Sara London: I THOUGHT ABOUT WRITING YOU BACK, MARY

Sara London is a shortlist winner nominee of the 2024 Adelaide Literary Award Contest in the category of Short Stories, with her work titled I thought about writing you back, Mary.

She is a model and author/freelancer who produces content for a global client base. After earning a Master’s degree at NYU’s Gallatin School, she turned her thesis into a book, 'The Performance Therapist and Authentic Therapeutic Identity,' released in August 2023 with Routledge. Sara is currently working on her second book for Routledge about psychoanalysis and the occult.

Her prose has been published in numerous journals, including Twist & Twain and Full Force Magazine. She has been shortlisted for the Adelaide Literary Contest Award in Short Fiction and the Don Delillo Literary Lottery Award. Find her on twitter at @sjessielondon.

I thought about writing you back, Mary

GBH is putting on a night of melodic house music at Schimanski next weekend, but I don’t know if I want to go without you, Mary. We’d have fun – even though it takes me three trains to get to Greenpoint, even though you hate house music. I’d invite my brother, his new fake ID just came in the mail, but he’s spending the weekend at his foster parents’ house in Connecticut. I’m glad he got picked up by rich people – at the same time, I hate feeling left behind – like a pound puppy, shuffling around with wide, wet eyes, begging to love someone. Despite their many polite invitations, I think the Levins are primarily motivated by pity, which is off-putting. I’m a little old to pretend to be somebody’s son, I want to tell them. And I took you to City Island once, right, Toby? That’s close enough to Connecticut, I’m sure the lobster tastes the same. Anyway, I’ll find someone else to go to Schimanski with. Or I won’t. It doesn’t matter either way.

I get off the 7 train and walk to the end of the platform. Limited service on the G, so I’m taking the B98 to my doctor’s appointment. Why the insurance company had to assign me a clinic an hour away from where I live, I can’t say. Skipped the part where I took the N to Queensboro Plaza — nothing much to tell. Another 90° day where my medication makes me sweat like a pig on that 20-minute walk from the apartment to the 30th Ave station. Brutal workout yesterday, calves are throbbing. That email from Mary made me want to push until I passed out, until I lost my balance and fell out of the leg press seat. Neck is stiff too today, but that’s pretty standard. I’m looking forward to this check-up, to hearing Brad say there’s nothing they can do for me again. I don’t expect much else.

Hop on the bus. It’s air conditioned, though the mass of overheated people negates any of the system’s cooling effects. Some dripping, like I am. We crawl down Flatbush Ave. Closed-up insurance agencies and overpriced hair salons. I’m not going to be on time – I’ll wait a few minutes to tell them. Don’t want to seem too eager. So I call at 2:00 PM on the dot.

The receptionist told me that even if I’m 45 minutes late, I should still stop by and see if Brad can squeeze me in. I’ll humor her, I tell myself. At 22 past the hour, the bus pulls over at Bedford-Nostrand, and my fellow annoyed transit riders join me on the G to Church Ave. Two stops away. Get off at Clinton-Washington, walk in the wrong direction for a block. Too hot to be doing that. I enter the building, staircase on the left into the basement. Open the glass doors and pop in, biding my time in the entryway. Wondering if I’ll wait for Godot. But squeeze me in Brad did.

Pulse is 80, blood pressure looks beautiful. Got plenty of oxygen. Brad’s assistant gives me a little humanity, predictable enough that I’m not stretching to lug up charming responses from an empty well of charisma. Is your hair naturally black? Yeah, my brother Toby’s is even darker. How long have you been growing it out for? A few years, only I trim the ends when I need to. I see on your chart your profession is ‘musician.’ Yeah, I’m a singer. Oh, that’s great, not a lot of people are good enough to do that for a living. Thanks, I just quit my day job a couple weeks ago. I won’t tell you that it’s mostly because of my health, and that I spent the morning applying for disability. Look up ‘Charlie Marks and the Lightning,’ that’s our band. I peruse the form he handed me, imagining the questions in his cheery, chirping voice. Have you been depressed lately? Not enjoying things you used to? Do you find yourself taking more drugs or drinking more alcohol than you want? Have you ever considered cutting back? No, man, I’m good. As good as I can be for a lengthy commute to the doctor’s office, a messed up back, and a ripped up heart. But I’m pretty sure you can only give me one thing for that, and it’s the same thing you give me every time.

Brad comes in and refills my narcotics prescription. To be honest, though, I’m tired of that buzz. I could use something different, something that makes me less irritable. Trying a different muscle relaxant, that sounds good. Referral to another pain management specialist. Every few months we play the same game. Brad’s a nice dude, he figures I can understand words like “synergistic effect,” although I stop listening after “routine scan.” Zone out for a second meditating on the idea of another MRI – 2mg of lorazepam didn’t touch me last time – still wailed like a dying animal, like a sheep to the slaughterhouse. I remind the assistant just before he draws my blood that Brad wanted me to get a tetanus shot — most people get them before college, Brad murmured, staring at his computer screen, I didn’t know you didn’t go to college. Right, no college for me, no shot ‘til 23. Side effects are almost non-existent, just a sore arm tomorrow, he continues. Just like everything else. I joke with the assistant about how much I hated using butterfly needles when I worked at Quest Labs – plastic tabs always got in the way. Watching the blood flow until it hits the lavender tube topper, I remember that my platelet count was a little too high last time. Try not to think about it — enough to worry about these days. I leave with a Band-Aid on my shoulder and one on my inner elbow, feeling slightly less nightmarish than I did this morning.

Decide I’m taking one train straight home, to hell with unnecessary transfers. I walk, 15 minutes in the scorching heat, to Barclays Center. Down the escalator, through an underpass, up another staircase, onto the 5 train platform. Weaving through hundreds, eyes glued to my Notes app, thumbs shooting across the keyboard. If I don’t write down these thoughts, I’ll go insane. Cut across a corridor, wide and descending. I last walked here with Mary, when I held her arm, escorting her — lightheaded, had a little too much to drink. Maybe she’d reminisce about us at Atlantic Ave-Barclays the next time she hustled to the N/R platform, or maybe she’d pretend to forget me. It’s possible that she’s gone through this corridor so many times that it’s gained some other meaning for her, but I hope it didn’t. I hope she feels what I feel.

The N is right there. I dodge on, wandering down the car, looking for a seat. Decided to stand. Now I’m a little lightheaded, mouth dry, a twisting pain in my stomach. Remembering what the doctor’s office saga had helped me forget. Stalled at Dekalb for a couple minutes — typical. Starting over the bridge, the first of two on this long journey home. Three ferries headed to Wall Street down the East River, all in a row. From this distance, I imagine they’re miniature ducks going back to wherever it is that ducks live. Stupid, I say to myself. That’s a stupid thing to think.

Back underground now, and I pass the time visualizing how good it’ll feel to be back in Queens. The ride is so much more familiar there; so much a piece of me that I can count down the minutes until I’m home, alone with my self-pity for a couple short-lived hours. Away from strangers who could share gazes with me, sit close to me, with scents and expressions and personalities to contend with. Things that remind me of the people I no longer have. I knew it wouldn’t last forever, sure. But did it need to happen all at once? Union Square is your stop, Mary. Are you going to get on this train? You’d lock eyes with me behind these much-hated old wire-rimmed eyeglasses — I can’t bring myself to wear the fancier pair you bought me – sweat dripping, hair matted, exhausted, coming down, stomach twisted, neck aching, dehydrated, leg shaking to the melodic house music in my earbuds. And you’d be petrified of me, you’d run. Then you’d drink a little too much that night ruminating on how broken and sick I looked. But it’ll never happen that way, Mary. No, it won’t.

It had to be an email, Mary, like it was coming from your own personal HR department? Three years we spent together, and I don’t get the courtesy of a phone call? Yes, you’re angry with Toby after everything he said to you, after all the concerns he had about us. And he’s a complicated person, I get it — but to end things because you can’t handle uncomfortable conversations, that’s brutal. You always used to do this when I’d bring up some misalignment between us; you’d whip out your vision board app and tell me that if we’re going to have a baby in three years, I need to start “focusing on the timeline” and “table those unproductive emotions.” You were the organized one, the one with a game plan, the one with your life on track. I always loved that about you. Is your journey so rigid that there’s no room for a bump in the road? The doors close at Union Square. You’re nowhere to be found.

It took six weeks to come up with two paragraphs, written like a half-baked AI program? Sitting and seething over Toby’s remarks all that time – maybe your secret group chat was very active, but over here in the land of the living, I was ghosted by you and everyone we knew together. You told our friends not to hold the breakup against me, to form their own opinions. But you have to understand that over the years, if you continually describe Toby as someone who’s “crazy,” who “chooses to be unkind” and uses “accusatory language” that “inserts himself into our relationship,” I’m guilty by association for defending his right to speak. The dark circles around my eyes fade in and out of the train window’s reflection, shadowed by the blackness of the tunnel, eclipsed by the light of the stations we pass on the express track. I crave an explosive moment, to rip these glasses off my face, to crush them beneath my boots. I take a deep breath, and the feeling disappears.

So I lose my girlfriend, a handful of friends, my job, and my dignity all in one fell swoop, good for me. You got what you wanted, I long to tell her, you thought that Toby was scheming to break us up, and that’s the reality you created. I thought about writing you back, Mary, saying, I have valued and treasured the time we had, or whatever generic phrasing will please your phobia of unsterile language – you’re afraid of working things out with me, that’s obvious — maybe you’re afraid of losing control, screaming at me, cursing out my brother. So you went in the opposite direction, ice cold – and you should know that I’m going to bury myself in a mountain of prescription pills for the next month to deal with it. Best wishes, Charles “Charlie” Morris Markowitz. P.S. I’ve always wanted to tell you that your taste in music sucks. EDM is great, better than the trash you’d play at pre-games – white chicks rapping about how tight their pussies are over bad trap beats. Except I already sent her a few too many texts last night, and after I abuse every substance I can get my hands on this weekend, I’ll be tempted to send more. I’ll play the outrageous ex-boyfriend in your melodrama, the walking red flag — the guy all your friends tell you is “toxic” — I don’t mind. Maybe you made me this way, but it’s who I am now, I’m not ashamed. And I’ll act out in any unhinged, hysterical way I can to maintain some hope for catharsis, even if it damages me.

At 59th now, and the platform is packed shoulder-to-shoulder, as usual. A tweak in my lower back prompts me to change positions — the conductor screams through the loudspeaker, step all the way in, step all the way in. Off to Queens we go. Some psychotic joins our car to make trouble until we hit 30th Ave, and I contemplate texting Toby. I love that joke he makes when we pass one of them on the street, waddling around in soiled pants and talking to himself. Mutters under his breath in his endearing monotone, I think I was in Bellevue with him, or buddy, we’ve all been there. Watching the stranger plop on the ground, rocking himself back and forth, I wonder how Mary could see Toby as anything other than a sweet kid – even if he’s a little brusque, or a little intimidating – she could never even pronounce “schizoaffective disorder,” much less take the time to google it. And you know what, I’ll admit it; I was proud of him for asserting himself. Sitting on my kitchen counter at some unholy hour, amidst open containers of Thai food and bottles of beer, I said to him, honey, don’t hold back. This is your chance to start a conversation with her, to clear the air. But there was no conversation for any of us, you made sure of that, Mary – just a Dear John letter and a text from your best friend with chronically-online psychobabble like “triggered” and “gaslighting” and “boundaries.” I turn my attention back to neighborhood’s scenery, recognizable graffiti and contemporary high-rise apartments. Trying to forget for just a couple minutes about how badly it all hurts. No, honey, you can’t have a beer. It doesn’t mix well with your meds. Do the Levins let you drink? I didn’t think so.

Get off the train and start walking home — walking like I’m probably late for something, only I have nowhere to go. Seems like it’ll probably rain tonight with the way my knees are barking at me. Chlorine-soaked kids meandering from the Astoria Park pool, girls with their tits out and skinny, faceless boyfriends carrying tote bags. When Toby comes home, we can swap adventures — he’s got outpatient on Thursday afternoons, those college classes for precocious high schoolers in the morning – written out with all his other appointments on my living room chalkboard. The Levins have been lenient about him sleeping over during summer vacation, given they pack up in a few weeks for Arizona, for Toby’s senior year of high school. When he walks in, tossing over a treat he impulsively bought me, I’ll ask him if he’s excited to go back, and he’ll pretend to be interested in small talk for a while. Then, the conversation will devolve.

Some days, he’s convinced himself that the breakup was hardly his fault — at the program they tell me to express myself, Toby said to me yesterday at breakfast, disdainfully watching my eyelids droop above the swill that passes for diner coffee. Grimy and exhausted after the prior night’s gig. And that’s what I did. If you were considering proposing, which you told me you were, I had to be honest with her. You told me to send the email, Charlie, you helped me edit it. Another email, right. But I give Toby leeway with communication; the latest psychiatrist asked why we had never added autism to his litany of diagnoses. Truth be told, he always hated Mary, almost as much as she hated him. We fought too much, I’ll give him that; I couldn’t be the man she wanted me to be, and she rubbed it in my face as often as possible. I remember what you wrote to her, Tobes, that she wanted to have a ‘rockstar girlfriend’ phase to impress her stiff, white-collar friends – and I was a good enough ‘rockstar’ to fill the role. You cried for hours the night after sending it, laying with me on the couch, asking if I was angry with you – asking if Mary was right all along, and we should have put you away long ago. Throwing a promising, 17-year-old life into a badly-run RTF. I’m not angry, I said, rubbing your ribcage, kissing your head. And as long as you’re still so volatile – as long as I don’t know what Toby to expect when you get home – I can’t be.

I scan my key fob, enter the building, walk to the elevator, hobble down the hall. Open the door, and I’m home. Adore the new apartment – a key fob and elevator – these luxuries I never thought I’d possess, ones that make me forget when the hot water goes out or the neighbors pollute my airspace with weed smoke. And I love how much the “vibes are off,” Mary, that you never left so much as an electric toothbrush in my bathroom – not for the six months I’ve lived here. I promised you a two-bedroom in Bed-Stuy when the lease is up in January – and yes, you’d get the ring in December, around Christmas, just like you wanted. Until then, I hung my own pictures and painted my own walls, and you treated my beloved tiny palace like a big middle finger. Eyes wander to the poster abutting the front door, beside the light switch. Joey looks so cool, smashing that old guitar into the stage; Buster behind him, lost in a world of drumming. Other Joe, shy little fella, hiding behind his bass in the corner. Try to ignore myself in the center; shirtless, covered in tattoos, levitating over a sea of arms, outstretched to graze my pant legs. If they only knew that he’s just a putz, desperate for a disability check, chaotic and overwhelmed, in an ugly pair of glasses to spite a lover’s memory.

Strip off these sweaty clothes, toss them in a pile. Throw on a t-shirt with my boxer briefs. Put some coffee on, find my way to the couch. I should’ve gone out, I think— suddenly missing all those strangers on the train, the scents and expressions and personalities that made me feel less unmoored. The medicine cabinet in my kitchen calls me, and I stand, squinting as my hips pinch and the blood rushes from my head. Stood up too fast. I can’t be high when Toby comes home, brave enough to do the commute by himself today – he’ll be so upset. Maybe I’ll call and tell him to leave early — no, I can’t do that, he needs to stick to the program. I sit at the kitchen table, paralyzed by indecision. Mulling over Connecticut with the Levins, forgetting Schimanski. Neck compressing, back is starting to seize up. Coffee sizzling behind me, loud and threatening — relieved by the pungent smell. Fingers frantically tapping on my Notes app, hoping it’ll get me somewhere. Hoping for a catharsis. I feel nothing but lost, nothing but ice cold; unhinged, left behind, begging to love someone. I thought about writing you back, Mary.

Sara London