll.’ Someone cut from the same cloth. 

I take a bite of pasta and feel haunted by the wells of Flat Soda’s eyes. Crystal’s other half, best friend, rock. The cloth Phone Charger is cut from seems to be cheap plastic, unfortunately. I thought that one day he would roll out of bed and actually charge. I thought if I kept this up I’d eventually light up with a love that people would love enough to say: I love your love. 

 

I qualified for The Catalog because I’d gotten enough tokens. A token for kissing Itchy Sweater, who everyone else called The Hot Goalie. A token for getting asked out to dinner by Spilled Milk who everyone else called The Firefighter. 

They said, You are so good at getting tokens! I never cried over anyone, which gave me more bling. I never got upset, which allotted me more. When I met Crystal, things got easier. She taught me who to call The Gym Rat. The Surfer. The CEO. I was an official Cool Girl, which meant Big Boyfriend scouted me. I qualified for The Catalog, which they sent promptly. They shipped me Phone Charger. I was authorized for a vacation home on the Island. 

 

Sara gets up to go to the bathroom. Flickering Light is giving me a headache, talking about the stock market. I take a long gulp of white wine. Cherish starts playing through the record player. 

 

Cherish is the word I use to describe… 

 

It’s confessional, balmy, melancholy, so full of want and sorrow. I wish that someone could make me that sad. I wish for a heart so full of substance it could sink that low. Be that full of desperation, feel that knocked over. 

I get up from the table. The light from the bathroom is on, Sara is still in there. It’s been kind of a long time, her pasta must be getting cold. I tap on the door, you okay in there? She says, Yeah, come in. She’s sitting on the counter, swinging her legs over the edge. She’s looking at her phone. I say, you saw? She nods. She doesn’t shriek or clap, she doesn’t put her hand over her heart. She doesn’t say she loves their love. Hushed, she says, So flat, right? 

Ohmygod, yes. So flat. She puts her phone down. She looks at me. So flickering, right? She cringes towards the door. Ohmygod, yes. So flickering. She raises her eyebrows. I know what I have to do. No electric current. I confess. No charge. She nods, knowingly. I nod, knowingly. We nod, together. What is this nodding? 

I think we need to get out of here, I say. She says, what about the tokens? I say, we won’t need them. Her eyes are full of light: blazing. She says, I think Flickering Light is going to ask me to go to a waterfall. 

Oh no. She clasps her hands together and says, right!? Oh no! I nod again. She continues, I think I need to drive to the desert. I’m going to take the first ferry tomorrow morning. Do you want to come? More than anything, I think to myself. I feel like I’m walking towards a cliff. I can’t see the end of its abyss. Holy shit, a potential fucking fall. I know I need to get closer to it. 

 

Out of my mouth, bubbling like a stream, and so incredibly easy: ‘Yes.’