The Aftermath of Forever by Natalye Childress

Author:Natalye Childress
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Microcosm Publishing
Published: 2014-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

ZEKE

“Wait, so you’re a double major?”

I paused, cocking my head and shooting an inquisitive glance at Zeke, who was sitting a few feet away.

“I’ve told you this before,” Zeke said, pretending to be annoyed with me for having forgotten.

“Don’t tell me,” I said, holding up a finger in his direction and stopping for a moment to think. “Oh wait! I remember. You’re majoring in English and… Anthropology!”

Zeke looked at me with surprise.

“Wow! You’re like an elephant. A retarded elephant.”

Now it was my turn to look surprised.

“I get it. I get it. It’s because I remember everything, but just not right away.”

“Exactly.”

If I hadn’t known Zeke prior to then, I might have been offended, but I was used to his backhanded compliments, so I dismissed it. His wit was an acquired taste, but I could appreciate it from time to time.

It was April. Ether and I were on one of our breaks, and Zeke and I had been dating for close to a month, although dating wasn’t exactly the best word for it. Hooking up was more like it, even if he did buy me lunch once. I even resorted to breaking vegan edge and eating cheese on that “date,” because in spite of knowing I was veg, he was firmly set on going out for New York-style pizza prior to spending the afternoon people-watching in Golden Gate Park. There was also our obligatory first date, which consisted of him buying me drinks at Toronado, a bar in the Haight that specialized in specialty brews. But whether he paid that night because he was making up for being late (which I later learned would be routine) or because he wanted to get lucky at the end of the night, I wasn’t entirely sure.

Neither of us was too serious about the other, which is likely why occasional antagonizing and complete frankness characterized the entirety of our six-week relationship. The whole time, both of us were also dating other people, something that I’d long been accustomed to, but which Zeke was still attempting to get a grasp on.

“I don’t understand dating in San Francisco,” he said. “It seems like no one wants to commit. They all just want to fuck each other.”

“And what’s so wrong with that?” I asked.

“I just feel like no one believes in love anymore.”

That was another thing about Zeke— he desperately wanted a girlfriend. And while I juggled a handful of males that I was only remotely interested in, Zeke was—at the time—only seeing me and one other person. The other, an exotic-sounding girl named Carmel, was his idea of girlfriend material. She, on the other hand, was looking for something more akin to what Zeke and I had.

It was easy to see, from an outsider’s perspective, that he was looking for a love connection in all of the wrong places, but that didn’t stop him from trying. Ever the romantic, he was always working to attach meaning where it didn’t exist, and while it was cute to see

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