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: : : SHE'S ALWAYS BEEN A BIT afraid of the dark. When she was a kid she had a little nightlight, in the shape of a mushroom, and she used it all the way through high school. She didn't bring it to college because she was afraid of looking uncool in front of her roommate, but it turned out that her roommate also liked sleeping with a nightlight on. So she just never got adjusted to sleeping in total darkness.
That was one of the things that was hard for her about staying over at Austin's—he didn't have a nightlight and he didn't like for her to leave the hall light on when they were going to bed. Because of the wasted electricity. —I don't like sleeping in the dark, she said once, and Austin responded —Well, that's the good thing about Chicago—it never really gets too dark because of all the street lighting. It's dark enough, she thought, dark enough for me to be scared, but she decided that she wasn't going to make an issue of it, she decided that this was a place where she could compromise, for the sake of the relationship, and so all those times that she slept in his room in the dark she was a little bit afraid every time.
Now all the things she did as compromises for the sake of the relationship fill her with irritation. What compromises did he ever make? What did he ever do to make the relationship go more smoothly? Nothing that she can see.
In a way what she cherishes most now are the things about him that irritate her. She attends closely to those details. Focusing on them makes it easier for her to let go of him. Focusing on them enables her to say I'm glad it ended.
She lies down across her futon. She hasn't even put the sheets on yet. It's her first night in her new apartment; first night living on her own, with no roommates, no boyfriend, nobody around at all to pick up her slack. Everything is quiet except for an occasional car passing by outside—she thinks about ripping open one of the boxes holding her CDs, putting something on, but instead she just lies there.
She looks over at an outlet set in the baseboard and she thinks about her toadstool nightlight. She didn't come across it when she was packing things up for the move. She wonders where it is. It's either in a box in the basement of her dad's place in Indianapolis or she threw it away at some point in the past, figuring I won't ever want to use this again. She wishes she had it. It doesn't matter, she tells herself. It doesn't matter, because really Austin was right, it doesn't really ever get too dark in the city. She rolls over and looks out through the curtainless windows at the night sky beyond. It is a dull yellowish color.
She suddenly wishes for total darkness. She wishes that the streetlights outside would burst, one after the other, she wishes that Chicago's entire grid would sputter out. Maybe if she was lost in pitch blackness. Maybe then she could lose track of herself.
Paul had helped her move, and once the last boxes were in he gave her a big hug and said —Don't be a stranger. But what she wants right now is to be a stranger even to herself. She is so tired of everything that she is.
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[fresh as of 5/22/03]
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