Grim anthology. Christine Johnson

been cheating on you with Jules.

      Eli’s hands go still on her bare waist, his thumb tracing beneath the edge of her bra. She doesn’t notice at first, too busy kissing or maybe biting his neck.

      “Stop,” he whispers.

      “What’s wrong?” she asks, her blond hair hanging like a veil between us, so I can’t see his face.

      “It’s not— I—um. I just remembered I have to be somewhere.”

      “Now? Where?”

      Coward. Don’t drag this out. I saw them kissing. More than kissing. You know I’m telling the truth, don’t you? You’ve suspected for a while.

      “I just— I need you to go. I’ll call you later. I’m sorry.”

      Why are you apologizing to her?

      Vanessa doesn’t budge. “I don’t understand.” She clutches his arm harder, her voice taut with fear.

      I turn my attention to her. He knows about you and Jules. Go now. Now!

      Vanessa lifts her head, like she’s hearing her name shouted from far away. “Okay. But call me?”

      “I will,” he says. “Promise.”

      She grabs her sweater from the back of the couch and yanks it over her head. “I guess I’ll be early for work instead of late for once. My boss’ll die of surprise.” Vanessa picks up her bag, leans over for a quick kiss, then runs up the stairs.

      Eli lies there on his back for a second, hands covering his face. The black tattoo on his upper arm twitches, a bare tree with birds rising from its branches.

      Sorry.

      He lets his hands fall to his side with a thud. “Sorry? Do you know what you just interrupted? Or are all figments celibate?”

      It depends on the imagination that sustains us. I’ve taken some interesting forms in the past. For instance—

      “I don’t want to know.” Eli taps his fingers against his ribs. “What do I do?”

      Break up with her. What choice do you have?

      “I could pretend I don’t know. Then everything stays the same. Otherwise I lose her and Jules. Tyler, too, probably, because I’ll have to break up the band. They’re my only friends.”

      I doubt that’s true, and if it is, then you need to make better friends.

      “I know.” Eli turns on his side to face me. “But even bad friends are better than being alone.”

      He suddenly looks years younger. I have to make him feel better. It’s what I do.

      I promise you this, Eli, right here and now: you’ll never be alone again.

      * * *

      After dinner, Eli paces his bedroom floor, clutching his Magic 8 Ball. “Should I break up with Vanessa and the band?” He flips the ball. “‘Outlook good.’ Does that mean yes or no?”

      That sounds definitively yes.

      “But not as definitive as Yes.” He shakes the ball hard and repeats the question. “‘Reply hazy, try again.’ You know what? I don’t trust this for big decisions. I’ll ask the cookie.” He sets down the ball and shoves his hand into his jar of fortune-cookie fortunes, a jar that looks like a giant ceramic Oreo.

      He reads the first slip. “‘The secret to good friends is no secret to you.’ I don’t know what that means.”

      It means time to man up and clear your life of douchebags.

      He tilts his head at me. “You’re starting to sound less proper.”

      And you’re starting to sound less smart. End it now.

      After another half hour of my cajoling, Eli breaks up with Vanessa via text. She doesn’t reply. No begging, crying, threatening. Deep down she knows why he’s ended it, because I told her. She’ll chalk it up to intuition.

      At bedtime, rather than setting me on the nightstand or in his guitar case, Eli takes off my hat and boots, wraps me in the blue silk cami Vanessa left behind and holds me close as he lies down to sleep. I fit perfectly under his chin.

      This is something new, this...cuddling. Even when I belonged to women, I was in unhuggable forms, such as a crystal elephant or a carved wooden Woman of Willendorf fertility statue. Maybe if I’d ever been a child’s figment, I’d have experienced this closeness, this neediness. For the first time, I’m more than an advisor and miracle worker. I’m a friend.

      Eli sleeps fitfully, and soon I tumble out of his arms and onto the floor. I’ve never spoken to him in his sleep, but he needs settling.

      Wake up and write. You’ll feel better.

      He comes awake with a sharp breath, then without a word, slips out of bed and crosses to his desk, the direction I’m facing. He lifts his Magic 8 Ball from atop a stack of notebooks, takes the top pad, then sets down the worthless prediction device.

      On the way back to the bed, he accidentally steps on my face. “Sorry, Fig!” Eli picks me up, unwraps the camisole from around my torso and brings both to the bed with him.

      Do you need my help?

      He shakes his head and pulls the cap off the pen with his teeth. “This is one thing I do best on my own.”

      * * *

      Pen in one hand, Vanessa’s cami in the other, Eli scribbles furiously for the next four hours, frowning and crossing out as many lines as he writes. Just after 3:00 a.m. he pulls out his guitar and plays a series of chords—softly, so as not to wake his mom.

      The next day at school, he returns Vanessa’s shirt, wrinkles ironed out. She takes it without a word, or at least none that I can hear from inside his bag.

      In history class, he sets me on the corner of his desk, facing forward. “Good-luck charm for the exam,” he explains to Lyra.

      “Let me see.”

      He spins me to face him and Lyra. Instead of gushing over my cute widdle boots and hat, she takes a good long look at me. “That expression,” she says finally. “Like the whole world is amazing.”

      It’s just the way the manufacturer shaped my eyes. The world is most definitely not amazing.

      Eli gives me a skeptical smile.

      But maybe she is, I add.

      * * *

      Friday afternoon, Eli meets Tyler and Jules for burgers at Five Guys before band practice. I’m left in the bag, of course, on the seat of the booth. His so-called friends sit across from him.

      “I’m leaving the band,” he tells them when their food’s arrived.

      “Aw, man.” Tyler pounds the bottom of a ketchup bottle. “Why now, when we’re finally getting good?”

      “I don’t think we’re getting good, but that’s not the main reason. My main reason is that Jules here can’t keep his hands off my girlfriend.”

      “What?” Jules stammers. “How do you know?”

      “I knew this would happen,” Tyler says. “I told her to knock it off.”

      “Wait, how did you know?” Jules asks him.

      “I have eyes. Eyes that saw you feeling her up in the school parking lot last week.”

      “Tyler, you knew and didn’t tell me?” Eli says. “I thought you were my best friend.”

      “I didn’t want to make you mad.”

      He didn’t want you to break up the band, I tell Eli. He wanted to do it himself.

      “Well, I’m