Alternate Universe in Which I Am Unfazed by the Men Who Do Not Love Me

When the business man shoulder checks me in the airport, I do not apologize. Instead I write him an elegy on the back of a receipt and tuck it in his hand as I pass through the first class cabin. Like a bee he will die after stinging me. I am 24 and have never cried.

Once, a boy told me he doesn’t believe in labels. So I embroidered the word “chauvinist” on the back of his favorite coat. A boy said he liked my hair the other way, so I shaved my head instead of my pussy. While the boy isn’t back, I learned carpentry. Build a desk. Write a book at the desk.

The boy says he prefers blondes, and I steam clean his clothes with bleach. The boy says I am not marriage material, and I put gravel in his pepper grinder. The boy says period sex is disgusting, and I slaughter a goat in his living room.

The boy doesn’t ask if he can choke me, so I pretend to die while he’s doing it. My mother says “this is not the meaning of unfazed.” When the boy says I curse too much to be pretty andI tattoo “cunt” on my inner lip, my mother calls this “being very fazed.”

But left over from the other universe are hours and hours of waiting for him to kiss me. And here, they are just hours. Here, they are a bike ride across Long Island in June. Here, they are a novel read in one sitting. Here, they are arguments about God or a full night’s sleep.

Here, I hand an hour to the woman crying outside of the bar. I leave one on my best friend’s front porch, send my mother two in the mail. I do not slice his tires. I do not burn the photos. I do not write the letter. I do not beg. I do not ask for forgiveness. I do not hold my breath while he finishes.

The man tells me he does not love me. And he does not love me. The man tells me who he is. And I listen. I have so much beautiful time.

by Olivia Gatwood