Emergency Contact

by Mary H.K. Choi

Penny, of course, was dressed in her customary shapeless black garb that was appropriate both day and night for being ignored by everyone.

If you’re going to be racist you should try to be less ignorant, although maybe that was a contradiction. . . .

If there were a subbasement level with a trapdoor below utter invisibility, Penny would have found a way to fall to it. Her social standing was nonexistent.

And while Mark referred to Penny as “bae,” which just made her deeply uncomfortable because: gross, he also described pizza as not only “bae” but “bae AF.” Which, yeah, obviously, but that was the problem. They both liked pizza way more than their person.

Behind “bae,” Penny despised “baby” as a thing for a grown adult woman to be called. It was so prescriptive. Like dressing sexy for Halloween.

At least there was coffee. Reliable, delicious, life-giving coffee.

Amen to that

Penny suspected a performative aspect to her mom’s crying. Comparable to YouTubers sobbing during heavily edited confessional vlogs,

Mallory held up her finger again. Penny wondered how much force it would require to break it in three places.

She rarely cried at sad things, mostly mad ones. It was a fun and easy way to lose arguments.

Penny knew emoji hearts were flying out of her eyes. She was smitten mitten kittens.

The ancient machine—his trusted steed since junior year of high school—already didn’t qualify as a laptop because it had to be plugged in or it would die. Plus, the colors bled together on-screen so you felt as though you were on hallucinogens no matter what site you were on.

My previous laptop was like this

His mother used to say you shouldn’t marry anyone you wouldn’t want to divorce, and he understood that now. Lorraine was the emotional equivalent of a hollow-point round; the exit wound was a shit show.

When Penny was in ninth grade, two events of great portent occurred. One, she read Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus. Two, she figured out that she wouldn’t be popular until she was a grown-up and that was fine because life was a long con.

Penny believed with her whole heart that there were moments—crucial instances—that defined who someone was going to be. There were clues or signs, and you didn’t want to miss them.

She wondered if the rest of early adulthood would be like this—avoiding roommates, getting ripped off for bad fusion food, and the peculiar loneliness of being smothered by people she didn’t want to spend time with.

Some people’s coping mechanisms were all about festering and secrecy and ruminating until you grew yourself a nice little tumor in your heart with a side of panic attack. Different strokes.

People were odd. Sam loved and loathed that about them. Fiction was fine, but real life was the true freak show.

If she was going to break up with the guy, she wanted to look good. Maybe her best. Humans were garbage like that.

It wasn’t a romance; it was too perfect for that. With texts there were only the words and none of the awkwardness. They could get to know each other completely and get comfortable before they had to do anything unnecessarily overwhelming like look at each other’s eyeballs with their eyeballs.

Penny was a trove of oddities and inexplicable phenomena.

Penny thought of this Korean saying for when you really, really liked something. You’d say it “fit your heart exactly.”

“What kind of question is that? It’s fucking art, man,” he said, scowling. “You don’t choose it. It chooses you. If you waste that chance, your talent dies. That’s when you start dying along with it.”

“But sometimes it’s so incidental that these people are the parents. Beyond the biology of it. It’s not as if they had to pass a test or unlock achievements to be the ones making the decisions. Sometimes they’re actually stupid. Certifiably dumber than you, but as their kid you’d never think to know that.”

“I know I love someone when I can’t remember what they look like in any real way. I can never seem to recall whether they’re handsome or ugly or if other people think they’re cute. All I know is that when I’m not with them and I think about them, where their face should be is this big cloud of good feelings and affection.”

Loving someone was traumatizing. You never knew what would happen to them out there in the world. Everything precious was also vulnerable.

I get a lot out of you. I trust you right back. You speak fluent me. I’ve got no complaints. I love . . . I like knowing that you exist. It doesn’t make me feel any less lonely, because life is lonely, but it makes me feel a lot less alone.”