Buzzfeed, Boys, Black Magic

post-pool-party gardening haze

My mom was a talented gardener. I didn't inherit her green thumb. Nonetheless, I intended to beat my post-pool-party-hard-lemonade migraine with some light exercise and fresh air.

As I attempted to weed a patch of my mom's backyard garden, my phone pinged. I put down the dandelion I had just pulled from the earth and glanced at the screen. The weedhead. My weedhead.

heyyy girlfriend

I watched the typing bubble pop up and then:

lol not to label but your serious about this?

I groaned. Couldn't I go an entire day without hearing from him?

you're*

I sent back. And then I added this:

why not?

He responded:

so you're* actually into me?

why not?

😊😊🙈🙈

I felt like planting my face into the earth, so I planted my face into the earth. The grass smelled like rain and the 1990s. I heard some mourning doves coo in the distance. If I learned anything about nature from my mother, there'd probably be a thunderstorm any minute now.

I felt my phone vibrate in my lap.

yo lets go to the plutztown fair tomorrow i wanna buy you festival food

A second later:

you like funnel cake?

I planted my face back into the patch of my mom's garden and wiggled my fingers into the dirt. If I didn't release my angst that way, I would probably scream. If I screamed, the neighbors might actually get concerned. Last thing I wanted to do was concern the neighbors. After they'd realize I wasn't in the way of physical harm, they'd probably ask me what I was doing with my life now that I've graduated. I was afraid I might actually start foaming at the mouth if I heard that question again. Then they'd have to call animal control or the Vatican.

I felt something cold against one of my fingertips.

I bolted upward and yanked my hands back into my lap, in the process unearthing a white half-moon-shaped insect with orange legs and a translucent shell. A grub. I hadn't seen one since I was maybe five or six. My mom used to find a lot of them. She'd call me over and ask me to step on them. I enjoyed squashing things to death, and they were the only things my mom would let me kill. They grow into beetles, she had explained, that completely destroy your garden, they've got to go before they turn into trouble.

I wondered if my present life was my karmic punishment for the glee I took in killing baby bugs. It was a nonsense thought, but maybe WWF at the Newton Center was right. Maybe I was a monster.

I stood up and smashed the grub beneath my converse anyway.

I watched my phone light up with another two messages.

ohhh we should go on the ferris wheel too

and bumper cars

Ah, Rafi. I thought. I had to put an end to this before I found myself in real trouble.

And like clockwork, the sky broke open in a torrential rain.

***