I gave you a pot of flowers in a glass pumpkin pot this morning before I left for work. You were still sleeping. Halloween was a month ago. I saw it there on the metal stand among all the new flowers and felt bad so I pulled out a five-dollar bill for it. I forgot I meant to get a half carton of skim milk and 1% cheese sticks. 1% of what I never can remember. It’s a habit. Everything about my life now is a routine from my college years. I don’t like to try new things or meet new people. I am done with trying to be spontaneous. I can’t pretend anymore to be someone I am not.

The only one I need is you. You make me happy. I am glad we met at Intro to Poetry second year, fall semester. Your poems were all about death. I was disturbed for a while but I got used to it. You wrote of people dying by accident, people dying by choice, people murdered. It was surprising how many different ways to die you came up with. My poems were all about abuse. People being emotionally torn apart by those who love them or claim to, people who cut themselves to stop being numb and then, once numb, do everything they can to feel something again. Anything, my narrator screamed, tearing at her hair, give me anything.

When you were left alone for too long, you’d try to overdose. I know they tell you to call 911 if you know someone who plans to commit suicide but I failed to see how they could help. They wouldn’t know you, how reserved you are with strangers. You wouldn’t know them. I didn’t want them to carelessly toss you into a mental institution. What could they have done but keep you physically safe for a short while? And call your mother. Oh, they could call a guardian; let her take you out of their hands. As if parents can solve everything. You hate your mother. I knew that. Your mother’s lack of understanding and acceptance is your main issue.

Instead, I let you sleep on my bed a lot. I caress your hair and let you talk about your past. I never get sick of hearing it. I barely slept during college. I’d sneak in naps during my classes instead. I don’t want to close my eyes during dark one night and wake up to you cold, limp, and breathless. 

“Why do you feel responsible for her?” my therapist asked me.

“I am more coherent. So I am responsible.”

“No, you’re not.”

I took away your Wite-Out one night. “I feel responsible for you. Please don’t.”

“You’re not responsible for me,” you said.

“Yes, I am,” I insisted.

I fail to see how I am not. Two years later after graduation, I still let you sleep on my bed. You tell me you don’t have any suicidal thoughts anymore. I am delighted. I think maybe I should have studied psychology in college even though I hate anything that has to do with science. I think given the right training, I can save many lives. I feel worthless at the café washing mugs with cigarette butts in them with my creative writing major.

Life is good now. I feel content. You clean and cook while I work. We go shopping at the local grocery store around midnight when the aisles are empty. We hate seeing bouncy families with their trail of offspring. They repulse us. We like things our way. We like to walk home sucking on old sushi and pieces of ginger and wasabi. 

I watch you now tenderly watering the flower. I feel like someone suddenly hooked me up to sockets and I am feeling the rush of blue-red electricity running through my veins. It makes me smile like a fool, makes it hard to catch my breath.

I pretend you are not an alcoholic. I pretend you have always acted that happy when sober. I pretend you didn’t try to kill me one night with the knife that we use to cut away anything stubborn.

Jamie Lin has been published at Cherry Bleeds, Laura Hird, Verbsap, Insolent Rudder and some others. She's currently at college analyzing herself to death and feeling worst than before when she was just numb & bored & empty. Her website is at jamielin.net. More college stories are coming up. Hopefully.