Chapter Thirty
H OW DO YOU SHOW SOMEONE you’ve evolved? That you’re better—because of them?
A large part of me wants to walk to Will’s apartment, bang on his door, and tell him everything I wish I’d said two weeks ago. That he was right, that my arguments against our relationship were a self-fulfilling prophecy. I thought we wouldn’t work together because I didn’t trust his affection, and maybe even more so, I didn’t trust myself. Trust that a people-pleaser could be exactly what someone has always wanted. Naturally, and not by design or by force.
But then I think of his face when I told him I didn’t trust him. That he would leave me. That his writing was pretentious, unoriginal, too much . For once he looked at me as if I didn’t know him or see him at all.
I think back to how it must have felt when Will gave his poems to his father in college. How his father ignored all the words Will had spilled onto the page except for the ones that weren’t his to spill. Will must’ve felt so misunderstood in that moment. And even then, he kept going. Applying to the MFA, stripping himself bare every week, on the page, for us. Even when he didn’t feel a natural pull to poetry like I did. Even when it made him uncomfortable. Something inside him pushed him to keep doing it.
I’ve never been as comfortable taking myself apart on the page. There’s something about writing it all down and reading it back that’s worse than just talking about your feelings out loud. When you write them down, they become permanent. They become something to judge and tease apart, and I’ve never wanted to subject myself to that.
But that’s why I’m going to do it. To lay it all out there for him to see—take it or leave it.
A week later, in workshop, Will doesn’t choose to read my poem out loud, which stings a little. I guess it’s unsurprising, but I wanted him to do it. To hear my vulnerability spoken in his low, deep voice—the one I trust the most with my words.
I wonder if he hates my poem. If he didn’t know what I was trying to do.
Instead, Kacey reads it, which I told her beforehand to do in case Will didn’t want to. She gives me a sly wink before she starts.
I try not to watch Will’s face as she reads, but I glance up now and then. He looks mostly neutral, maybe a little sad. It’s hard to interpret him when he’s trying not to be interpreted.
I read it aloud next.
“‘All the Leighs I’ve Been—and One I Could Be.’” I begin with the title and then launch into the rest of the poem:
The one who kisses boys on the dank bus
on the sixth grade DC trip, giving in
to cracked-voice cheers and the first of many
clammy hands to trace her outline against
the one who shaves because a boy smirked
at the tufts growing from her tight-crossed
legs, a pre-teen unknowing, staring at
the one squeezed into black polyester, pressed
into the hungry groin of a boy swaying
to Top 40, grateful to feel so small like
the one who inhales root beer Chapstick
off the lacrosse captain, takes off her shirt before
he asks, lies about her music preferences to
the one who can’t hold her liquor or feel
guilty after dribbling peach vodka in a basement,
letting needy blazer boys touch
the one who says she just wants to be friends
before they have the chance to say it first because
the one who’s a gymnast, twisting in a ball pit,
nursing scraped knees and just watching
the decadence of being someone else is also
the one who decides she is pretty
with the lights on, with arms uncrossed
and breath slow enough to catch.
I stop reading and something deep in my chest uncoils. It’s the most personal poem I’ve ever asked for feedback on. It’s not written in some noticeable persona. My name is even in the title. It has details from my real life. Things that could be criticized. Judged.
Kacey begins. “So here we have a poem with eight stanzas, most of them three lines each, and they go back and forth on the page. What I think is working well here is the turn at the end, which I assume is the ‘one’ that the speaker could be. I like how the poem has this quiet optimism at the end, and it really feels like a release of breath with the images Leigh is conjuring here.”
I take notes on my poem as she speaks, then look up to see Will, scribbling on his copy.
More people chime in. Jerry questions the format—should all the stanzas be of equal length? Kacey wants some of the details to be more specific, particularly at the end. Hazel thinks the last stanza has the right idea—but could be even punchier. I nod even though I’m not allowed to speak. Their points are all good.
Will doesn’t say anything, but he does look at me when everyone is passing their poems over. His face is almost never readable, but right now, for a few seconds, I see everything—every wrinkle, every divot, every facet of his eyes. And he looks like he has lost something precious.
When everyone’s comments are in front of me, I put his on top so I can secretly read it while Jerry’s poem is up for discussion. Will’s done his signature underlining when he likes things, question marks where he’s confused, Hmmm when he wants me to linger in the moment. But in the margins, he’s written this:
A fresh concept, universal emotion in the specificity of the images. Lovely as usual. The perfect mix of style and substance.
If the praise is playing out on my face, he doesn’t show it. His own poem is up now, and it’s another in a series he’s been writing all semester. The title is “Ode to My Father in Late August.” As with everything by Will, it’s suffocating and sharp.
While everyone debates its focus and its length, I start writing in the margins, in tiny script so it all fits, on the copy I’ll hand back to him.
Will,
Every night I replay our last conversation in my head with a simmering regret I feel deep in my bones.
And then I replay all the ones that came before it—at AWP, in your bed, at Middlebury, in Mrs. Lincoln’s class. And the only conclusion I have, after parsing through every word we’ve ever shared, is that I am irrevocably in love with you. I can’t make it go away. It hasn’t worked for ten years.
I’m so sorry for what I said. I let my jealousy and insecurity take over. You’re an incredible, brave, original poet, and you’ve taught me as much about writing as any teacher I’ve ever had. I shouldn’t have made you feel like you weren’t listened to or understood. I love everything you’ve been, everything you are, everything you could be.
I’m not expecting any response, I just want you to know how sorry I am. How I wish I could take it back.
You once wrote that my words were a mirror. I could say the same for you. I have never felt more seen or understood by anyone else. I just wanted you to know.
When the discussion is over for his poem, I slip my words around the room, back into his hands. I watch him straighten the sheets and tuck them into his tote bag.
I don’t feel like going to Pete’s afterward. I can’t bear sitting there, drinking a stale beer, having to wonder if Will’s read my note or not. So I go home despite Kacey’s pleading and turn on a reality TV show—a balm for my overactive brain. I’m braless in my sorority sweatshirt when I hear a knock outside.
And then there’s Will—his beautiful face a fishbowl distortion through the peephole. I open the door. He’s as looming as ever, his eyes intense. I suddenly don’t know how to move my body.
“I read your comment.” Given his expression, I have no idea how this is going to go.
“Will, I—”
He cuts me off. “No, wait. Please, can I just talk first?”
I nod. “Come in?”
I close the door after him, and he stands in the middle of my living room. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands; first he crosses them, then he puts them by his sides. I stand in front of him and the air between us is thick, but the magnetic pull is as strong as it’s always been. There’s nothing I want to do more than haul him up against me, but I know he’s not ready for that.
“I don’t remember ever saying to you that your words were a mirror.” He’s fidgety, like he can’t balance himself right on solid ground.
“Maybe you just don’t remember.”
“I remember every conversation we’ve ever had.”
A ping of want zaps through me, creating a lace like broken glass in my stomach.
“Well, you didn’t say it out loud. You wrote it.”
Will stares at me, and I know his mind is revising his data set to include written correspondence. Realization washes over his face and he puts his fingers on the back of his neck.
“The email to Goldfinch ,” he says. I nod. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because I only read it last week. They didn’t forward it to me, not back then. But when they accepted a new poem of mine, they found it in their inbox and sent it along.”
Will laughs. Not a low chuckle, but a loud, nervous laugh that I see move from his calves to his shoulders. “Fuck,” he says once he works the laugh out of his system.
Even though I don’t know what’s happening, I’m smiling, too. Because he is. Because I can’t help it.
“What’s so funny?”
He shakes his head. “I spent the first semester feeling so awkward around you because I assumed you’d read it and were just so uncomfortable that you were never going to bring it up. And if you weren’t going to bring it up, why would I bring up a strange, stalker-y email?”
“I swear I had no idea.”
“That was one of the first things I mentioned, at the barbecue, that you’d been published in the journal, and I remember waiting for you to say something, and then you never did. I tried to bring it up again at the pumpkin patch, but then that kid hit you with a gourd or whatever, and it didn’t seem like a good time.” He laughs. “I thought, either she’s very uncomfortable or, more likely, she’s just entirely moved on and isn’t giving this as much thought as I still was.”
I take a step closer to him. “It was such a nice note, Will. I mean, it made me cry. I just don’t understand why you sent it to them and didn’t try to get it to me more directly.”
“I didn’t have your email address or phone number.”
“Yeah okay, but you could have like, I don’t know, DM’d me on LinkedIn or something.”
“I think part of me didn’t want you to get it.”
“Oh.” I can’t look at him. Tears coat my eyes and threaten to spill. I know he sees because he takes a big step forward and puts his thumb on my chin, coaxing it up so I’m looking him in the eye.
“I want you to know why…” He stops and takes a deep breath. “Why I copied ‘Invisible Summer.’ I only did it that once. I was stressed, not thinking, needing to just feel sure of a poem for once, and the second I turned it in, I felt so unbelievably guilty, but it got a good reception and even though I didn’t deserve it, I took it. My dad had asked to see my poetry that semester and I gave him a bunch; I shouldn’t have included it, but I did. Maybe as a test. And sure enough, it was the only poem he liked. Didn’t say a single word about any of the others. Not then. Not ever. I can’t bear to look at it, but I can’t bring myself to throw that copy away, either. His comments are all over it.”
I exhale, stepping closer, so that our feet touch. “He was an idiot. He had no idea what he was missing. I mean that. I’ve read two semesters of your work now, plus your high school stuff, and I love your poems. I love your voice and how honest you are in them.”
“Thank you.” He whispers the words, even though we’re alone. “But I shouldn’t have done it, and I have to live with that. Leigh, reading your work, seeing the joy you bring to it… it’s made me realize that this isn’t what I’m meant to do. It brings me too much stress. What I enjoy much more is helping other people with their work. I love workshop, and I actually like working at the Writing Center, as long as it’s with students that can keep their hands off you.”
I laugh, grabbing his bicep, pulling him against me for a second before pushing back in horror. “Wait, you’re not quitting the MFA, right?”
He shakes his head. “No, I’m committed to finishing the program. Besides, I love seeing you like this. How your eyes flash when you figure out the perfect way to separate your stanzas. How the corner of your mouth tips up when you know you’re about to say something smart in workshop. You always look shocked and smug at the same time, and I’d be too jealous if everyone else got to witness that but me.”
“Okay, good. You’re not allowed.”
He grins. “You know I’m not great at opening up with my feelings.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. His hand is so warm, and I just want to lean into him. “At Middlebury, when you said you wanted to try this out, I wanted to, so badly. I was—I am—so attracted to you, physically, emotionally, everything. But I knew I couldn’t live up to your expectations. I never do, not with my parents, with girlfriends, whatever. I didn’t want to start something because I knew it would end and I couldn’t tolerate that.
“But after my dad died, I don’t know, something snapped. I read your poem in Goldfinch , and I couldn’t help myself. I knew I still wasn’t worthy of you, but I think I just wanted to reach out. Then when I realized you were here , I wasn’t sure where we stood, and I didn’t want to open this up, to open myself up again. I still wasn’t in the best mental state.”
“Will,” I whisper. I drag my hand across his heart, but he keeps going.
“I’m exhausted by this, by myself. I feel like I have no choice but to give in.” He pauses and takes a deep breath. “Leigh, I can hardly remember a time I wasn’t in love with you.”
His voice is tulle—soft, airy, lovely. It’s a comforting contrast to the fast beat of my heart.
He continues, running his thumb along my jaw. “In high school, I thought you were the kindest person. The best writer. The most beautiful, even though it was a fraction of how beautiful you are now. You have always been the brightest thing in the room and I have never not wanted to be in your spotlight.”
“I’m in love with you, too,” I burst out before he can get another word in. I’ve already written it, but I want to say it, too, to make it more real for him.
His entire face smooths, as if he’d been holding in so much tension. And then he kisses me. It’s a bit rough, the way he crashes his body against mine, the splash of his stubble against my cheeks, his hand knotted in my hair. But I give it all back, my hands tight around his neck, grasping for every bit of breath from his mouth, as if I need it to breathe.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “For everything I said. You were never pretentious or judgmental. I think I was. I was just insecure. I swear, I love your writing so much—”
He shakes his head. “No, I’m sorry. I was a prick. I knew I was being condescending and I shouldn’t have made it about me at all. You were hurting and I was insecure.”
It’s kind of scary when you can see someone this clearly—when you can see them beyond the parameters within which they’ve permitted themselves to live. It requires even more vulnerability. Will holds my entire heart, every vein, every nerve of it, in his hands. And I hold his in mine, too.
He keeps me pressed tightly against his chest. “I love you,” he says again, like he can’t get enough of the words on his tongue.
“Show me,” I whisper against his neck. And then I walk backward until my thighs hit my bed.
He doesn’t need to be told twice. When I’m lying on my back, he braces his hands over my shoulders as I unbutton his shirt, my mouth hungry and desperate on his. I break for air and shuck off my sweatshirt, my leggings. When I slip off my underwear, I don’t blink.
“Good,” he murmurs. A smile creeps across his face as his gaze sweeps over my body. “Beautiful.”
I unbutton his pants, and he roughly pulls them off, unwilling to waste a second of time not skin-to-skin. His mouth is on my breast, his teeth grazing where I’m most sensitive, and a sigh rushes out of me.
“Tell me what you want.” He runs a finger down the center of me, slowing the chatty part of my brain down with every inch.
“Take these off.” I grasp at the fabric at his hip, and he pulls his boxers off.
“Now what?” he urges, nipping at my neck.
“I want… I want you to put my wrists above my head and keep them there.”
There’s a glint in his eye. He does what I ask, his large hand just-tight-enough over mine. “You’re so pretty like this,” he says, reverent, stretched over me, his lips against mine once more. “Now what?”
I wriggle slightly under his hold, pressing my thighs together, need softly building. “I want you.”
He nods, then tightens his hand around my wrists for a moment before climbing off me. The condoms he’d put in my dresser are right where he left them.
“Don’t move.” He punctuates each word. As if I ever would.
When he’s back, he presses my wrists into the mattress, his other hand reaching between us to position himself. And then he’s there , sinking into me, but only a little before he slants himself out of reach. He’s teasing. He wants to hear me beg. To ask nicely. To state exactly what I want from him and how.
So I tell him. I write him an entire poem and I read it into his ear, each word hot and damp like his hand gripping my thigh. He groans in free verse, my own climax sharp like an end-stopped line.
Sometime after, we lie in bed, even though it’s only early evening and not at all time to sleep. But he’s worn out. I roll half on top of him and whisper, “Will.”
“What is it?” His voice is thick with sleepiness.
“You read my poems at the reading. After I ran out.”
One hazel eye peeks open, hesitant. “Yes.”
“Why? I thought you’d wanted me to move away from the pop-culture ones. You wanted me to use my own voice, to be more vulnerable. Those poems weren’t.”
He props up on his elbows. “It doesn’t matter. You worked so hard on them. Maybe they weren’t as vulnerable as your stuff now, but your wordplay has always been the best in the class. Erica needed to hear them. Everyone did. And I wanted to give you the best shot at getting the fellowship—” He stops talking when I curl my hand around his arm. “Are you… was it okay? That I did that?”
I nuzzle into the crook of his shoulder. “Yeah. I think it might have been the moment I knew for sure.”
“Knew what?”
My head tilts, and a vision flits across my eyes—us in Perrin next year, us in Ohio, us here in this bed and many other beds to come. The warm, buzzing feeling that threads across my skin when he looks at me like he is now. “That this could be a forever kind of thing.”
He closes his eyes in an exhale, tucking me closer into his chest.
“But now I want to know. When was the moment you knew you were in love with me?”
He laughs, shaking his head.
“Okay, never mind, I’m being insecure, I shouldn’t ask for constant validation—”
He cuts me off with a kiss, slow and indulgent. “I want to say high school, because wouldn’t that be romantic? A decade of uncontrolled pining.” His eyes are open now, and his fingers trace the jut of my collarbone. “But that’s not quite true. I wasn’t not in love with you at Rowan, if that makes sense. But I barely knew you, even though my mind filled in all the blanks it wanted to.”
He pauses. “No, the moment I think the feeling truly solidified in my subconscious was at the barbecue.”
“When I spilled water on you? How come all the great moments in our relationship happen after I pour my drinks all over you?”
He shakes his head. His nail drags down my shoulder, as if he wants to leave his imprint on my skin. “No. It was when you refused to call me William .”
“Is that right?” I feel such an injection of serotonin behind my eyes I have the impulse to cry.
“Yeah.” His voice is the softest caress against my ear. “Somehow you knew who I was before I did.”
We’re over a month into a post-Hazel-winning-the-fellowship world, and I’m surviving. It’s hard, I won’t lie, but it helps knowing, truly knowing, that she deserved it.
What also helps, obviously, is getting together (for good) with Will.
“How did it feel when you found out about the fellowship?” Bridget asks as I prop myself up on my bed, holding the screen in front of my face. We haven’t had a session for a few weeks, so I had a lot to catch her up on.
“Shitty,” I admit. “But I don’t think it defines my worth as a writer. They could only pick one person, and Hazel really is the best choice. She’s a fucking good writer. I feel guilty for being so judgmental of her from the outset.”
Bridget nods. “That sounds like a really healthy response.”
“Leigh Simon’s all grown up.”
“I’m impressed,” she says with a laugh. “In a little more than a month, you told a bad guy that he could go fuck himself, came to terms with your worth as an artist, and got a new boyfriend? Sounds like our work is done here.” She winks.
“No!” I say, even though I know it’s a joke. “I’m still a mess.”
“I’m kidding. The work is never really done, but I think it’s good to pause and reflect on the progress you’ve made, too.”
I nod, and it’s not to please her or to make her feel like she’s been useful. It’s because I actually want to.
The semester winds down with a sprint of activity. We finish up our classes, edit our writing, await our assistantship placements for next year. I want to get out of the Writing Center, so I apply to the Perrin Review editorship instead, but we won’t find out who got what for another week or two.
We say goodbye to the second-years with a final party at Penelope’s—one that’s been dubbed the MFA Prom. Kacey didn’t want to come. We found out last week that August’s been cheating on her; she saw an incriminating See you over spring break ;) text from his hometown ex on his lock screen and confronted him. No one in the cohort dared say I told you so . We all know how seductive the straight white literary man—most of them, anyway—can be.
In the end, Kacey bucks up, puts on a revenge dress, and decides to enjoy the company of the rest of our cohort. Morris snags his usual DJ spot, this time with a more democratic playlist. The night grows loud and sloppy, and after a few drinks, Jerry brings his much-requested moves to the center of Penelope’s living room.
“So what are you gonna do this summer?” Hazel asks the group of us that’s lazing on couches, taking a dance break to cool down.
I’ll be in Ohio, spending time with both parents equally. It’ll be weird and emotional, but knowing Will will also be in Cleveland helps. He told his mom it’s to visit some other relatives and friends, but we both know it’s for me.
“Summer in Cleveland,” I say. “Maybe a part-time job. But I mostly just want to relax. What about you?”
“I’m doing a yoga retreat for a week in July, but otherwise I’ll be in Portland.”
“Oooh, yoga. Got all your Lululemons ready?”
Hazel laughs. “No, I prefer the ones made of upcycled plastic water bottles, actually. Much better than virgin polyester.”
“You know, I’m trying to explore a better mind-body connection, too. Maybe we can do some yoga classes at the rec center in August when we get back.”
Hazel lights up. “Yes, let’s do that.”
Then Will’s hand is on my shoulder, and I look up at him in his white button-down and navy blazer, unbuttoned to show a sliver of skin at his chest. He leans forward to speak into my ear.
“Penelope’s bedroom is unoccupied, I see,” he murmurs, and his words unzip my entire spine.
“I think I left my phone in there, actually.” I stand up from the couch and let him pull me into his chest, his hand resting on the part of my back exposed by the turquoise dress I have on.
“Think we better go make sure no one has taken it.”
“So full of good ideas, you are.”
“I have a couple of other ideas, too, actually, that I’d like to show you.”
I flush and pinch his arm through his blazer. He laughs and kisses my temple. In an instant, I drown out the pulse of the music, the sparkling chatter of my classmates around me. Right now, here, it’s just me and him.
Everything we’ve been and everything we can be.