Freedom (1994)

There's a long pause after my request. I balance the phone between my shoulder and my ear, freeing up my hands to examine my split ends. I need a trim.

"No," he finally responds, as if he's just testing the sound of the word or asking permission to refuse.

I stop snipping at my hair. The receiver starts to tumble from its perch. I grab it before it falls completely. "Why not?" My roommate peers at me over the top of her textbook.

I hear a television switch off on his end. Another pregnant, frustrating pause. My foot starts tapping rapidly, shaking my entire bed in the process. "Because it's mine now." No beseeching this time. Stated with reproach, as if it were obvious. Well, two can play at this game.

"No," I correct him, calm and patient, in a tone usually reserved for slow children, "it's mine." My roommate puts down her book and stares pointedly at my jittery foot. I stop, mouth the word 'sorry,' and start to pace instead.

"But you gave it to me." There's a crackling noise from his end of the line, the kind you get from sudden movement with cellular phones.

"Yeah, well, I've changed my mind," I snap. "I'd like it back." My roommate throws down her book dramatically and glares up at the ceiling. I flap my arm at her in a gesture of resignation and drag the phone out into the hallway.

"You can't do that," he insists.

"Why not?" I struggle to adjust the phone and get comfortable against the wall. Neither is working.

"Because it's Indian giving."

My eyes roll. "Oh, Indian giving, right. How mature. Matt, we are college students. We are adults. Could you please act like one and return what's rightfully mine?"

"Talk about immature," he snorts, "You're kidding, right? 'Rightfully mine?' That's rich, Al, really. Make it sound as high-minded and pretentious as you want, you're still fighting with me over a stuffed animal."

"Oh yeah? Well if it's 'just a stuffed animal,' why won't you give it back to me?"

"Why are you asking for it? Look, you're the one who ended things. Why can't you just let it die?"

"Me let it die? You're the one desperately hanging on to a fucking teddy bear! Like it's some token of your starving-artist scorned love. You're the one refusing to let go of it. You probably sleep with it and everything!"

"Allie, you used to sleep with it."

"Which is probably why you still want it, you perv!" From somewhere down the hall floats, "Shut up, bitch!"

"Bite me!" I yell back, covering the mouthpiece.

"Ok, Allison." Composed and patronizing now, trying to restore a sense of dignity. "Enough. This is getting ridicu—"

"So you'll give it back?" I lean forward.

"No. Your argument is just too pathetic to surrender to. I'm not even going to dignify it with a rebuttal. If you need a damn bear so badly, go buy yourself a new one. Goodbye." Click.

I hold the dead phone about a foot away from my face and scream, "Buy yourself a new one, asshole!" before slamming it down. My roommate pokes her head out the door and stares at me, completely bewildered and plainly aggravated. "WHAT?" I explode at her. She shakes her head and walks wordlessly back inside.

My eyes squint shut. Damn. Damn, that did not go well at all. But what was I expecting? Nothing ever goes well when he's concerned. Completely irrational. We couldn't even break up well, which is why he has the bear in the first place. I open my eyes briefly to inspect the purplish-black nail marks in my palm. "Fuck," I mutter, releasing my grip, leaning back. My head connects hard with the concrete wall. "FUCK!" I clench up again, then drop my head into my hands and grab a fistful of hair. I need a cigarette. I pull one from the pack in my pocket and head towards the stairs.

* * *

I pass an open door and someone calls from inside, "The next time you want to broadcast your lovers' quarrels to the whole dorm, you should just use a bullhorn."

"Shut up, Kara."

"I'm only trying to help." She grabs the door frame and leans out into the hallway. She's wearing a leather miniskirt and a bra. Her head is wrapped in a towel. Dyeing her hair again. "I mean, it would be less of a strain on your voice."

"Whatever." I point to the towel. "What color?"

"Blue Velvet. Are you going for a smoke?"

"Yeah."

She peers around me to make sure no one is within earshot. "Do it in here. I've got the fan on." She ushers me in and shuts the door behind me. Smoking inside the building is illegal.

Kara grabs a flashy Zippo off the end table and lights the cigarette pinched between my lips. Deep drag; exhale. Finally. "Why do you want the thing back so badly, anyway?" she asks. "I mean, it's just a toy, right?"

"It's not necessarily the bear, you know? It's just that he has it. Just another loose end floating around when all I want to do is forget it all. It sounds stupid, but the space on the shelf? Where I used to keep the stupid thing? That empty space is just as blatant a reminder as a big 'MATT WAS HERE!' sign. It's just irritating."

"Well, if it meant so much to you, why did you give it to him?" She lights up one of her own cigarettes. Cloves.

"I dunno." I move towards the window where the box fan is humming belabouredly. "I didn't know how else to do it. I just kind of shoved the bear at him and walked out and hoped he'd be gone by the time I got back." I blow a smoke ring and watch it get sucked up into the fan and out the window. Destroy the evidence. "If he just accepted it was over," I grumble, "like any other normal guy, there wouldn't be a problem."

"What exactly happened with you guys, anyway?"

I flop down on the bed and stare at the ceiling, remembering. Throwing myself into him in the mosh pit, the cute stranger at the techno concert. Drunkenly frolicking in the fountain at 2 in the morning, snapping blurry pictures, until campus security chased us off. Breaking into the History department after-hours to play strip hide-and-seek. That rainy Saturday at the laundromat, sitting on a washing machine, watching him underhand wet t-shirts into the dryer and wondering, myself, what exactly had happened.

"I needed some freedom." I shake my head and turn towards the couch Kara has sprawled herself on. "And he sucked at oral," I smirk.

"Honey," she replies, wide-eyed and smiling charmingly, "that's the point of oral." She ducks to avoid the pillow I throw at her. It whales into a potted plant instead.

I stub out my cigarette. Kara unwinds the towel from her head and moves to the bathroom. A blow dryer switches on. "What are you doing tonight?" I yell over the drone.

The blow dryer switches off. She pokes her head out into the common room. "Techno night at Haze. Dave's coming to pick us up in a few minutes."

"Us?" I ask, joining her in the bathroom.

"Yeah. You had a bad day. My treat." She squeezes my shoulder and turns back to her hair. "Go get dressed!" she yells over the dryer noise. "I'll meet you downstairs!"

"Aren't you going to get dressed?"

Hair dryer still going, she looks at my reflection in the mirror beside her own and shouts, "I am dressed!"

* * *

Kara's new hair is purple under the flashing club lights. She has just given the guy at my side, who has been buying me drinks and calling me Lisa, the thumbs-up. He's cute, but I can't remember his name either. The club is loud. The smoky air stings my eyes and clings damply. Dave is lost somewhere in the dizzying crowd. I watch Kara gyrate across the floor and approach a wiry guy with matching blue hair. She puts a hand on his shoulder. He laughs, shakes her off, walks away. Brutal. I feel the guy next to me tap me on the shoulder. He mouths some words and points toward the exit. I nod. Grab my purse. Butt out my cigarette. Wait. Kara. Or Dave. Find Kara or Dave. Tell them I'm going. They've disappeared. So has what's-his-name. I'm lost and spinning when someone suddenly grabs my shoulder and yells into my hair, "Hey, isn't that your friend?"

Kara is on one of the go-go platforms, dancing alone. I watch mesmerized by the twisting and glistening. "She's out of control!" this new guy yells again, laughing.

"Control," I mumble and pull him outside by his jacket without saying goodbye to anyone. There's a blur of crunching across gravel, stumbling against a car door, contorting on sweaty bucket seats. Then nothing.

* * *

The next morning, nursing a hangover in the empty Greek diner, I can't even remember if it was any good. The whole time I had this image in my head of Kara dancing on the shelf where my bear used to be.