PENNY.
Penny hoofed it to class. Her hair was that type of long where it got caught in her armpits at the worst times. She wanted to pull over from the throng of kids to flood Sam’s phone with questions about his date, but she restrained herself. Instead she talked about the varying sleep cycles of geniuses who later became psychos. As you do.
She’d been dying to text him last night. Instead she beamed the Internet into her eyes for distraction, stalking MzLolaXO, rendering sleep impossible. Penny’s own Instagram account was set to private and while her feed contained only six pictures, it was useful for anonymous lurking or as cover for the accidental deep-like. That MzLolaXO had a new photo in her feed of Sam’s hands—from a few weeks ago—dismantled her. MzLolaXO had tagged him holding a broken laptop, and Penny knew it was for sure him because of the horse tattoo. When Penny clicked through to his account, it had been deleted. Penny was relieved and a little butt-hurt—okay a lot butt-hurt—that he hadn’t mentioned seeing her that night.
At one a.m., eyeballs throbbing from the screen time, she’d eaten two of Jude’s protein bars without realizing they had sixteen grams of fiber in each. They lay heavy in her stomach—forming a kind of petrified roughage diamond—as she scrambled across campus.
Penny didn’t know why she was being such a headcase. It was better for the baby if Sam and Lola reconciled. It was the natural order of the universe for them to be together. If two gazelles gallivanted around the savanna, it was no business of the tree frog. Penny was the tree frog obviously.
When she got to class, J.A. was wearing a jumpsuit made—improbably—of complicated balls of twine. Needless to say, she looked amazing.
“Tragic heroes are hella fun to write,” she began. “Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Tony Soprano. They’re damaged, saddled with baggage. Plus, wherever they go, there they are, yadda yadda yadda.”
Everyone in Penny’s story was screwed up. The only innocent was the real-life baby who died. Ugh. So many babies to think about. What if there had been some big update about Sam’s baby? Would he have told her? Yes, he would have. At least she thought he would. Except that he hadn’t told Penny about seeing Lola weeks ago, so why would he tell her about last night? About how they’d driven to Vegas and eloped while Penny sat at home alone eating her feelings.
What if Sam was married now? Jeez. That would make him about as tragic as they came. An impregnated Lola was his hamartia, or fatal flaw. Oh God, or maybe Penny was the tragic hero and Sam was her flaw. She tried to refocus on the assignment.
Trouble was, Penny had to admit she only knew Sam because he was going through something. It was the classic fish-out-of-water scenario. Sam was a stranger in a strange land made up of millions of Penny’s text messages.
It was bizarre how much time he had for her. Suspicious. He hadn’t mentioned family or friends other than Lorraine. Maybe he was in the Witness Protection Program. But that made zero sense, since Jude would be too much of a liability. Jude who just that morning complained that Sam was avoiding her.
Sam had to be slumming to be talking to her this much. He was cooler than Penny empirically. It was opportunistic of Penny, as a tree frog, to take so much of Sam’s time.
She vowed not to text him for the rest of the day.
Mallory was lying on Penny’s bed with her shoes on when Penny got home from class. Jude was getting out of the steamy bathroom.
“Hey, P!” Jude’s face lit up and she gave her roommate a hug. She was warm and wet. “Oh my God, I have so much to tell you!”
“We’re going to get coffee at House,” said Mallory, rolling onto her back and pulling at the gum in her mouth. “Come with?”
“I can’t,” said Penny. “I have to write.”
“Didn’t you write this morning?” Jude flung her towel on her bed. She was such a naked person. Penny reflexively turned away. “You were up at six a.m. or something. That light was driving me crazy.”
“Sorry,” said Penny. “I didn’t get very far.”
Penny’s phone beeped in her bag.
Mallory rolled her eyes.
“Why? Because you were texting your new boyfriend?” Mallory nodded toward her stuff.
“Mal,” said Jude.
“Clearly she’s boning someone,” Mallory insisted. “She’s worse than I am with that thing.”
Penny’s cheeks flushed.
“I know you’re private, Penny, but it is obvious,” said Jude. “And it’s great. Isn’t that why you broke up with Mark?”
“Not exactly,” muttered Penny.
“Not exactly. I can’t hang out. I’m Penny, little miss serious writer with a shady new boyfriend I won’t talk about.” Mallory sat up with a dare in her smile.
“Whatever, Mallory.” Penny turned back to her laptop.
“Forget it,” she said, arching her eyebrow. “Come on, Jude. Shady Penny doesn’t want to hang out with us.”
“Do you want anything?” asked Jude, throwing on a romper. “An Uncle Sam treat?”
Penny shook her head.
“Want to have dinner later?”
“Maybe,” said Penny.
“Well, make an effort,” said Jude. “We have so much to catch up on. Like, how I’m a freshly minted art history major who dropped her shitty marketing pre-reqs.”
“Whoa, that’s amazing!” exclaimed Penny. “And your dad’s cool with it?”
“Not exactly,” said Jude, rolling her eyes. “Mostly he shit-talked Mom’s trip to Europe, since she’s hate-posting it all over Facebook. I guess he’s finally paying attention to her.”
“I need coffee,” whined Mallory, tugging on Jude’s arm.
“Okay, okay,” said Jude. “Catch you later?”
Penny nodded.
As the door slammed, Penny could hear Mallory in the hall.
“I don’t know what you see in her.”
Mallory could throw salt all she liked. There was no way Penny would go to House and let Sam see her. That would ruin everything. Sam would take one look at her and be like, “Yikes, never mind.”
Instead of writing, Penny snack-crastinated. She chewed a Lactaid, then grabbed a jar of Nutella and pulled out a heaping spoonful. She placed it in the middle of a cereal bowl and dumped a mini bag of Cheetos into it. She carefully dipped a twiglet into the hazelnut smear and popped it into her mouth. Then she checked her phone.
SAM HOUSE
Today 2:02 PM
Do you know what the simulation hypothesis is?
And when she didn’t respond immediately:
Hello?
unsubscribe?
Is this thing on?
So much for not texting for the rest of the day. She wrote:
Jude and Mal are en route
He texted back immediately
Here?
Yeah
She dipped another Cheeto.
Are you coming?
Hell no
Penny typed without thinking.
Ahhahahah thanks a lot
It’s not that they’d explicitly discussed it; they just knew.
Is it crazy that we don’t hang out?
Penny’s hand hovered over the keypad. Neon cheesy flavor crystals fleeced the thumb and forefinger of her non-texting hand. A brown-orange lichen she couldn’t wait to scrape off with her teeth.
Hang out?
She was stalling.
There was no way she’d allow him to see her do 97 percent of her normal daily activities. She was a monster. A monster who was flat as a board with no ass. In fact, the only thing she had going on in the curves department was an enormous cystic pimple on her chin that hurt when she touched it. Yeah, no.
Like for real?
Yeah
In a coffee shop
Where your friends go
And your other friend works
Penny smiled at the mention of them being friends. But she also couldn’t tell if this was some kind of test. If she admitted to wanting to see him would that be disappointing?
She wrote:
No?
He responded immediately.
RIGHT?
Whew. Correct response. So why did she feel so . . . sad?
And ruin this?
She mashed the spoon into the Cheeto. It probably wasn’t disappointment she was feeling, but GI distress. Between the hardened protein bars in her belly and this trash, she might never poop again. Penny took solace in the fact that she and Sam would never have to poop in the same city block, let alone the same bathroom.
Srsly
Feels sooooo good to be in our respective metal boxes
#sealed
#safe
Free from the mortal coil
Yeah
What you said
Lol
So yeah no IRL for me
Why break the fourth wall?
No point
We’re perfect in here
It was true. Everything outside of the box was a mess. Penny’s “un-here” was no good. She shimmied off her bra with her clean hand and flung it onto her bed.
If I could be perfect in here
And in my writing
I think I’d be satisfied
Is that pathetic?
Nope
AGREED
I think you only get to be good at
two things at once
Do you think we spend too much time talking and not enough working?
He took a minute to answer.
Probably
Penny smiled.
You have to find your movies
And you have to write your
big story and let me read it
Maybe you only get to have one thing at once
Lol
Probably
What if this is our one thing?
Lol
What like texting?
Yeah
Maybe this is what we’re good at
I’m not mad
Phones rule
Humans drool
Lol
We’re the best
This is the best
And it was.