All in all, she was pretty happy with him. He was funny in a sidelong sort of way and looked good in bookish glasses. He did have trouble dealing with her morning mood swings (after nights when she didn’t get much sleep, usually for no real reason) and judged her silently for still using blue putty to hang posters on her bedroom walls like some college freshman. But framing was expensive and drilling was a pain, and she refused to let a wrinkled Klimt print with worn corners stand in the way of a healthy relationship. It was in that spirit that she didn’t push the subject of deciding what “their song” would be because she knew he thought it was so prosaic. The way he had half-smirked at her when she casually brought it up and said “Yeah, right” had told her all she needed to know about his opinion of relationship anthems. The sort of thing high school kids did when they were caught in that relentless hearts-in-the-eyes stage of “love,” which wasn’t exactly love but was rather a less direct way of engaging in youthful self-obsession. She remembered feeling that her every movement, every inflection in her speech was in some way being witnessed by whatever boy she was throwing herself into at the time. Seeing herself through the shallow eyes of boyfriends accounted for every self-conscious hair-flip and lip-bite, the rhythm with which she strolled down the hallways, arms crossed over binders and books pressed to her chest. The feeling was nearly filmic, as though constantly starring in every major and minor scene of a movie. Performing herself, perfecting that act. She understood perfectly his condemnation of that reflexive selfishness in his “Yeah, right.” What annoyed her wasn’t his insistence on being so very Adult about their relationship and the quirky proclivities thereof, but his refusal to let her look at herself always or even sometimes through the lens of Him. Any superfluous twist of her hair went brutally ignored as a reminder that she had not enticed him, or drawn him; he had chosen her. She looked up at the Klimt poster stuck to the wall over her bed. She had always found it romantic and pleasantly decorative. Looking now, the paper-white woman appeared mangled and bent under her lover’s pressing kiss. His skin was swarthier than hers and the contrast made both look sickly. Rigid and unyielding fingers pulling her to his mouth, his face hidden, hers so open and bared. The woman had turned her face away from his lips either out of coyness or resistance. It was impossible to tell for the flatness of the painting and simplicity of design.
She felt altogether humiliated for reasons that were too complicated to articulate. She ripped down the poster and threw it in the open closet. Slammed the door. She didn’t tell him not to come over later but when he did she felt hunched and bloodless and avoided his kiss.
