2 9
halftime
noun. an intermission marking the completion of half of a game (as in football).
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WHAT RENATA PREDICTED HAS COME to pass.
I slept with Callum until he became a part of my system. Now (predicated on neurotransmitters, hormones and physiological conditioning) I have feelings for him: he smiles, I want to smile. He laughs, I want to laugh. He's sad, and I want to comfort him instead making fun of him or tucking his weaknesses away for future ammunition. I suppose the dangerous thing about falling in love is Darcian; you're in the middle of it before you even know you've begun.
But I'm not worried. Just like I told Renata, I've started making a plan.
Callum and I wake up tangled in each other's arms.
(We actually woke up earlier this morning, when his alarm went off for classes. "When's your first class?" he mumbled, drowsy.
"Eleven."
"Snooze," he said, and hit the snooze button.
And we lost track of time, because now it's lunchtime, I've missed the lecture, and sleep still has half a claim on me. This why you don't stay up till dawn fucking, kids.)
I have an arm around his bare waist. Callum's chin rests on the top of my head, and his arm encircles my shoulders, a comforting, protective presence. I speak into his neck, asking a question that would have never left my mouth if we were more awake, and if last night hadn't gone the way it did, with him opening up to me about his brother, with something I don't want to call love-making. "Callum?"
"Yeah?" His voice seems oddly distant for how close it is.
"Do you still hate me?"
I don't even know what I want him to say.
Even when we hurt each other and I was insanely jealous of him. Even when we have bad blood and were at one point gunning for one office. We competed, we imploded, and what we're doing now feels too easy for how quickly things have changed around. Although, maybe Callum doesn't agree that this is easy—maybe it's hard work to be around me, to entertain my dark interests and rebuff my odd humor. Maybe unfurling every sunflower he comes across is a chore to the one tasked with the job, and I'm only worth it so long as there's still nectar.
Callum shifts his face on the pillow. And I don't realize why, through my layers of thick hair, until it is already over. A kiss on the top of my head. My heart pangs. I tighten my hold on him.
"I don't hate you," Callum says, so faintly that I go more by the rumble of his throat against my forehead than the sound of his words, "A different me did, but now I can't remember what it feels like to be him."
Ah. I understand the situation perfectly. He wants me, but he doesn't love me. And I love him, but I don't want him. Or I don't want to want him, anyways.
I'm not under any illusions. I know I'm not a good person. Solitary people generally have a lot of time to reflect on themselves, and I am the most solitary person I know. Here are my reflections from twenty-one years of nothing better to do: I am pretentious. I use multiple personae and philosophy to blind people, instead of engaging in truly vulnerable conversation, so they don't look too closely at me. I intellectualize my feelings instead of feeling my feelings. I am a coward with raging abandonment issues. I don't want the people I fuck knowing my name, I don't want Callum getting too close. I am selfish, because I would rather hurt Callum preemptively than let myself hurt potentially. I self-sabotage. And all these combined suggest that I am broken.
Callum wouldn't want me for more than sex anyway, and if he did, there is no way I'd let him. This all happened because of sex and proximity, anyway, not some inherent destiny or compatibility. I think of all the kids left behind, the drunken heartbroken girls I've served drinks to, all the forlorn men who want to be vulnerable but are deeply unable to, dashing their prospects for emotionally intimate connections, all the anecdotes and statistics from the dating pool, all the wasted money, misplaced trust, shattered loyalties, unreciprocated emotional labor and—worst of all—when all parties communicate and all parties try really hard and love still doesn't work out.
But—but the experiences, lessons and memories are worth it; but—but how will you find your tribe or The One if you don't put yourself out there? The One doesn't exist, and that bubbly bullshit is for people who have something left to give of themselves. Loving people is the worst gamble in the world.
And I haven't had any chips to bet for a long, long time.
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Every part of my body hurts.
My heels, my calves and tibialis anterior tendon, from the way we have to march—rolling from heel to toe—my shoulders and back from carrying this marching snare, my hips under all the extra weight.
I watched everyone's Thanksgiving over social media. Pictures of hearty roast dinners, a variety of animal carcasses glistening and glazed, long text captions about what they're most grateful for, photo montages of their families and friends. Even though Renata's family is oppressive, she went home to them; like the marching band and Callum and every person I know. I was left in my residence hall with a smattering of international students and undergraduates potentially in similar kinship straits to mine.
Now Thanksgiving is over, winter is nearly here, the week of our last halftime show at the Halston Stadium. The night sky above the stadium bowl is pitch black, even though it's barely dinnertime: The physical exertion keeps my blood warm, but our breath mists in the air, two-hundred vapor puffs belying how heavily we are panting.
Every person in the band struggles to hold onto the thread of motivation under grueling environmental conditions, but we will hold on. Most of us have done a marching season before, and we know how to roll with the ebbs and flows of energy. Keller is up on her tower as usual, recording our current run-through on her cell phone. She watches the video back and shouts feedback at us for the next run-through, and then we take it from the top, and we repeat this until our director is satisfied for the night. When I sleep, it's blank and dreamless, like erasing a chalkboard in one slick swipe.
Wednesday after classes, Callum and I run the usual drumline sectional. Thursday after classes, we have our last rehearsal before Saturday's morning practice—which is always brief, to avoid usurping our energy from the halftime show. Throughout, I focus on the upcoming show, our progress and our talent, instead of the fact that this is my family and after this year I will never see them again, not like this, not this close. The annoying brothers that Callum's friends with, the fun aunt Shane, my kids in freshman year with so much more to learn and experience.
Callum.
Callum, Callum, Callum, so talented but so kind, so sunny but so sensitive. My lover and my partner and my equal—left behind. All of them left behind.
I wish I could freeze time and never feel this sort of imminent loss again, knowing it'll come and come and come, like an endless barrage of tsunamis.
Is growing up just saying goodbye over and over? Childhood fairytales, TV shows and movies, dead pets, estranged school friends, the angry glittering rush of believing you were really going to change the burning world, golden memories of college. Grandparents when they pass, parents when they pass, siblings and cousins when they move to another city and start families who don't know how close you used to be.
I generally uphold behaviorism, but sometimes I wonder; I wonder if, even without foster care, even in a stable family, I would have turned out the same way. If my tendency to the dark is not environmental but innate.
Maybe I'm depressed.
Maybe I'd like to not do anything about it.
On Friday, Keller holds the usual band leadership meeting in the band room. She congratulates the section leaders on our tireless, thankless work, all the extra time and care we've given our instrumentalists. "Section leadership applications for the Halston Student Orchestra are opening after the show. If you performed your responsibilities well this semester, your application will certainly be given preference," she explains. I glance at Callum, lounging on a chair where the clarinets usually sit in the ensemble, only to find him already looking at me. He glances away, as if caught. "Personally, I'm ready to instate all of you as section leaders next semester if you join that ensemble. If you're not joining HSO, or you're joining HSO but don't want to lead, for whatever reasons, tell me before the weekend is up and I'll know which positions to advertise."
After the band leadership meeting, after every other section director and section leader filters from the band room, I approach Keller with a growing list of excuses, full of buzzwords. 'Mental health' and 'burnout' and 'finding internships' and 'boosting GPAs'. It's all bullshit. I just don't want to feel the way I feel anymore, especially around Callum.
I worry about tone and believability, but Keller hears my trembling voice and sees my anguished body language when I say, "I can't do it anymore," and she asks nothing further.
Keller gives me a hug, rubbing my shoulder in such a grandmotherly way that I almost want to cry. I don't know what it feels like to have grandparents, to have that safe space and unconditional support.
"I'm sorry," I whisper.
Keller steps away and puts her hands on my shoulders, firm and comforting. "For what? You've given so much passion and skill to the Music Department over your four years, Isabella. I'm not disappointed. I am nothing but grateful. If you ever need anything from me—a reference letter or advice or even a coffee break, come to me."
Walking out of the band room, I try not to let the tears leak out from my eyes.
I am unsuccessful.
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Before the marching band walks on to the field, we gather backstage and do our pre-game traditions one last time.
Callum calls the percussion section into a circle, arms looped around shoulders and rib cages. "I just want to say thank you for being the best fucking section ever," he says. "All of you are first-rate musicians and even better people. I know I'll see all of you again if you're doing any spring ensembles, and also if you're getting drunk at my house tonight—"
"—yeah, boy," Robby whoops. I will not go to Callum's after-party. Everyone else will celebrate the four months of marching drawing to an end, the seniors their four years of marching. This is not cause for celebration to me, and I'm not in the mood to craft the party persona tonight.
"—so this is not a goodbye." As he casts his gaze around the circle, his dark eyes glisten with emotion. "I appreciate how hard you guys have worked this semester, and I love you all."
Slowly, Callum's eyes land on me, directly opposite him. I realize everyone's looking at me, his counterpart, to say something. Even the people who seemed to prefer Callum this semester are waiting expectantly, excited, fond, or wistful smiles on their faces.
"Well, you all know I can't do sappy." I clear my throat. "It's just like Callum said. You guys are the best. You've made leading so easy—well, not easy," I amend, rousing knowing laughter, recalling all the polishing, long sectionals, overtime on the weekends, "but so worth it. I'd do this all of this, all over again, with you."
With you. As I say my last words, I find myself meeting Callum's intense stare. I don't think it's just extracurricular pride and school spirit in his expression; there's something much deeper there. I want to step on it. I want him to stop making me feel vulnerable, unsafe, dangling over a precipice.
Around us in the backstage area of the stadium, the other sections are also performing their last warm-up rites. Quentin, the flute section leader, gathers his musicians to give them handshakes. The color guard leader stops swinging her arms in preparatory circles and gathers the color guard into a huddle.
The trumpet section leader, a Marvel fan, starts playing the Avengers theme music from their phone, "Trumpets, assemble," then drops into a superhero lunge.
"Okay, percussion!" Callum leans closer into the circle and removes his arms from the people next to him. He rubs his palms together, then yells, "What do we do at Halston U?"
As one our section of thirty picks up the beat, and I feel myself go numb to everything. I can't hear and yet my body keeps time. I can't feel my fingers and yet I pick up my marching snare and rig up, ready to assume center snare position. I can't see and yet I take my position in line, stare pinned on the shako of the person in front, and stride confidently out onto the field.
The stadium is full, screaming for us. Families and students alike have come to cheer on the Halston Foxes tonight, maroon and white shifting in a sea of bodies like colored pixel. Flags wave and banners ripple across the crowd and the air is stinging cold. Keller is on her tower, ready to conduct, and the pit percussion branch off to take their positions at their instruments.
Callum is next to me as we play, all the months of conditioning, rehearsal and rote memorization snapping into place like a collapsible tent pole. The songs are a blend of party anthems, classic crowd favorites and symphonic pieces that blend together like colors in a rainbow. I can't breathe, and yet I execute flawlessly every rudiment and stroke of my drumsticks.
I can't feel, and yet something deep inside hurts.