You Between the Lines

by Katie Naymon

I’m drunk, but I’m hardly wild. I’m wearing seersucker.

Unless I’m 1,000 percent sure what I’m about to say is brilliant, I can’t risk saying it at all.

I constantly accommodate, but then I secretly resent other people for not being as accommodating.

While everyone else asks for a performance, some heightened version of what I’m offering, Will just asks me to be more myself.

I know, on a cellular level, that there’s nothing wrong with who I am, the things I like, or the way I dress. I’ve never subscribed to the not like other girls persona. In fact, I’ve spent most of my life railing against it, enjoying being the contrarian in a room full of English majors. The dumb sorority girl who’s as excited about The Bachelor as she is the structure of a sonnet. But this program, which at the moment Will is unknowingly embodying, makes me feel small and stupid and judged.

OUCH! this is not something i’ve ever felt before…

You have always been the brightest thing in the room and I have never not wanted to be in your spotlight.”

“Somehow you knew who I was before I did.”