You Between the Lines

Chapter Nine

W HEN I GET MY NEXT poem back, Will’s annotations are different. They’re invites to conversation. He still writes his in-depth summary of feedback, still asks questions where my words don’t make sense for him, but now he provides commentary on the rest of the workshop or unrelated musings. Sometimes his annotations spill over to the blank side of the paper.

August doesn’t get metaphor , he scribbles in his small, precise cursive on the opposite side of the page, so as not to interfere with my poem. Should we inform him that the apple in Kacey’s poem is not actually an apple? In fact, is an apple ever just an apple?

Another week, he writes: Best verb of the day. The verb I used was tussle .

And another: In a poem where I write in the persona of a pop-music star having sex to her own music, he underlines the couplet “how his palm unfurls / like spilled ink on my hip bone.” I have no idea how to interpret the underline, but I spend way too long thinking about it.

I absolutely do not think about Will’s large hands. How they could pull and spread and push and take.

I’ve started to do it back, only because I told Bridget and Gen that I’d try very hard to make chill, non-competitive friends in grad school. And even though Will and I are competing against each other for the fellowship, I can’t let it get in the way of our friendship. Is it a friendship? Something like that at least. It’s better than whatever weird relationship we had a month ago.

His poems have become a safe space for me to be more pointed in my feedback. The first few weeks of workshop, I’d been hesitant to comment on something unless I was positive it was worth mentioning. But last week, Paul pushed me to comment on Will’s poem structure. Caught off guard with no time to formulate the perfect response, I had to improvise—“It’s a bit choppy for me. I’d suggest longer lines in this case”—and ended up contradicting what everyone else in the class had said.

That day, Will commented on the bottom of the poem he handed back to me: You were right about my poem. Longer lines will give it the meandering cadence I was looking for.

It took everything in me not to look up at him when I got my poem back, but my neck flushed, like I’d seen something in him, hidden, that no one else had.

The comments go beyond just poetry workshop. He’ll write on my nonfiction pieces, too. We’ll have our own conversations that span weeks at a time, lazy and slow in their own way.

I hope I never meet Houston’s sister , he writes on my piece, about a nonfiction essay Houston presented that day as well. I bet she actually did blackmail that professor about the drugs.

The next week, I respond: Houston’s sister also wishes to never meet you. And hey, maybe one day I’ll tell you the story of how my college friend group convinced a couple frat guys to buy cocaine from us for an excellent price. It was powdered sugar but they were none the wiser. It funded our brunch habit for at least two months.

He signs off his next comment with: I definitely need the full story. The suspense is killing me. Not sure I can wait until next week’s workshop for your response.

And then he gives me his number. The 216 Cleveland area code is the same as mine, a revelation that is so obvious and yet reminds me he’s not someone I just met. Even though it’s much easier to think of us starting with a blank slate.

I create a new contact in my phone. Will Langford , I type, adding his number. I’m not sure if I should use it. But there is a sort of thrill in being given something that is his.

I don’t use the number until a week later, and only when I have no choice.

It’s a long weekend for the university. Kacey’s gone home to Austin, Christine’s in Chapel Hill, and I’m still here. My usual grocery store drivers are out of town, and I don’t realize the problem until I’m one dirty bowl into making pumpkin bread and I have zero pumpkin to use. The campus shop definitely doesn’t sell cans of pumpkin, and I’m not going to Uber all the way to the closest Harris Teeter for a single can that costs two bucks.

After living in Boston, I was unaware that I needed a car to live in North Carolina. I assumed when my dad dropped me off that it’d be walkable, but I was clearly mistaken.

Do you need to go grocery shopping today? I text.

I receive a response one minute later. Leigh?

Yes. Sorry should’ve said that.

I usually do my grocery shopping on Sundays. Why?

I’m out of pumpkin and don’t have a car. Thought maybe if you were going to go today… but no problem! I’ll pivot to zucchini bread. Hope you’re having a good weekend! :)

I delete the smiley and press SEND .

He responds thirty seconds later.

What’s your address? I can be there in 20.

Nineteen minutes later, he texts again: I’m outside.

Nineteen minutes is hardly enough time to look presentable, but I’m used to tight deadlines. I throw on a bra, jeans, a purple sweater, and sneakers and manage to do a face of no-makeup-makeup because I need to look good for the cute cashiers at Whole Foods, that’s all.

I leave the apartment and sure enough Will is parked outside with his OHIO: BIRTHPLACE OF AVIATION license plate, which is immediately recognizable in a sea of needlessly competitive NORTH CAROLINA: FIRST IN FLIGHT plates.

“I’m so sorry, you really didn’t have to do this. I could’ve waited until your usual Sunday grocery day,” I say when I open the passenger-side door.

He shakes his head. “You say sorry way too much.”

“Yeah, sorry, should work on that.”

He raises his eyebrows. I give him a quick once-over. He’s wearing black high-top Converses, muted green chinos, and a cream sweater. His Cleveland Museum of Art tote bag is by my feet. His car is a manual, which is something that should not be as hot as it is.

“So, um.” Now I’m very aware that my arm is a foot away from Will’s and the entire car smells like coffee and his cologne and I’m starting to heavily regret putting myself in this position. “How’s your Saturday been so far?”

He shrugs and pulls out of the parking spot, putting his hand behind my seat back as he turns to look out. I avert my eyes and try to concentrate on the weave of my denim and not how close his hand is to my neck.

“It’s only two. Can’t say much has happened yet. But things are looking up.”

I nod. “Nice. Cool. Yeah.”

He rolls up the sleeves of his sweater, exposing the tops of his forearms with thick veins and a smattering of light brown hair, and I’m beginning to truly understand the meaning of You played yourself .

“What else do you need besides pumpkin?” He maneuvers us onto the main thoroughfare of the campus, in the direction of town.

“I’m running low on eggs and laundry detergent, too, but I guess only the pumpkin is urgent. There’s a bowl of flour and baking powder and salt sitting in my apartment as we speak.”

“What’s your schedule like for the rest of the day?”

I can’t even imagine why he’s asking—or maybe the problem is that I can, and playing out what the rest of the day could be feels like maple syrup dripping down my spine.

“No plans.” I hate myself, and I am so, so weak.

“Good.” The word bursts into confetti somewhere deep in my chest.

If you can believe it, Will doesn’t take me to Whole Foods, which is a real waste of this Effortless Cool Girl Grocery Outfit, but where we end up is arguably better: Willow Organic Farms, home to North Carolina’s largest pumpkin patch and corn maze, a fact proudly proclaimed by the sign at the entrance.

“They have pumpkin and eggs, but I’m guessing not laundry detergent,” he says, after we’re out of the car and standing in front of the farm complex.

“Oh, but laundry detergent can wait.” I glance around, not knowing where to look first. The buildings are littered with pumpkins of all shapes and sizes. “This reminds me of Ohio.”

“I thought you might enjoy it.”

The place is swarming with people—particularly children. I hear campy Halloween music and laughter and shouts like, “You cannot eat a decorative gourd, Billy, what did I tell you.”

There’s a country store where the farm sells things like milk, apples from their orchard, eggs, and cider donuts, and an outdoor part with massive rows of pumpkins, squash, and gourds, all ready to be cooked or painted or shucked for jack-o’-lanterns. A giant corn maze unfurls next to the parking lot, where cornstalks over six feet tall bleed into the orange landscape of trees and slightly overcast sky. The entire place smells like apple cider and cinnamon.

“Maybe this is lame, but would you want to do the corn maze?” I ask, my face reddening slightly.

He grins. “No self-respecting Midwesterner would turn down a corn maze.”

And I agree. I don’t make the rules.

We enter the maze, finding our own way among the parents, children, and two teenagers who look like they’re on an awkward first date.

“Do you miss Ohio?” I run my fingers along the cornstalks, feeling like a kid on a field trip.

“Sometimes. But in many ways it hasn’t felt like home in a long time. Even so close in Pittsburgh, I didn’t visit much. Do you still go there often?”

“Couple times a year. Thanksgiving, a long weekend here and there.”

I think back to going home to see my parents. How I might never do that again, not in the same way I always have, in my childhood home. Back in college, I’d look forward to flying home, to a weeklong reprieve from navigating the social dynamics of sorority girls and English majors. But now “home” is the place where I have to be on , constantly managing the emotions of two people who are no longer sure they like each other enough to hang out with me anymore.

I quickly change topics.

“How’d you end up at Perrin, anyway? You seem more like the New York MFA type. Like, I see you in the NYC literati crowd, drinking cocktails at Paris Review parties with agents and publishers and Vanity Fair interns.”

Will laughs. “I applied to a handful. Iowa, Michener, Michigan, BU. Perrin’s the only one I got into. Got waitlisted at Iowa. Straight rejections everywhere else.”

“Really?” I raise my eyebrows. “You know, that humanizes you, actually. I would’ve assumed you’d have your pick.” Why did I just say that?

Will flinches, so fast I almost forget to feel guilty. “I’m shocked I even got into one.”

“Perrin was the only one I got into, too,” I add quickly.

We don’t say anything for a bit, and when I move to turn down a corner in the maze, he grabs the sleeve of my sweater to pull me back, so we go straight instead. His fingers touch absolutely no skin, but the tug of fabric against my wrist is a chord thrumming deep in my belly.

I do not think about him undressing me, because that would be completely absurd.

We continue meandering through the maze at his slow, lazy pace—a noticeable difference from how I see him move on campus, where he’s a fast walker by anyone’s definition. We talk about the MFA and writing, what he thinks about our various professors, and then about his family, the pressure he felt from his father to go to his dad’s alma mater, Columbia. It would be an easy segue into talking about his time at Middlebury, but I feel his resistance, so I switch topics. I don’t want to talk about Middlebury, either, especially when the day has been so nice, so civil, so easy. The exact opposite of how I felt the last and only time I was on his college campus.

Eventually, it becomes apparent that five-year-olds are flying by us at an embarrassing rate. We’ve been in the maze for over an hour, and my stomach’s begun its loud campaign for sugar.

“We’re lost,” I declare. “I need an apple cider so badly.”

“It feels like we’ve already been over here.” But he doesn’t look particularly concerned. The signs said the corn maze would be difficult, but I think we expected that if gourd-eating children could do it, two Ohio-bred late-twenty-somethings in graduate school would breeze through.

“I think we need to cheat,” he says finally.

“I don’t think they put a map on their website, Will.”

“No, I mean, I’ll pick you up and you can see which direction the entrance is in.”

“What?”

“Here.” He gets down on one knee, and my stomach loops at the sight. “Get on my shoulders and then you’ll be tall enough to see where to go.”

“I’m afraid of heights, remember?” I take a step back.

“I will hold on so tightly,” he says, maybe a little impatient. “Come on, I’ll buy you as many pumpkins as you want. We don’t want to be out here when it gets dark.”

“Donut and cider, too, please.”

“Come here. I won’t let you fall. Just trust me.”

Come here is a phrase I know my subconscious will hold on to for far too long; how he says it so cool and commanding. Willing my expression neutral, I step behind him and wrap one leg over his shoulder and pray to god that the jeans I put on today are clean now that my crotch is literally at his neck. I loop the other leg over and don’t know what to do with my hands, so I hold on to his head, feeling the soft strands of his wavy hair.

Then he stands up, and his palms splay roughly over my thighs. A gasp leaves my mouth at the quick boost into the air.

“See, you’re very secure.” He tightens his grip around me as if to make a point.

From where we are now, I can see that the pumpkin patch is to our left and we’re pretty close to the front of the maze.

“Okay, so what’s our move?” he asks.

“Hmm, it’s sort of hard to see, can you walk a bit straight ahead?”

He does, taking slow, steady steps. “Now?”

“No, sorry, can you keep walking? There’s this one stalk that’s really high and I can’t see over it.”

He keeps going. And then I feel myself lift up even higher; he must have raised his heels. “You don’t see the entrance?”

“Not really. Maybe if you keep going straight and then once you get to that bit up there, I would take a left—”

“You just like the ride, don’t you?” I hear the smug smirk in his voice.

“Me? I would never,” I say in an exaggerated scoff. I half expect him to release me now that my cover is blown, but he doesn’t. He walks straight, then turns left, right, left, then straight. In about forty seconds we’re back at the start of the maze.

“I’m going to let you down now.” He slowly lowers himself until my feet touch the grass and hunches over so I can wiggle off his shoulders. A couple of teenagers in skinny jeans walk by and check Will out. I become acutely aware that we were the oldest people in that corn maze without kids to chaperone.

“That was fun,” I say.

“Apple cider time?” It’s almost 4:00 p.m. and the sun has started to creep out from the clouds, bathing the farm in a copper glow.

“And donuts.”

We walk to the corner inside the shop where donuts are being swirled in a vat of sparkling sugar. We order twelve donut holes and two cups of hot cider.

“Let me pay for yours.” I butt him out of the way at the register. “Since you drove us here.”

“No, it was nothing. I’ll pay.” But I swipe my credit card before he can.

“Fine.” He puts his card back in his wallet, grumbling.

We probably should’ve split it. It’s not like this is a date. It’s a grocery store errand interpreted a little too creatively.

We go over to a bench outside and sit, watching kids slalom between the neat rows of pumpkins. And I etch a tableau in my head for later: the air’s crispness as the sun dies out, giddy donut-mouthed laughter, Will’s cologne laced into my clothes after he lifted me onto his shoulders. It feels like how it could have felt when I was sixteen, had I ever gotten the courage to maybe just ask him for a dance at homecoming.

“Being here reminds me of high school,” I say.

“Did you hang out in a lot of pumpkin patches?”

“I don’t remember the name—there’s some big farm in Medina I’ve been to a few times. I got my first kiss there, actually.”

“With whom?”

“Let me set the scene for you. October, sophomore year. The recession is on its way. The weather, crisp. The time, three p.m. on a Sunday.”

Will laughs.

“Gen planned a little double date for me, her, Marcus Wolznak, and Evan Borowitz. Marcus was for me. She was hooking up with Evan.”

“Marcus Wolznak.” He runs his hand through his hair, closing his eyes as if he’s scanning his memory. “The name rings a bell, but I can’t place his face. Was he your year?”

I nod. “You wouldn’t have run into him. He was on the baseball team, not super academic. Cute, though. Frankly, he was a huge get for me. I don’t think he would’ve come had Evan not been there.”

Will shakes his head with a laugh. “Okay, so what happened at the pumpkin patch?”

“Gen does the very transparent thing of Oh my god I need to pee so badly, Evan can you please go inside with me to help me find the bathroom? Which is a total joke, because if she really needed to pee, she would go with me , not Evan.”

“Of course.”

“So Marcus and I are walking around the pumpkins and eventually we sit down on a bench much like this one, waiting for Evan and Gen, and he says something like ‘So… do you want to come to the fall dance with me?’ and obviously I say yes, and then he says, ‘You’re actually pretty pretty,’ which was too many qualifiers in retrospect, but what was I supposed to do? There was some silent moment and I kissed him.”

“You initiated your first kiss? Wow, Simon. Bold moves.”

“I saw my opening. Marcus probably wouldn’t have been my top pick, but I wanted to get it out of the way, and he was attractive and popular. It made me feel cool… to be associated with him.”

And it’s true. I remember the moment vividly—how when his autumn-chapped lips touched mine, I thought that this, possibly, was some sort of peak. After we pulled apart, I had the strange thought that maybe it hadn’t happened at all—that I had blacked out and the slight wetness on my lips was nothing more than wishful thinking. Because how could a guy like Marcus, with his Rowan baseball sweatshirt and boyish grin, like a girl like me? It wasn’t until Gen greeted me with an extremely-not-subtle wink that I realized it had indeed happened.

“How was the kiss?”

“Fine. I mean, there was no tongue, my god. I think I was afraid somehow my parents would know when I got home if a boy’s tongue had been in my mouth.”

Will chuckles, sipping his cider. “So who would have been your top pick?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” I look at him straight-on because I know averting my eyes could be interpreted in a particular way. “Ryan Fraiser from your year, maybe? Or Trent Walker from mine?”

He stares a second too long, but I plaster on a smile. “Ryan. Really,” he murmurs.

“What’s wrong with Ryan?”

He maintains eye contact while he takes another sip. There’s some hard glint in his eye, as if he’s daring me to press him on it. But I don’t owe him that satisfaction, so I ignore it.

“Who was your first kiss?” I ask.

“Nicole King.”

“Oh, really. I would’ve thought Maddie Katz.”

He shakes his head. “I did, uh, kiss Maddie, but that wasn’t until junior year. Nicole was freshman year.”

“Okay, Nicole King. And where was this?” I knew of Nicole King, and she sounded exactly like the kind of girl he’s always dated. I don’t know what she was like back in high school, but I know she ended up at Dartmouth for law.

“It was just a stupid house party. No cute pumpkin patch.”

“Did you guys, like, date?”

“I would hardly call it dating. But I guess technically we did throw around the words boyfriend and girlfriend . I could barely hold her hand, I was so terrified. I think at the time I worried I had some sort of skin condition because my hands were perpetually clammy. But she never seemed to mind. We’d spend every study hall period together in the library and she would give me reading lists like mixtapes, telling me which authors to read and who to skip.”

The idea of tall, handsome Will Langford being afraid to hold someone’s hand is so charming to me.

“She sounds like your type.”

Will gives me a weird look. “Oh yeah?”

“Hot academic girls. Rory Gilmore types.”

“I don’t think I have a type.”

“That’s what everyone says.”

“Well, what’s your type, then?”

You, you, you. My brain’s synapses fire to a steady drumbeat. It’s one syllable, three letters, and 100 percent the worst thing to say if I want to keep this where it is—some sort of safe, loose friendship. It’s the best-case scenario I could’ve hoped for after the weirdness that’s simmered between us since Middlebury. And with the fellowship as my ticket out of the life I have and into the one I’ve always wanted, it’s too risky to get distracted. Forearms and tugs-on-sweaters be damned.

“I don’t have a type, either.”

He doesn’t believe it. I see my lie reflected back at me in the crinkles of his crow’s-feet when he smiles. I switch my focus to the corn maze in the distance.

“Can I ask a personal question?”

He shifts on the bench. “Shoot.”

“When did you start taking antidepressants? Was it after…” I trail off. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to say the words your dad’s death . I have no idea what’s appropriate in this situation.

“No.” He plays with the hem of his sweater. “I’ve been on Zoloft since sophomore year of college. But I did consider increasing the dose. After.”

“And it helps?”

“I like to think so. At least, mostly. I’m still prone to feeling low even on them.”

“Do you think you’ll be on them forever?”

He laughs. “Honestly? I hope so. I didn’t like who I was off them.” I must look sad because his face cracks into a wide smile, his eyes kind. “It’s a low dose. And I mean, this is an MFA program. I’m pretty sure half the cohort is on something . Why do you ask?”

“No, I—I was just curious. My dad can be quite anxious, and I’ve wanted him to go on meds for ages, but he never does anything about it.”

“Yeah.” Will sighs. “You have to want to get better.”

Dad’s never done a good job of hiding it—his bitten nails, his insistence on working from home on subzero days when lake-effect snow coats the roads in ice. It’s bad enough to affect him (and me, and definitely my mom), but not enough to catalyze any desire for change.

“You know, I’ve, uh, discussed meds with doctors, too.” I twist a ring on my finger.

“Not into it?”

I shake my head vehemently. “No, it’s more like, and maybe this is hard to explain, but being an anxious person, burdening someone with anxiety… I associate that with my dad. A doctor’s never said to me, You need to be on anti-anxiety meds . It’s more been like, Okay, you show some signs of anxiety, but it’s ultimately up to you to determine what you can live with . I guess I haven’t decided if I can live with it.”

The way he’s looking at me, unblinking, is almost too much. I redirect my eyes to a parent trying to corral her kid, who’s zigzagging among pumpkins almost as large as he is.

“I know it’s stupid. But admitting I need them feels like saying, ‘This is my natural state. And my state is a problem.’ For me, and for other people.”

Will turns on the bench, orienting his shoulders toward me. They’re so big they block out the landscape behind him, and it’s oddly comforting. “With or without meds, your natural state is not a problem. Leigh, you’re, you’re—”

He trails off and I stop breathing in anticipation of what possible adjective he will attach to me. Behind my eyes a list emerges, scrawls of words: hilarious, clever, jaw-droppingly gorgeous, charming, deep—

“You’re conscious,” he says, meaningfully, as if the word could be anything but a nice way to say nervous . It takes everything in me not to deflate before his eyes.

“Oh. Well. Thank you.”

He shakes his head, frustrated. “No, what I mean is you’re so aware. You know, I watch you, and you’re conscious of others, making space for people in workshop to talk. You’re generous in the Writing Center, too; you make other people feel comfortable. It’s a good thing.”

His stare climbs across my skin like ivy. He watches me.

“My mom would say I’m a people-pleaser, but… Thanks.”

“What I mean is, it’s not about changing who you are or your personality. You’re the same person on or off meds. I mean, I’m no scientist; I have no idea how they work. All I know is that not being on meds was untenable for me. You knew me in high school. I wasn’t pleasant.”

“Come on.” I nudge him in the shoulder, static catching between us.

“Everything I did, every book I had to read for class, every essay I had to write—it all required so much effort. I felt like I was moving through sludge. A professor I liked finally noticed and recommended the student counseling center. It got better on the Zoloft.”

“And so this is the real you.” I say it like a statement, but it’s a question, of course.

“Sure. But that was the real me, too. I don’t buy into the idea that antidepressants show you the ‘real you’ or whatever. I accept that that was me.”

“Even though you actively didn’t like yourself?”

“I don’t think many people did. Certainly not my dad. You’d think I’d shown him a warrant for my arrest when I handed him the acceptance letter from Middlebury. Dinners that entire semester were just, ‘Hi, how was your day? Good? Great. See you tomorrow,’ and then I’d spend the evening in my room reading. Everyone in Lit Society was probably wondering why everything we read that year had to be so moody.”

The Will I knew in high school wasn’t a disappointment. He was someone to look up to. The person I wanted more than anyone else to validate my work. Moody, yes, but also brilliant. It’s why his comments about my poem in workshop hurt so much.

“Well, you already know what I thought about you in high school.”

It comes out breathier than I wanted. He knows what I thought about him because I told him, at Middlebury six years ago, drunk on whiskey and nostalgia. I have no idea what he remembers of that afternoon, but his lips part and his throat bobs. His eyes move to my mouth and the crisp autumn air coasts the exposed skin of my neckline. Every word is a twist of the kaleidoscope of his eyes—sage twirling into ocher. As if I’m a marionette doll, governed by base instinct instead of my mind’s hyper control, I lean forward an inch. Another.

Will says, his voice low and gravelly, “Your poem. In Goldfinch last year. I’m guessing you didn’t get my—”

My shin is jolted by an ear of decorative corn. “Ow, fuck,” I say, wincing.

“Sorry! Sorry!” a parent yells to me, chasing after a toddler who’s laughing maniacally.

“It’s fine!” I call back, running my hand down my leg while turning back to Will. “Sorry, what were you saying? About my poem?”

Will’s face is flushed, and he stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Nothing. I was just going to say, uh, I guess you didn’t work with Priya Gupta? I, uh, went to school with her, and I know she’s a poetry editor there.”

I frown. “Oh. Yeah, I did. I’m pretty sure she’s the one who emailed me when they accepted the poem.”

“Cool.” His smile is detached.

A chill washes over me—the sun is setting. “Maybe we should start heading back.” I have my bowl of flour waiting, after all, and we both have poems due tomorrow.

Will helps me load my two pumpkins and three spiky gourds into the car, along with a jar of apple butter, a bushel of Pink Ladies, and a carton of eggs. On the way home, he swerves into the local grocery store.

“No really, I don’t need canned pumpkin,” I protest. “These ones will be great.”

He shakes his head. “Detergent.”

He casts a quick glance in my direction before parking.

“Oh,” I say. “Thanks.”