Track 10: Rilo Kiley Fever Dream by Teal Ivy Hall
November. The ants have stopped trailing into the house, although you don’t know about them yet. For the past two months they have lived secretly under your feet, walking from the back patio to the corner of your mouth as you slept. Now they are dead and only their tiny bodies exist, discarded in the corners of your not-boyfriend’s house and stuck in the gooey traps he sets for them.
Your not-boyfriend is cooking at the stove. He makes steak and rice and asparagus, all food you have learned to like because you like him. The list of things he has taught you to appreciate these past few months is endless: the simplicity of a Peanuts strip, the warmth of an extra blanket on top of a duvet, the bright, almost honey color of an Aperol Spritz when it is brought to your table at a restaurant. He has even let you stay at his house for days at a time where you have claimed a side of the bed, the top drawer in the bathroom, your own seat at the kitchen table where you currently perch, watching him. Behind you the radio plays something nice and simple. Jazz maybe. You are too focused on the way your not-boyfriend stirs something around in the pan, highlighting the broad shoulders you want to press your mouth to, constantly. He is the best thing that has ever been brought into your life. You are worried that if you take your eyes off of him, even for a second, he will disappear, and you will be shunted out of this dream. Silly, silly—you thought it was real? Silly, silly, silly.
Suddenly, the song changes. You blink.
Is this Rilo Kiley? you ask, rising from your seat like you’re coming out of some sleepy stupor 10 years too late. Oh, yeah, your not-boyfriend replies. He shows you his phone and you stare at the album cover you know well, the peachy pink, the baby blue. They’re pretty good. You say: There’s a song on there I used to listen to when I was walking home from school. He asks: Which one? You say: A Better Son/Daughter.
He puts it up next. You wrap your arms around him from behind and press your lips against the soft cotton on his shoulder. The hum of his body enters yours as he cooks, and you hold onto his waist like you try to hold onto this moment, as if it is the only life that exists. Jenny Lewis starts singing: Sometimes—and all of a sudden you’ve shrunk down several inches, grabbing onto him the way a toddler clings to their mother’s legs in public.
You were thirteen when you first ripped an errant .mp3 file off someone’s Tumblr and listened to this song all night, plastic earbuds jammed against cartilage, producing a tinny noise only you and God could hear. What would she think of you now—twenty-three and just as desperate for happiness as you were then?
It’s been ten years and you are ready, now. Right? Surely you have waited long enough. Surely you have lost enough. Surely you will be happy soon, actually happy, the type of feeling that leaves you so weightless you gasp for words to describe it. You have decided you do not want just any change but the change, the total shift into a better life. You are still young enough to believe this kind of thing happens to people, will happen to you. You are old enough to know that if you do not hold onto this hope, something childish and wonderful will crumble inside of you.
So you close your eyes and listen to Jenny Lewis’ unwavering voice. You tighten your grasp on your not-boyfriend’s waist. You listen to her sing through the high notes, through the lows, through the long chorus and mis-matched verse:
You’ll be happy.
For the first time, you notice the ants. They are glued together in a pile, unmoving beneath a kitchen cabinet. Maybe you can come out here at midnight while the boy is sleeping and excavate them from each other, delicately brushing away the goo and death like an archaeologist. For now, you count the stack like loose eyelashes, a wish for each body.
One. Let me be happy. Two. Please. I really want it this time. Three. Please, please. Four. Please, please, please, please. Five. Please.
Teal Ivy Hall is a New England area writer, crybaby, and sometimes artist. Her work has been featured in HAD, Open Ceilings, and a few other publications, but mostly on her mother’s refrigerator. You can find her at tealivyhall.com.
