Which made me feel guilty, because I'm actually a pretty conscientious guy when it comes to this stuff even though like most people I don't really enjoy good-byes per se. I'm not saying that I wouldn't have gotten in touch with Tanya eventually, Tanya being the person I was leaving, Tanya Kiernan, senior, Psych major, but I was definitely about to leave town without telling her first and that was kind of a dick move. Oh, this makes it sound like I'm dating her, which I'm not. I've been friends with Tanya for years, as you know, and she's always, for some reason I've never been able to fathom, been a little bit in love with me, which you may also have known even if I didn't tell you. I must sound like an asshole saying that because she's cute and blonde and sweet, and she's never come straight out and said Hey, despite the pantheon of hot campus jocks who fall all over themselves trying to woo me, I have a thing for you, but. She likes me. So I bumble along trying to be a good thing in her life, but I'm a one-woman guy and it's not her and she knows it, and so the best I can do is this self-deprecating funny-guy act that I started while growing up chubby and perfected when I became a confirmed pothead. Anyway, I walked a block thinking about how to explain my leaving to her, and then got so distracted that I was at the entry to her dorm building when a song ended and in the break before the next one started I finally heard her yelling my name from the courtyard I'd just passed through. I laughed at myself realizing that I must've walked right by Real Tanya while trying to explain to Brain Tanya why I was deserting her, and she started laughing too. Surprisingly, charmingly, she had a purple flower just like the one those women gave me, sticking out of her hair just behind her ear. While I walked over she folded up the textbook she'd been reading and unfolded her long legs from where she'd been curled up on a bench, giving me this sunny smile. I hugged her hello, which I don't normally do because I have this thing about touching people. After that she seemed wary and I didn't know how to start, myself, so I was like, Walk? and just lumbered off without waiting for her to answer. Of course she caught up in two steps and said something about having thought about calling me today, and she put that little emphasis on today to show she knew what was up. I said, speaking of which, I was thinking of taking a little vacation, and that was why I had come by. She took it pretty quietly, actually I wasn't sure she even cared at first, because the first thing she said was, So did I tell you about Laundry Guy?
#
(I don't know how it happened that we walked back to the river after I'd already said good-bye to it. I guess it's the place where people walk when they walk without a purpose. We stopped just before the footbridge, on the grassy slope right underneath it shaded by a big oak, and sat on a bench while she told me this story.)
#
Well I was doing laundry, she told me, linking her arm through mine. I had a toga party that night to go to and my sheets were dirty, with these stupid pink and green curlers in my hair, because I knew Jake would be there and I wanted to look different so he would think that I might have a new guy or something. But so I'm in the basement of the building next door doing my laundry in, like, a tank top and PJ pants, with the curlers, and this sketchy guy comes in who I swear I've never seen around campus, takes one look at the low-cut shirt and goes, So... can I borrow a dryer sheet? And I gave him one and then he tried to make conversation about what kind of music I listened to. And his shirt was unbuttoned far enough to see chest hair! It was all curly and going gray, so I think he was like, old. Anyway, that wasn't so bad, I mean whatever, I just left my laundry there and he wasn't there when I came back. But then he showed up at the toga party and tried to give me a Sex on the Beach he supposedly brought from the bar! I mean, do you think that's even an appropriate way to hit on someone? Even if you live in Crazyworld where people make romantic connections in the laundry room while wearing curlers, you have to know that's not going to get you actual sex on any actual beach. So when are you coming back anyway?
#
I jumped a little when she switched like that. I don't normally tune out while she tells me these stories because, well, I care of course, but also because it's my job to name characters, since Tanya comes up with clunkers like Laundry Guy and needs me to punch them up to like, Curler Fetishist or Uncle Hasselhoff or whatever. But my mind had drifted during this one and then I feel like she just gave up on trying to distract herself and went back to what she'd been thinking about. I said I didn't know, and she gave me this wistful little smile and said, God, how jealous am I? I'd give anything to just skip out on my neurobio midterm on Monday. Her saying that made me feel guilty about leaving, but then she sighed and said I was high, she could smell it, and I got defensive and things were kind of awkward for awhile, but I knew she wasn't that upset or that mad, just disappointed. I've been getting that attitude from my mom for years so I'm mostly used to it, it's essentially how the women in my life express their affection. I stood there watching her while she looked out at the water with a little frown, and then her face relaxed and she grinned out at the water, at nothing. Then she bent down, and I remember gaping at her perfect round ass in that little jean skirt, which she totally caught me doing when she stood up and turned to face me. Which seemed to be happening a lot today. She was holding one of those green stones that campus mythology holds will bring you luck if you throw it into the river, and she held it out flat on her palm for me to take. I took it and slipped it into my bag through the little gap between the zippers. Tanya was like, Um, you're supposed to throw it in. It's not good luck otherwise. But I imagined the little rock's journey to the bottom, if I'd thrown it in; it would go slower than a person who jumped from a great height; it would be surrounded by cold twinkly too-welcoming water, swirls of dust and plankton, schools of tiny fish; then comes the bottom, soft with mud and decaying remnants of dead things. No, I wouldn't throw anything into the water anymore. I want only to reach into the water, back in time, down to the muck, and pull you the fuck out.
#
My backpack started to feel awfully heavy, and Tanya felt far away, even though she'd come back to stand right next to me, solemnly, as if she knew what I was thinking of. I walked her back to her dorm and she was like, At least go back to your place and get a sweatshirt, you idiot, it will be cold tonight, but I laughed at her. I looked behind me once as I walked away and caught her pulling out her cell phone and I knew she was calling Jake. It was too bad, because the guy was a great fallback but he hadn't made her happy in ages, and I took a break from my oceanic self-pity to feel sad for Tanya as I put on my headphones and took off with the Arcade Fire keening for lost childhood into my ear.
#
Back to the subway, and then to the bus station, I went, and bought my one-way ticket to Buffalo and hauled a thermosful of vanilla latte onto the bus with me. I had no idea what place I would go next when morning rolled around, but west was a good direction for a Sal Paradise wannabe and besides, there was more room out that way. Also, the main thing, it was cheap. I squeezed myself into a seat next to a small girl, maybe nine, who had a stuffed kitten in her lap and was talking to it like it was a person. She kept asking if it was afraid and then saying not to be, because she was right there. I figured out eventually that her parents were sitting right in front of us because she kept referring to Mommy and Daddy and looking at them, but they weren't paying any attention, just arguing with each other about some contractor bills, so she just kept talking on and on and on to her cat. I thought she might start crying at any minute and I thought, you just don't leave your kid all alone on a sketchy cheap bus, but it wasn't my business, I was just the big sad dude sitting next to her still obsessing over his dead girlfriend. I finished my entire latte and the kid hadn't stopped talking to the damned kitten. So I turned up the volume on my iPod and heard the weedy opening notes of Dylan's anthem begin again, the first song on the playlist I'd been listening to all day, the one that I named after you. Then I felt very tired and I leaned my head back against the seat, and the bus began to move, heading west, taking me far away from a place where everything reminds me of you.#
-N.
Kristen Hamelin Tracey lives in New York City and works at an online education startup. She has also written several children's e-books for MeeGenius!, an educational reading website and application.