YOU HAVE APPROACHED A LONELY CRAB.

The first time I met him was as he rounded the corner of the Acorn and I laughed at his joke. He later remembered that I laughed because I was the only one who did.

Matthew lived in Marshall, which was kind of on the way to Unit A. I asked if we could walk back together because I preferred not to walk back alone, even if only partially. We left together and made small talk: I was from California, he was from all over, mainly the South and most recently North Carolina, he’d never been to California, but his mom protested in the Occupation of Alcatraz. I told him I’d never been to Alcatraz before.

“Do you want to see my cat?” he asked.

“What?”

“I have an illegal dorm cat.”

“Oh, sure!” I didn’t like cats, but I was intrigued.

The cat wasn’t an innuendo—there it stood, perched on the dark oak bedpost —and neither was it when he asked for my Snapchat. Who used that these days besides bots and horny teenagers?

“I have a private story dedicated to posting pictures of my cat. So you can see more of
her, if you’d like.”

I added him to mine, as a courtesy.

---

In February when the ground was white and the nights felt still, he swiped up on my story to tell me we shared the same birthday — this time, our 21st. Even though I couldn’t drink, I wanted to buy alcohol to celebrate this rite-of-passage and invited him out with me; tentatively, he said, perhaps, but ultimately he was unable to accompany me. I went with my roommate to the liquor store nearby, the one owned by an Indian couple, and bought her soju. The cashier saw it was my birthday and gave me a free shot glass.

---

My Spring Break plans got canceled; I wouldn’t be in New York with my sister anymore. In Boston, with nothing better to do, I asked Matthew if he wanted to hang out.

He pulled his computer and a bag of nail polish out of his pink and orange bandana-adorned Track & Field backpack. We wove ourselves into a basket, crotches pressed together as far as our thighs would allow. It was hard to tell where my legs began and his ended. Hands on knees, knees on hands, polish brushed on our nails through an echoed 69. It was technically the second time I had done his nails; the first time, I had painted them red and dotted them with eyes.

We talked about God and past lives and porn preferences and his Googleable father. We played Five Nights at Freddy’s with our thighs touching and his laptop straddled over like two halves of a whole; the game was incredibly boring. He took the thick metal rings that usually furnished his middle fingers off so he could WASD better; I put them on mine and twirled them around my fingers, too big even for my thumb.

He told me I reminded him of his mother—well, at least my neurotic tendencies.

He got hot. My common room heater was broken and wouldn’t turn down. I offered him a shirt and shorts, my XL Honors shirt from community college and a pair of boyshorts I stole from a boy. He changed in my bedroom and I turned to the corner to give him privacy even though he said I didn’t have to. Did he know I wanted to look?

---

The night wore thin and I couldn't stop thinking about how nice it would be to be in your arms instead. In my mind we kissed until the shapes of our mouths melted at the edges while the Toll House cookies baked.

In the car, when you were driving me home, you told me that I could tell you anything—if I wanted to go home, if I was tired, if I was done for the day. There was only one thing I wanted to tell you and I couldn’t.

Your brother's dog's fur got all over me and I couldn't wash you off either. Laundry detergent and pot smoke still remind me of you.