Lilly Cary
Ten
Jackson
He drove a red truck. I was a senior in high school. He was a couple years older and over six feet tall. He stilled lived at home with his parents. The first time we did it, he wouldn’t take off his shirt. The second time, the phone rang. He stopped and picked it up to look at the caller ID. He didn’t answer. I thought that was nice.
Jeremy
We met for the first time in person at a greasy 24-hour diner. He had long eyelashes and brown eyes. I was still living at home. We mostly hung out in his dorm room. We used to make popcorn and stay up late watching adult films. Even though he couldn’t get it up I was convinced he was the one because he liked to hold my hand in public.
Patrick
He used to be in a band. He had wavy dark hair, blue eyes and played the guitar. He smoked Camel Lights. When I was in college, he took me to his parents’ room where we slept together for the first time. I didn’t expect it to hurt. We only had sex after we had both been drinking. He would never look me in the eye. For years we stayed in touch, mostly talking online. I blocked his number last year.
David
He was from a small town and would drive two hours every weekend to come see me. He also had dark hair and blue eyes. He liked heavy metal and The Eagles. That should have been a sign right away. We would end things over coffee and eggs at a Waffle House in Tennessee driving home from a concert. I cheated on him with Patrick and Jeremy.
Scott
Probably the best I’ve ever had. I wasn’t that into him, though I liked the rough texture of his permanent five-o-clock shadow. He always smelled like kitchen grease, and liked to quote lines from the movie Tombstone. He liked to ask me why I never called him by his name. A week after I told him I was falling him for him he broke up with me in front of our friends.
Derrick
It was my sophomore year of college. I liked his blonde curly hair and ripped jeans. He smoked a lot of weed and liked to drink Makers and Diet Coke. We liked to order off the dollar menu at Taco Bell and drink from blue plastic cups. When the weather was nice, we would drive by the river listening to Cat Stevens with the windows down. He complained to my roommate that he always had to make the first move. He broke up with me after handing me a Christmas present in his car.
Chris
My senior year of college. I hadn’t slept with anyone in over a year. We met through a mutual friend. I was taller than him, but he had Kurt Vonnegut tattoos and liked Prince. He also had dark hair and blue eyes, but no facial hair. He liked to use the word bourgeoisie a lot. We used to listen to The Cure and make out in his white Volvo. I had to take Plan B twice in less than a month. He broke up with me through a Facebook message.
Jeremy
He had gotten married. I remember finding out the night before my twenty-first birthday. A few years later, I saw him at a bar. We held hands as I walked him to his car. A couple weeks later, he was at my apartment. He only lasted thirty seconds.
Robbie
He was tall, wore glasses and collected comic books. I was living in a small town in West Virginia for a year. When I came back to Kentucky he told me I was too attractive for him. He told me I was going to leave him for someone with a beard and a record collection. Eventually I did. I haven’t seen him since.
Adam
He had a beard and a record collection. He was divorced and had a child. Truth be told, he was better than Scott. He collected vintage motorcycles and liked to drink Miller High Life. He broke up with me two weeks after he told me he loved me because he needed to be single. Eventually I became friends with the woman he started dating three months after me.
Unknown
I was on vacation in New Orleans. He was an Australian in town for Wrestle Mania. He sat down next to me at a bar and offered to buy me a drink for my birthday. He had a limp dick and had never heard of Catcher in the Rye. I would remember all of this six months later when I made an emergency phone call to my gynecologist. I would remember the results. I wouldn’t remember his name.
Adam
Six months after I got back from New Orleans he had broken up with the girlfriend after me. He asked if he could buy me a drink. We met at a bar, and later went back to my house and listened to Neil Young records. After we slept together, his ex-girlfriend texted me asking if I was going to start dating him again. A week later, I called to tell him I had tested positive for a sexually transmitted disease. I have never gotten over him.
Jeremy
He was divorced now, and starting to go bald. I wanted to know if he could still be the one. He still couldn’t get it up. I wondered if anyone actually enjoyed the sixty-nine position. His text messages were never more than three words: That was fun. So, yup. What’s good? I didn’t respond back.
Lilly Cary
Lilly Cary is an emerging writer currently living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has been published in the Louisville Eccentric Observer and received her MFA from the Stonecoast program at University of Southern Maine