It was last Tuesday when you were lying in my bed before the sun went down, looking at nothing in particular on the tip of your index finger, that I decided I might find myself in a position to propose a scheme.
I’d like to remember you in the morning, you know, I said quietly.
You nodded.
I think you should at least try to stay the whole night, and tomorrow when we wake up maybe we can spend the day together.
I suppose it depends on how you wake up, you said.
We moved to the couch to watch TV. We laughed at the couple on-screen, you jokingly said we were a bad match too. I had already started to forget who you were. I assumed there was truth in everything.
I got up and made us dinner, you didn’t care what I made so I used up the rest of my rotting cheese to make half-assed quesadillas. I shredded orange cheese then something white and crumbly while you defrosted tortillas. I asked you how things were going, I couldn’t think of a more specific question to ask.
It’s fine, you said, I don’t think anybody likes me.
I remembered who your friends were; I asked about a girl with an ugly and pretentious name and two boys whose names bothered me too for how plain they were. You laughed when I asked about the girl and told me she was too preoccupied to care about anything but her ass. I laughed. You smiled like you knew something else that maybe you shouldn’t tell me. Somewhere along the way, you told me you wouldn’t really care if I started seeing someone new. You said it wouldn’t change the way you viewed me.
I wondered how that was, I thought I’d care about that sort of thing with someone like you. I assumed I did care for a moment, but then again, maybe I did not, and you were doing a kind thing by reminding me of things we’d agreed on in the past before I started this whole business of forgetting. I told myself that you and I were a very temporary arrangement. My chest started to ache. I took a pill to calm it down. I told you I guessed I wouldn’t care either, I don’t think I sounded very sure.
We laid down next to each other after we ate, you kissed my neck and face and the flat bits of my chest and for a little bit, it seemed like you remembered all the things about me in the fleeting way I was forgetting about you.
By the morning your face was goopy, I couldn’t make out any of your features. There was no distinction as to where your body ended and the mattress began. The sweatshirt you’d slept in and the pants I let you wear were warm. I pushed the bundle into the middle of the bed. I bundled up my sheets slowly dragging you towards me and walked out to the dumpster outside my apartment While I walked and my sheets dragged behind, I couldn’t remember why there were goopy clothes on my bed in the first place. I had probably just outgrown them and there was no sense in driving somewhere to give them away to some other person.
