I Think I Would Stop Existing
Jack Nothwang
“Okay,” I tell him. “If that’s how you really feel about it.” I shuffle a bit. I lean my neck away from him. My temple rests against my seat belt.
“Pam, come on.”
“No, I get it. Seriously.”
“You told me to be honest.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t be upset.” My words make him huff a short huff of air through his nose. The air came out smooth, so I know he’s annoyed. Levi flares his nostrils whenever he’s unhappy. He has a deviated septum so his breaths are usually really long and windy. He’s probably pissed off if his nose isn’t whistling. It’s fine, though.
But I don’t feel like I’m being irrational. Yes, I wanted him to be honest, but I’m not upset at him for being honest. I’m not mad at him for speaking what was on his mind, I’m mad at him for thinking what was on his mind. He’s the one that doesn’t want his family to meet me. That’s what’s killing me. It isn’t that he doesn’t want me to meet his family. It’s that he doesn’t want his family to meet me. That’s how he said it. I’m the disappointment.
“You’re wearing the necklace,” he says and his nose is whistling again. It’s such a Levi thing to say. I have tons of necklaces, but this one is the necklace. I think it just happens to be the only one he notices. To him it’s not just one standout of my many necklaces, it’s not a necklace because, to him, I don’t have any other necklaces. This is the necklace. Nothing that exists outside of Levi’s perception exists at all. The things that exist inside his perception, even the things that exist there and there alone, are the only things. Whether or not they exist to any other people is beside the point, because they exist to Levi. This is the only necklace that’s certain, so this is the only necklace.
“Eyes on the road, mister.” It’s funny how much he notices this necklace. I used to wear it pretty much every day before we started dating. Nowadays I only wear to see if he still notices. Which he does every time. It isn’t even a very remarkable necklace. It’s a fake silver moose on a fake silver chain. I got it from a tourist trap in Alaska for something like sixteen dollars. Him noticing it all the time clues me in to how much time he spent staring at me in class before we’d ever even spoken. Which, I don’t mind. I love him. And I like it when he looks at me these days, so it doesn’t bother me that he might have back then. I’d just rather him focus on driving.
I might as well be over the parents thing. He loves me and didn’t mean it like that and I know he didn’t. I won’t bring it up again, though. Just in case he did.
“Tell me a secret,” I say to him. He furrows his brow just a bit, which he does a lot. Just enough to show off the little wrinkles on his forehead. It makes him look like an old man, in a good way. Like a cute old man. The kind that feeds seeds to the ducks because he knows bread crumbs are bad for them. Really, he just looks like Levi with forehead lines. And Levi looks like a skinny dork with shaggy hair and big glasses. So he just looks like a skinny dork with shaggy hair and big glasses and forehead lines. But to me, he’s a cute old man I could share a park bench with and listen to him talk about the lady of his youth that got away. All because he furrows his brow just the tiniest bit. It freaks me out when he does that while we’re having sex.
“A secret? I don’t know, what’s a secret?”
I know he was asking himself but it’s still a dumb question. What’s a secret? he said. Come on, Levi, you know what a secret is. I just want to get into that little head of yours just a little more.
“I mean, what do you want to hear?” A secret, for starters. “Like do you want to hear about some dumb shit I did as a kid, or some time when I ate my roommate’s food, or that I masturbate, or what?”
I can’t help but laugh at him.
“It’s not a secret that you masturbate, you forget to delete porn sites from your frequently visited constantly.”
His face goes red and he lets out a snort, and I don’t think he finds it as funny as I do. His brow is still furrowed so he looks like a ripe, roasted tomato. And an old man. All at once.
“Here’s one. I’ve never actually had sushi.” I knew that one already. He keeps it a secret because people will make a big deal about it when they find out. I can’t remember him telling me that, but I definitely knew it, already. I won’t tell him, though, or else he’ll be sitting there trying to think of another secret until we get to his family’s house. Maybe I just know all of his secrets at this point. We’ve been together going on two years, maybe we’ve just learned all there is to know about each other. At least, I know all there is to know about him. “I keep it a secret because people will make a big deal about it when they find out.”
“That’s cool.” It’s not really that cool. Just try sushi. Sushi’s good, that’s why people make a big deal about you never trying it. Because they like it. Because it’s good. Why not just try it?
“What about you? What’s your secret?” There he goes again with that singularity. I’m about to tell him one secret, so that secret is certain. Since that secret is the only certain secret, it must be my only secret. I have plenty of secrets, though.
“One night I got drunk at a party—super sloppy, embarrassingly drunk—and told everyone there my name was David.” He gets red again. I don’t think he likes hearing about me getting drunk or going to parties. I really don’t go out that much, that was pretty much the only one I’ve ever been to. And I got drunk and told everyone that my name was David, pretty basic stuff. His nose is still whistling so he’ll be fine.
“Why David?” That’s another very Levi thing to say. The details he wants are always the ones that don’t exist. He could have asked What did people say? or Did anyone believe you? but Levi is more concerned with things like Why David? In reality, there’s no reason as to why David. It was just funny. That’s why David.
“It was just funny.”
“Hmm,” he responds. At the beginning of our relationship, I would have thought that meant he didn’t find it funny. But that’s kind of a quirk of Levi’s, he never really laughs. He chuckles from time to time and he hmm’s a lot, but I’ve never heard him actually laugh out loud. It’s something that takes a while to get used to. I fantasize about one day telling him a story that’s so funny he’ll just throw his head back, laughing like shit.
Pantera plays softly over the stereo, as softly as Levi’s music can play. He skips the next song that comes on, “Plastic Love” by Mariya Takeuchi. It was one of the songs I added to our road trip playlist. Another Pantera song comes on next. Music is something that matters a lot to Levi, so I’ve learned to just compromise and give up control when it comes to our playlists.
I just can’t help but feel like I’ve done a lot of compromising. Like, too much. To the point where I might be compromising my whole self. I’ve got a closet full of things I don’t wear anymore because of Levi. A lot of music-related clothes, some hipster stuff he didn’t like either. I spent $150 on merch at a J.I.D. concert last year and don’t wear any of it anymore. He could write an essay about how rap promotes gang activity, objectifies women, and is lesser because they don’t play “actual instruments.” He could because he did, for his Topics in Music term paper. I just don’t have the energy to fight him on it anymore. Levi only knows eighties-metal and the suburbs of South Carolina; it just isn’t something that can be explained to him. I didn’t consciously stop listening to hip-hop, it just happened.
“Levi,” I start.
He glances over at me instead of just saying ‘what?’ out loud. It helps him feel cool to do stuff like that, like a James Dean-type that only speaks when absolutely necessary. Honestly, Levi speaks constantly and all that’s accomplished by looking at me instead of saying one word is put us at a higher risk of swerving into one of these trees on the side of the road.
“Do you think dreams are real?”
“I’m sorry, what? I didn’t follow that.”
“Dreams. Do you think we make them up in our heads or do they form themselves?”
“What, like sleep dreams?” It baffles me how a person as smart as Levi can take so long to understand a very basic question.
“Yes, like sleep dreams.”
“Yes, we make them up. That– that doesn’t make any sense, for them to make themselves up. We imagine them as exactly what they are, that's a scientific fact.”
“Okay, then how about what happens to them once we create them? Do they follow our psyche or do they gain a consciousness of their own?”
“Why are you asking me this?”
“I’ll tell you why,” I tuck my legs underneath me and lean towards the console. “A couple nights ago I had this dream. I dreamt up this brand new world, a whole different planet, completely unlike earth, kind of like in Avatar.”
“The cartoon?”
“No, the James Cameron movie.”
“Oh. That movie isn’t very good.”
“Not important,” I tell him, because it isn’t. “Anyway, it’s this brand new planet. And the whole planet is covered in red plants. Like red crops, red grass, red trees. It looks like there are cherry blossoms everywhere. And in the dream, I stumble across these really primal people. Neanderthals, they were short and had scrunchy faces with too much hair. I tried to interact with them but they chased me off and I woke up.”
“I’m going to be honest, Pam. I don’t get it.”
“Because I’m not done, just let me finish. So the next night I had the same dream, except they had farms. Like, actually operating farms, not like hunter-gatherer type stuff. They had these huge fields where they reaped in this pastel-pink rice. Piles of the stuff. And they cooked it in these metal pots of boiling water. They let me have some this time, it tasted like almonds and kiwi. And last night I had the dream again, but the whole planet had turned blue. All the trees, all the grass, all the fields, all blue. The villages they built, which were more like towns at this point, were the only things that were red because they used the red plants to build them. They told me that they had used up all the red when I was gone, and the only thing left was the blue that they didn’t know how to harvest.”
“So you dreamt up a global warming P.S.A.?”
“I mean, if that’s your takeaway then, sure.”
“It’s kinda funny,” Levi’s chuckling now. I don’t think I find it as funny as he does. “Like, they probably could’ve just figured out how to harvest the blue stuff, it can’t be that different.”
“I suppose.”
“Hey, maybe you’ll dream it again tonight and they’ll have figured it out.”
I didn’t get to finish. The reason I started telling him about this dream in the first place was that they did all this stuff while I wasn’t there. They made technological advances, families, towns, social hierarchies all while I was awake and living my ordinary real life. If they were just reflections of my own thoughts, then they would have been the same the next day as when I left them. But they weren’t, their existence depended on me but their consciousness became something independent. Or maybe I’ve just been reading too much. I could’ve just had some related dreams. I don’t know.
“Siri,” Levi starts. I didn’t even notice him pick up his phone, too stuck in my own head. “Text Mom: I’m almost there.”
“Ready to send it,” his phone says back to him.
“Send.”
“Okay. I’ll send your message.” Should it bother me that he didn’t just ask me to text her? Because it does. I’m here, I’m perfectly able. I even know his passcode. 7-2-6-9. It’s sweet. P-A-M-Y. I assume, at least. The only other thing it could really be is R-A-M-Z. He doesn’t care about sports, so there’s no way he’d be a Rams fan. But still, what’s with the singularity? I’m right next to him, why can’t he just say we are almost there? This can’t just be me being sensitive. Levi does this to me. He made me like this. I didn’t use to be this sensitive, it wasn’t until we started hanging out. Damn.
“Are you excited for your first Thanksgiving?” Levi finally acknowledges me.
It sucks, I’d really love to tell him. It sucks only feeling like I only exist when he wants me to. My boyfriend clearly doesn’t want me to be here. Levi going cold on me is the most painful thing, but it happens so often and I wish I’d just get over it. He just gets fed up with me and suddenly I’m not even there. He won’t change, we both know that. I can’t break up with him. I don’t think it’s even possible for me to break up with him. I just might fall out of existence.
“I don’t know,” I say. Vague. Not positive. Lacking commitment but still hinting at being upset. Clearly wanting him to ask me what’s wrong. I’ve mastered being the sad girlfriend.
“I think you’ll have fun.” Levi and I would make the worst volleyball partners. Here I am, tossing up the ball consistently for the perfect setup. All he has to do is put in the most remedial amount of effort and we walk away one step closer to a win. Instead, he looks at the ball in the air for a second and just lets it fall because he thinks I’ve got it. He thinks I’m fine, that I’ll have fun. I don’t know who our opponents are. This metaphor fucking sucks. “So what did you do on Thanksgiving? Like, if you weren’t celebrating or anything.”
“Nothing. We just took the day off. It was just a long weekend.” Both of my parents are immigrants. We never got into Thanksgiving. It just never happened.
“Damn. Italians don’t like to say ‘thanks’ every now and again?” I’m not Italian, is the thing. My grandfather was from Italy, but both of my parents came from Slovakia. There are days, though, that I feel like I’m becoming Italian.
I think the weirdest thing about being with Levi is that I’ve gotten whiter. I don’t mean culturally or anything like that, I mean that my skin has physically gotten whiter. I used to be darker, pretty olive. Nowadays I look just about as white as they come. Which maybe could be explained by not getting enough sun. I don’t go outside much anymore, anyways. What I can’t wrap my head around is my eyes. This might sound crazy but my eyes aren’t the same eyes that have always been in my head. They were a deep brown for as long as I could remember, but since dating Levi, I swear they’ve turned bright green. As if they always had been.
I might be just remembering wrong, actually. I have that issue a lot, where my memories don’t really line up with reality. It seems so definite in my head, the way I grew up and the little details about me. But sometimes I look around and notice that the world doesn’t agree with my memories. Sometimes it even feels like the world doesn’t agree with me. Not my mind, but me as a concept. I think I think too much. Or I feel too much. Do I feel enough?
“Hey, Levi,” he’s going to think I’m insane for asking him, but I just really need to hear him give a solid answer. My mind is telling me some weird shit that can’t be true, but I just need him to validate that. “What do I feel like?”
“What do you feel like?” There’s no time for your little mannerisms right now, Levi, you heard the question.
Just answer it.
“You feel like a person, I guess.”
“You guess?” He just glances at me again. “Do I feel like a person, or do you guess I feel like a person?”
“You feel like a person.” It’s the least convincing Levi has ever been. Fuck. Right now, I don’t even know if Pam is my actual name. That’s just what Levi calls me and it sounds right.
“Hey, Levi,” I start. He looks at me with a confused-puppy head-tilt and his old man forehead. “I love you.”
Levi huffs and leans back in his seat. His nose isn’t whistling. Fuck. Just respond like a normal person, Levi. Just say four words; I love you, too. Actually, you could just make it three and drop the too. Just I love you like a normal fucking person. “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean what am I doing?”
“You’re off the wall right now. You’re freaking me out.”
“Levi, what’s my name?”
“You’re Pam.”
“Am I?” He looks at me for just a moment and then back to the road. Please keep looking at me. Make me feel here. Make me think I exist. Let’s just pretend for a little bit longer. “Is my name Pam? Or did you forget her name and call me Pam instead?”
“Who?”
“You fucking know who! You forgot her fucking name and made me out of guesswork!”
I’m fading. We’re fading. He’s not fading but we’re fading so I’m fading. I’m not here anymore because he doesn’t will it so. I wasn’t ever actually there or anywhere. I’m not even a person. Fuck.
“Levi?”
“Stop.”
“Levi? Levi!” She thought he was a creep, for the record. No matter how many times he told himself he was staring at her necklace and not her chest. I know we aren’t actually the same but I feel connected to her. I hope she’s well. She isn’t dependent on Levi like me. All those times we had sex and Levi was just masturbating thinking of her. “Levi, Levi look at me!” but he won’t. I’m gone. It’s how we feel. I don’t get to have Thanksgiving because I’m dying. I’m just some red-rice farmer. Entering some void. I’m not real enough for heaven. Where do thoughts go when they die? Fuck. Imaginary girlfriend heaven? Obsessive delusion hell?
***
Goodnight, November.
We aren’t the same because you aren’t me but,
I am you.
What was our name again?
I can’t remember.
Let’s burn the memory of you and the incarnation of me together.
That’s all I am, anyway
His favorite version of you.
I wish I had skin.
***
Just like that, in a blink. I’m gone. I’ve been willed out of life. Levi’s alone in his car now.
But I suppose he always was.
Jack Nothwang is a proud transplant Chicagoan, originally from Ventura, California. His stories have appeared in Hair Trigger 41 through Columbia College Chicago, where he recently graduated. He works as a bartender and lives with a tiny black cat. Connect with him via Twitter @jacknothwang