Law School
My grandma loves Law School. She asks me how Law School is on the phone. She’s so happy someone is taking care of me. She’s so proud of how well I turned out, the way I grew out of all that pesky melancholy and into a practical, well-adjusted adult.
She worries about my cousin and her drummer boyfriend, the one with the motorcycle and no 401k, but she doesn’t worry about me and Law School. You two are good together, she reminds me, and I know she means you are good when you are with him.
Law School is nice to all my friends: buys them drinks, claps their boyfriends on the back with a sure hand, knows his way around all the sports, feigns interest like he’s up for an Emmy, remembers the name of my friend’s sick cat, asks about med school, about their parents, what they’ve been reading lately. He’s read that book. He thought it was great. Law School cuts me off after two drinks, says You know how you get, kisses me on the forehead with an elbow hooked around my shoulder.
Law School never lets me drive, which is fine. I don’t love driving.
Law School checks up on me when I go out, says Wear a sweater, says Behave yourself, asks me who’s going, when will I be home, do I need him to pick me up.
One drunk night out, I bump a table, and in the morning I have a large phantom bruise on my thigh, blooming from dawn into dusk through the next two weeks. Law School probes it with a forefinger when I tell him it doesn’t hurt.
You overdid it, Law School reminds me. That’s what your body is telling you.
Law School is great at dinner parties. He brings the right wine, he knows the talking points: the tennis game, the press conference, the New York Times article. He laughs with a mouth of perfect teeth, he looks everyone in the eye. He says No I couldn’t possibly and then he does—the extra portion, the extra piece, the extra fifteen minutes. He makes everyone feel interesting.
Law School brings me flowers, and my friends gush. Law School opens doors for me, and my friends gush. Law School makes me leave the party early, and my friends text me cautious questions. Everything okay? Call me.
Law School apologizes. Sometimes it’s hard being with someone like you. You’re not what I’m used to.
Law School is good in emergencies, and the emergency is always me.
Law School takes me to dinner and orders for me, says Was that not what you were going to get?, says If I don’t make decisions for you nothing gets decided, says I know what you are going to do before you do it, I’m just saving us both some time.
Law School says I don’t know how to communicate without being hurtful, says he doesn’t understand why I turn barbed-wire, electric fence, sniper on the building, why I can’t just talk to him, goddammit. Why everything has to be personal. Why do I act so mean? I don’t know how to stop. I ask How do you want me to talk to you? And he says Like a fucking person.
How could I forget?
Law School accuses me of wanting to break up with him and then tries to call my bluff. Says Do it. Says Sometimes I don’t know why I’m with you. Says We both know who you are without me, who you were before me, who you’ll be when I’m gone.
Law School acts like he’s winning the argument as long as he speaks slowly, as long as he doesn’t get emotional, as long as he replates my pain for me so I feel crazy. You think I’m manipulative—You’re calling me a narcissist—This isn’t fair, I don’t deserve this.
We go to bed angry and when I wake up, Law School is standing over me, drinking coffee. Don’t ever fucking talk to me like that again he says, the same way he tells me to wear a sweater, like this is both a passing thought and a thing he has been waiting all night to say, something so vital it might save my life.
Law School texts me when I’m at work: You’re so goddamn boring. Are you having fun? Call me. Please.
Law School cooks me dinner. Law School calls my mom and says he’s worried about me. Law School tells me he loves me when I’m falling asleep, kisses my forehead, tells me what he wants to name our daughter.
Law School wants to take me to the coast, to the beach, somewhere where we can hear the ocean when we sleep.
I tell my grandma, Maybe Law School isn’t for me, and she reminds me there is no one out there like Law School, not in this day and age. I’m not getting any younger. I need to be careful.
My sister asks me if I love him, and I laugh. It’s Law School. That’s not the point.
Law School goes through my phone, and I throw my wine glass at him, watch it tumble through negative space, an inch of chardonnay, a stem. Law School has great reflexes and he ducks, turns to watch the glass tinkle down the countertop. And I think this is it, he’s going to hit me, thank God. He’s going to let us both off the hook. But Law School laughs. Look at you, trying to be interesting. I’m going to bed.
I sit on the floor, alone on the tile.
Half an hour later, Law School comes back to clean the kitchen. He sweeps up the glass, tells me not to walk on it with my bare feet, puts the dishes in the dishwasher. He holds his wine glass, now a widower, up to his ear and smiles thoughtfully, crosses the room to give it to me. You can hear the ocean, Law School says, just like a shell.
I take it, and I can—that’s the crazy thing—I can hear the swirling churn of the world’s womb, the wind and water, the beach and its languid, sucking gravity.
Can you hear it? Law School asks, and he’s already tearing up. He’s already sorry, and tomorrow, he won’t be sorry anymore. At least he’s reliable.
Yes, I nod. I can hear it.
And this is so like us—like Law School and me—for him to offer me unbroken glass, and for me to hear the whole world.
Lauren Hunt (@Lauren__Hunt) works in international rights for a publisher in the Bay Area.