Read Love and Leftovers Online
Authors: Sarah Tregay
Love and Leftovers (18 page)
his fingers work the chords.
(But I know he can play “Blister” with his eyes closed.)
Then he looks up,
shakes his bangs out of the way,
and sings into the mike.
I’m not kidding you.
Girls screamed.
After “Blister in the Sun,”
they play two Son of Dork songs,
“Ticket Outta Loserville”
and a somber rendition of “Party’s Over.”
Katie backs away from the mike.
Linus sings alone:
I just watched my girlfriend get laid on the sofa
Does that seem weird to you?
Emily, I think.
He chose this song because of Emily.
It’s complicated
Stranded at first base I never saw her naked
Me, I think.
He chose this song because of me?
Ouch.
Linus announces into the mike,
over the roar of the crowd.
“It’s a little something I wrote
to play tonight.
I call it
‘The Dr. Seuss Breakup Song’!”
He counts out loud, unleashing
pulsing amps and pounding drums.
Leave me alone. Get out of my head.
Stop patching things up, get out of my bed.
Walk the other way, get out of my face.
Don’t say good-bye, turn your back instead.
I need to breathe. I need some space.
No, I don’t want to talk. Don’t want an embrace.
I don’t care if you cry, don’t care if you pout.
We don’t belong. We’re a disgrace.
Leave me alone, I shout.
I want you gone. I want you out.
Don’t email, don’t text, don’t telephone.
It’s over, my love, beyond a doubt.
I gave you my heart, now turned to stone.
I gave you my flesh, I gave you my bones.
It wasn’t enough. It didn’t work out.
Get out of my head. Leave me alone.
Linus doesn’t stop playing,
he just morphs the chords
into a minor key,
slows the rhythm
to that of a relaxed heartbeat.
Alone in my room, hand in hand, side by side
I said, “I love you,” and you replied,
“But there is something you must be told.”
With those words you cannot hide.
I thought I would cherish the day
that I gave my heart away,
but you pushed it back, closed my chest
with nothing but willpower gone astray.
You say you were lonely, unwanted, cold.
That he was just a body to hold.
“It was different there, on Little Bay,”
on and on you list your reasons bold.
I thought I would cherish the day
that I gave my heart away,
but you pushed it back, closed my chest
with nothing but willpower gone astray.
The truth is too much to digest,
leaves me heavy, motionless, depressed.
“But I love you,” I cry as you get dressed.
“I love you,” I shout, a man obsessed.
“Fuck you!” I shout at Linus.
“If you wanted to talk to me,
all you had to do was call!”
But he doesn’t hear me among
the clapping whooping stomping.
He’s holding Katie’s hand.
They’re taking a bow.
I storm out.
Before anyone
can see that
I’m crying.
clanks shut behind me,
muffling whistles shouts cheers.
I lean against it,
sink to the floor.
Thoughts thud in my head
to the rhythm of the drums
as Ian starts in on an encore
Now
The whole school knows I broke his heart.
That I’m a slut. A crap girlfriend.
They know that my best friend hates me.
Or she wouldn’t be in the band,
playing along to my ex-boyfriend’s tune.
I’m no longer a Leftover.
How could I be?
No one even likes me.
I feel as if
I am on one side
of a two-inch-thick barricade
and the rest of the world
is on the other.
Dear Linus,
I’m glad that you
got me off your chest.
It must have been therapeutic.
Why else would you bring up
everything
I’ve ever done,
every emotion
you’ve ever felt
in front of the whole school?
Maybe now you can move on,
and be the kind of guy Emily deserves.
God knows she doesn’t need
to date a rebounding loser
like you.
Go to hell,
Marcie
I hate you and
everything I’ve ever done
to make you hate me.
The Second Letter I Don’t Send
Dear Katie,
How could you?
How could you
play all those notes
when you knew
the lyrics
would hit my heart
like buckshot
carefully packed
into a shotgun shell
and fired point-blank?
You knew, you had to know.
Your former best friend,
Marcie
I hurt all over.
My head throbs from crying,
my stomach knots with cramps,
my body bleeds as if my insides are wounded,
and my ego aches for redemption.
Forget the Midol,
could someone please
pass the Prozac?
called
IM’d
emailed
stopped by
or said hi.
the
whole
world
hates
me.
The Downside of Living with Dad and Danny
There is no one
to go to the store
and buy you tampons.
No one who knows
you need the kind with applicators
because you can’t figure out the other ones.
No one who knows
you like the regular size, unscented
because you don’t want to smell like a baby’s
bottom.
So I go to the grocery store
to buy a magazine, a Coke, a candy bar,
a bag of chips, English muffins, peanut butter,
and tampons.
I carefully choose a female cashier,
then pile my items on the conveyor belt
so you can’t see the tampons.
She swipes the items,
the register beep-beeping,
and slides them back to the bagging area—
the tampons exposed.
Ducking my blushing face,
I pay with a twenty, stuff my change in my pocket.
I reach for my two plastic bags without looking up.
My fingers tangle with the bag boy’s,
the bags’ handles twisting us together.
“Need help out, Marcie?”
I look up to see Linus. “No.”
He asks if I am sure, handing me one bag
and keeping the other one hostage.
“Really. I walked,” I snap.
He walks next to me anyway,
looking shy in his Day-Glo orange vest.
“So you got a job?” I try to be nicer.
“Yeah. My dad lost his in the layoffs.
So I’ve gotta cover my music lessons.”
We reach the edge of the parking lot
and Linus says,
“I’m sorry . . . about the songs.”
“They kicked me in the gut,” I tell him.
“But I guess that was the point.”
“It was a stupid stunt—
to get my revenge in front of everyone—
I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Apology accepted,” I say,
consciously trying not to be selfish.
Or a bitch.
Seeing Linus at the grocery store
just reminded me
how much I like him.
Really.
I had him.
I had everything.
I had his heart
(but didn’t know it).
He loved me.
Past tense.
I want to be somebody
(not famous, or rich,
or even beautiful)
just somebody to someone.
I want another person to notice me,
to say that I matter,
to say that they care
about me.
Like J.D. did.
Is that so wrong? Selfish?
If my mom says
women
are not property
how come I want
to belong
to someone?
I wait
for Katie to apologize
(even just a little)
for playing in the band,
when all the songs were about me,
(or maybe)
for not telling me that
all the songs on the set list were breakup songs
and that I should have come wearing emotional armor.
(So what)
if she thinks I’m a selfish bitch.
There’s a limit. Even selfish bitches don’t deserve that.
(I mean)
Linus apologized for the songs.
And we aren’t even best friends.
