Don't Die Alone
Michael Inscoe
01.
Sarah and Mark are lying on Mark’s bed. Mark’s hand is touching Sarah’s back. She isn’t facing him. “What changed?” she says.
“I don’t know; nothing. I don’t know,” Mark says. Mark holds his left hand in a C-shape in front of Sarah’s lip balm. He imagines the lip balm shooting forward into the cave his hand is forming against the bed. He imagines Sarah laughing. He listens to her laughter in his head. He looks at her new tattoo and thinks something about Daniel Clowes. Or he just tries to picture Daniel Clowes. Sarah asks him questions. Mark answers them. “I don’t know,” he mostly says, “I don’t know.” Sarah is looking at flights online. Mark walks to the bathroom. He straightens some things. He sprays bathroom cleaner in the bathtub. He wipes the sink with a paper towel. He tries to imagine cleaning his room tomorrow after Sarah leaves.
Sarah is crying. Mark thinks about Lauren.
Mark thinks about Sarah.
Mark thinks about Jessica.
Mark looks at his phone. He thinks, “Thinking something else.”
Mark and Sarah drive to the liquor store. They drive to Chic-Fil-A and buy value meals. They drive home and watch “Funny Ha Ha.” They drink IPAs and eat their value meals. The movie is awful. Mark can’t figure out what is happening. Everyone seems to be hitting on the main character the whole time. Mark doesn’t see anything else happen.
Mark is sitting at the kitchen table. Sarah sits on his lap. She is facing him. “Can I kiss you? I still want to kiss you.” Mark thinks about Sarah accusing him of using her for sex earlier. She said she wanted more than to be friends that occasionally have sex. “What more can we be?” Mark asked. Mark doesn’t want to kiss Sarah. Sarah kisses Mark. Mark looks to the left and puts his face against her shoulder. He thinks he said something.
02.
Mark is in the bathroom at work. He feels sick and he is sweating. He is sitting on the toilet. He is reading an email from Sarah. He considers responding but he doesn’t feel like he could focus. He opens the application Safari and reads a short story by Ellen Kennedy. He feels sick and he is sweating.
His stomach hurts and he doesn’t want to leave the bathroom. He looks at his phone. He takes his glasses off and sets them on the toilet paper dispenser. He thinks about going home, just walking out into the restaurant and getting his backpack and leaving. He walks out into the restaurant. “Will you dump the tea before you leave?” Jamie asks.
“Yeah.” Mark carries the tea urn to the kitchen and dumps its contents into the sink in the dishwashing area.
Mark walks out to his car. His dad calls him. Mark talks to his dad. “Did the girl go home?”
“Yeah, she left this morning.” He wonders if his dad knows he is lying. It sounds like his dad is mocking him. Mark’s mom is on the phone.
“Are you bummed?” she says.
“I’m fine,” he says.
“I knew she was leaving today. I woke up this morning and thought about that.”
“Yeah, it’s okay. We’re friends,” he says, “It’s good.”
“I don’t know. It’s weird,” he says.
“Aw, well that’s good.”
Mark drives home and gets in the shower. He thinks about responding to Sarah’s email. He thinks about a few months ago before they met in person, when she responded to one of his emails several days late and apologized for it, but then said she would “proceed with this email as if it’s a regular email and I responded in a timely fashion.” He thinks about his perception of her then, how excited and nervous he felt to meet her in real life. “She was a mythical creature then,” Mark thinks, “I am always more interested in mythical creatures.”