This Girl: A Novel

mouth again. I can tell by the look in her eyes that she wants me to kiss her just as much. The unfamiliar nerves that have occupied my stomach have now multiplied and I’m quickly losing my self-control. As soon as I start to lean in, she clasps her hands under her chin and resumes her plea.
    “Don’t make me beg.”
    For a moment, I had forgotten she even asked me to perform. I pull back and laugh. “You already are.”
    She doesn’t pull her hands away from her chin and she’s looking up at me with the most adorable expression. An expression I already know I’ll never be able to say no to. “All right, all right,” I say, easily giving in. “But I’m warning you, you asked.”
    I pull my wallet out of my pocket and take the money out, holding it up in the air. “I’m in!”
    When the emcee recognizes me, I slide out of the booth and begin making my way to the stage. I’m not prepared for this at all. Why did I not think she would ask me to perform? I should have written something new. I’ll just do my “go-to” piece about teaching. It’s easy enough. Besides, I don’t even think I’ve discussed my profession with her; this might be a fun way to do it.
    I reach the stage and adjust the microphone, then look out over the audience. When we lock eyes, she perches her elbows on the table and rests her chin in her hands. She waves her flirty wave at me as her smile spreads across her face. The way she looks at me sends a pang of guilt straight to my heart. She’s looking at me right now in the same way that I’ve been looking at her.
    With hope.
    It hits me with that look that I shouldn’t waste this opportunity on a poem about my profession. This is my opportunity to put it all out there . . . to use my performance as a way to let her know who I really am. If her feelings for me are half what mine already are for her, then she deserves to know what she may be getting herself into.
    “What’s the name of your piece tonight, Will?”
    Without breaking our gaze, I look straight into her eyes from up on the stage and reply, “Death.”
    The emcee exits the stage and I take a deep breath, preparing to say the words that will either make or break the possibility of a future with her.
    Death. The only thing inevitable in life.
    People don’t like to talk about death because
    it makes them sad.
    They don’t want to imagine how life will go on without them,
    all the people they love will briefly grieve
    but continue to breathe.
    They don’t want to imagine how life will go on without them ,
    Their children will still grow
    Get married
    Get old . . .
    They don’t want to imagine how life will continue to go on without them,
    Their material things will be sold
    Their medical files stamped “closed”
    Their name becoming a memory to everyone they know.
    They don’t want to imagine how life will go on without them, so instead of accepting it head- on , they avoid the subject altogether ,
    hoping and praying it will somehow . . .
    pass them by.
    Forget about them,
    moving on to the next one in line.
    No, they didn’t want to imagine how life would continue to go on . . .
    without them.
    But death
    didn’t
    forget.
    Instead they were met head-on by death,
    disguised as an eighteen-wheeler
    behind a cloud of fog.
    No.
    Death didn’t forget about them .
    If they only had been prepared , accepted the inevitable , laid out their plans , understood that it wasn’t just their lives at hand.
    I may have legally been considered an adult at the age of nineteen, but I still felt very much
    all
    of just nineteen.
    Unprepared
    and overwhelmed
    to suddenly have the entire life of a seven-year-old
    In my realm.
    Death. The only thing inevitable in life .
    I TAKE A step away from the microphone, feeling even more nervous than when I began. I completely laid it all out there. My whole life, condensed into a one-minute poem.
    When I step off the stage and make my way to our booth, she’s wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. I’m not sure what she’s thinking, so I walk slowly in order to give her a moment to absorb my words.
    When I slide into the booth she looks sad, so I smile at her and try to break the tension. “I warned you,” I say as I reach for my drink. She doesn’t respond, so I’m not sure what to say at this point. I become uncomfortable, thinking maybe this wasn’t the best way to go about telling her my life story. I guess I sort of put her on the spot, too. I certainly