Enjoy being uncomfortable with “The Drama”

Credit: Courtesy of A24 

After almost two hours of visceral and verbal reactions to “The Drama,” the crowd of moviegoers bustled out of the theater in a rush to escape the onslaught of unease that had kept them pinned to their seats.

Only a few viewers stayed still, waiting for the credit roll to present an air of finality. The indecisive nature of the final scenes left the audience submerged in an unsettling idea: you can never really know someone. More disturbingly, the couples in the audience, who perhaps expected a romantic message about the endurance of love, moved slightly further away from their partners.

The first 20 minutes of “The Drama” are sickeningly sweet and entirely predictable given they were the main content used in the film's advertisements. In those same trailers it’s clear that the plot hinges on one scene and one intense conversation. As that scene approaches, marching ominously closer, viewers cannot help but sit up and lean in, excited for the satisfaction of getting in on the big secret.

Soon to be bride Emma, played by Zendaya, reveals the “worst thing” she has ever done—a question teased in the trailer. The twist is that she actually reveals an indigestibly convoluted fact about her past. It is the fear that her past impacts her current identity and her fiancé Charlie’s reaction, that set the tone for the rest of the film.

Charlie, played by Robert Pattinson, maid of honor Rachel, played by Alana Haim, and best man Mike, played by Mamoudou Athie, serve as three different reactionaries that host discourse about Emma’s past. The rest of the film is an intense hypothetical question: what would you do if your partner revealed this secret the week before your wedding?

Amid the irony and dark humor, the characters dive into themes about the culpability of one’s identity. What elements of younger generation’s personalities, actions and thoughts can they chalk up to social media trends and cultural expectations? How can you discern the nature of a human being when so much of their nurture was disheveled by the internet? In interviews, Zendaya and Pattinson promised a film that would start dialogue, and they were absolutely correct.

Shot on 35mm film, the cinematography and directing choices brought the motifs of this edgy story to the forefront with noticeable, filmic imperfections. Writer and director Kristoffer Borgli, known for “Dream Scenario” (2023) and “Sick of Myself” (2022), has a talent for creating disturbing satires that teeter on the edge of justifiable. Borgli’s style breaks up intense and uncomfortable themes, with humor so dark that one questions whether to laugh or grimace.

Visually, the shots consistently highlight reminders of Emma’s ever-present secret. There are subtle color gradients of red and the more obvious choice to insert Zendaya’s younger counterpart,17-year-old actress Jordyn Curet, the perpetrator of Emma’s youthful mistakes, into grown Emma’s place. It is impossible to forget about the central messaging for both the audience and Charlie as his obsession develops into its own conflict.

The minimalist soundtrack, written by Daniel Pemberton, was consistent with the tenor of the film, but lacked a certain level of nuance. Like many A24 films, this movie called the audience to answer complex social questions and purposely prevented viewers from settling in their seats. Pemberton’s anxious classical tones emphasized that drama but didn’t develop it in any way.

Similarly, the film’s marketing embraced a mysterious nature. Much like advertising for “Hereditary” (2018), this press tour avoided the all-important plot twist to encourage a real-time reaction from viewers. However, while “Hereditary” set up false expectations to lure in audiences with a certain taste and undermine their expectations, the twist in “The Drama” rested behind a dam of wedding photos that contained the promise of some daunting secret.

The clickbait nature of the press tour for “The Drama” forced viewers to digest the social commentary in real time. Although the messaging was unexpected, the mindful production sparked an important conversation about young American culture.

In an era of lengthy think-productions that tire the average viewer with three hours of conversations and avant-garde shot choices, this movie was fast paced, driven by anxiety and obsession that left no stone unturned. The premise is a mac daddy of hypotheticals that presented film geeks and social analysts with a myriad of perspectives to consider and debate.

Interpretations of the critique, from cancel culture to marriage idealization and moral potentiality, bounced around in my head as I prepared myself to leave the theater. Even though the film prompted a dissertation worth of analysis, I couldn’t help but feel it gave me no answers. Although answering impossible questions might not have been Borgli’s purpose, the mass appeal of the hopeful ending was unsatisfying.

A24 films are traditionally unconcerned with appeasing every audience, so, although it wasn’t a Hollywood ending, the film teetered between conclusive and artfully ambiguous. I have to wonder if the production company’s path in the past several years has taken them to a less auteur style that guarantees some level of box office satisfaction. It felt in step with “Eternity” (2025) and “Materialists” (2025)—two recent A24 films that were romance adjacent and featured big names in Hollywood.

Still, “The Drama” was anything but a two-dimensional rom com, which is possibly why the resolute ending felt misplaced. But, perhaps, it should be the most unsettling that the characters endured a great upheaval and found a way to cope with a problem that I, the impotent viewer, could not solve. In that case, Borgli perfectly undermined my expectations.

Audiobooks: A Return to Literature and its Innovation

 Introduction

            In the past several years, a new generation of readers have turned to the digital space for media consumption. Although one might assume that this draws readers away from literature, it has returned much of the pass-time’s popularity through the increasingly successful audiobook medium. Whether it is through purchase, pirating, libraries, iPhones or CDs, the accessibility of audiobooks allows many readers to indulge in all kinds of literature through an alternative medium. While audiobooks may have begun as a tool for those who have difficulty reading physical text, their popularity allowed creators to transform them into a modern art form. Their status as a form of book is debated amongst passionate page readers and advocated for by those who enjoy the accessibility and presence of the audio form. That public discourse of readers, writers, publishers, professors, and other literature lovers make up a community that controls the rhetoric of advances in the book industry. The recent increase in audiobook listeners and production quality has changed how the literary world understands modern reading and writing. To break down the audiobook industry’s effect on the future of the literary community one should focusing on the origin, intentions, and creation of the audiobook itself.

A Condensed History of Auditory Stories

The audiobook’s story began long before the technology for voice recording existed with the original form of storytelling: oral tradition. In prehistoric times many ancient people groups across the globe told stories of folktales, memories, or legends. The public act of recalling historical events, reciting musical ballads, and speaking poetry heavily impacted the creation of world cultures. Listeners recognize that the orators voice, experiences, and proximity will undoubtably have some effect on the story itself making the tradition a form of artistic expression. Academics in the world of oral tradition call these discrepancies “variations within limits” or “flexibility within the rules” (Garner, 2016). Interpretation is a part of any tradition, and the diversity in oral storytelling brings personality to the genre that makes stories unique to each storyteller. The slight variations in all storytelling are the root of “verbal art” which has impacted oral narratives throughout history (Garner, 2016). As more forms of writing were invented, performers began a new version of the oral tradition by reading texts aloud to eager audiences. At this time, verbal artistry transitioned to a matter of inflection and presentation rather than alterations to an author’s work.

The tradition continued to adapt with advances in technology, perhaps most importantly when Thomas Edison invented a little thing called the phonogram and recorded “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” thus creating the first ‘audiobook’ in 1877 (Thompson, 2021). Audiobooks are now a common mode of digital reading. In the U.S., the Library of Congress has worked with public libraries to make “talking books” readily accessible since the Pratt-Smoot Act passed in 1931 (Dali & Brochu, 2020). Congress originally funded the project for adult books and eventually expanded it to all books in 1952. By 1966, Public Law 89-522 mandated that all public libraries make talking books available to readers with print disabilities (Dali & Brochu, 2020). At the time of these projects, multiple public institutions, such as the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, intentionally set out to record many different books for library use. From cassettes to CDs and iPods to iPhones, audiobooks are available through the vast majority of public libraries, and, while they are specifically intended for those with visual or mobility impairment, many non-impaired library goers use them. The oral tradition continues to be a sough after medium even in the digital form—an artistic expression as old as language itself.

Defining Audiobooks as Books

As this research currently understands audiobooks, it refers to them as an audio medium that is any recorded and verbalized form of a published book, both AI and human. Additionally, the resources and data used to make the following analysis are based on audiobook’s presence in the United States.

Technological advances have made books more accessible throughout much of history. In the past, especially before the Gutenberg printing press, owning a book and being literate were qualities generally reserved for the very wealthy and powerful. After the printing press, reading allowed many people in the lower classes to educate themselves to advance their social standing and career possibilities. It was only fairly recently that the rise in entertainment technology stole our attention away from reading. In fact, research now shows that reading for personal interest declines about 3% every year in the U.S. since 2007 (Bone et al., 2025). The invention of audiobooks combines modern entertainment culture with literary consumption. Although this may be a good thing for the prosperity of literature in modern society, it puts a foul taste in the mouths of those who disagree with the equation of listening to reading.

Therefore, the necessary first step of analyzing the effects of the audiobook form is to address the rather heated debate within the literary community: are audiobooks books? The unspoken, and perhaps overemphasized, crux of this argument, is that part of the modern purpose of books is to distance oneself from technology given its numerous negative effects (ie: shorter attention spans, “brain rot,” doom scrolling, etc.). However, a reader may simply not adhere to this goal, and the argument is rendered null. While there may be merits to the argument that listening to an audiobook is not by definition reading, the debate is unimportant if the consumer’s only goal is to understand the story. Purchasing an audiobook provides royalties to the author and the purchaser still enjoys the words the author crafted whether they are looking at ink on a page or listening sound waves. There is also the belief that print and publication legitimizes a story because, especially in the Western world, that is how readers recognize quality and value; however, many classic authors, such as Homer, were originally oral storytellers. (Dali & Brochu, 2020). Those authors are certainly given respect in the literary community.

            Furthermore, listening to audiobooks is a matter of accessibility. The application of judgment on audiobook consumers often overlooks the tool’s necessity for some individuals. Overall, it is a conversation of checking privilege. Librarians Dali and Brochu (2020) raised this question in their research in support of libraries advocating for audiobook inclusivity. They prompt other librarians to consider body ability, lifestyle, Western culture, literacy, citizenship, and language as forms of privilege in the argument against audiobooks. Therefore, the large audience of audiobook lovers occupy a valid space within the literary community because they are still absorbing and engaging with literature. It is reasonable to define audiobooks as books and listening to them as parallel to reading.

The Increasing Popularity of Audiobooks

In all, audiobooks invite both previously proclaimed non-readers and adamant readers to consume more books quicker. According to the Audio Publishers Association (2025), audiobook sales revenue reached a record $2.22 billion in revenue in 2024 which was 13% higher than the previous year. In a 2025 Consumer Survey, the APA (2025) noted that 51% of 18 aged and older Americans have listened to an audiobook. The same survey found that General Fiction makes up the largest portion of audiobook revenue with Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Romance being the most popular sub-genres. Those statistics suggest that their may be a recent increase in leisure readers, at least in the audiobook world. These genre preferences also illustrate the current culture’s purpose for books: entertainment and distraction. Rather than reading for the primary purpose of education, enrichment is a passive consequence.

Of course, newer technologies, such as AI narration and YouTube make pirating audiobooks incredibly easy for readers that want to avoid any cost. Popular audiobook narrator Julia Whelan started her own company, Audiobrary, simply to supersede this issue by offering affordable rental audiobooks with a high quality that she believes AI can never meet (Peterson, 2026). Whelan’s philosophy revolves around using comparison as an argument. Audiobook narrators study the books they perform and bring the stories to life in the way a robots will never fully understand. Fully produced audiobooks can also implement multi person casts, music, and sound or voice effects to advance their quality against AI narrators. For readers that prefer audiobooks, the choice of where and how to acquire them primarily comes down to price and convenience. Oftentimes the quality is secondary. For example, Whelan, in a podcast interview with Anne Peterson (2026), mentioned her distaste for listening to audiobooks at faster speeds than their original recordings; however, she acknowledged that many neurodivergent people need to listen at the speed their brain processes information. In that case, the verbal art of audiobooks is displaced by the medium’s inclusivity and accessibility for readers that may struggle with reading quickly due to conditions such as Dyslexia or ADHD.

Changes for Authors

Although the vast majority of books are not written with the intention of an audio adaptation, the emerging patterns of genres and authors that prevail in audiobook sales is notable. As many contemporary authors write new books, knowing that many of their readers will be listening, is their writing affected by the possibility of audio adaptation? One author, Lucinda Berry (2025), has written two books with the full intention of them being audiobooks. She wrote these two projects in a script-form, similar to that of a radio drama, and her choices and writing style changed to fit the medium. For example, Berry considers audiobooks to have a certain confessional-like quality, so she structured her latest audiobook through therapy sessions.

Despite the lack of major contemporary authors speaking up about any effects the promise of adaptation has had on their writing, there are a litany of articles and blogs available online explaining how authors might alter their writing style to better suit the audiobook market. These recommendations include various ways to eliminate any misinterpretations in the narrator performance or reader listening through clear, simple sentences. Authors like Lucinda Berry testify that writing for audiobooks has improved their overall writing by making the text more focused and easier for listeners to multitask to. While this may be an improvement in the accessibility and ease of the medium, readers that choose to primarily listen may find that their stamina for more complex prose or analysis decreases as they continue to patron the audiobook industry.

Conclusion

The origins of all storytelling are auditory, but as technology has advanced, the literary community’s expectations for story and book quality have shifted to physical text. As audiobooks gain popularity and respect from many readers, the definition of “reading” has changed. It is no longer bound by the physical act of interpreting symbols into sounds and words. As an adjective, “reader” implies so much more than “one who reads books.” It describes a person that might engage with media platforms or fan bases or takes time to react to reviews of new publications. People that describe themselves as readers exist outside of printed pages on e-reader screens and absolutely in audiobooks. Although these books are perhaps less tangible and would shock the 15TH century monks that hand copied texts or the printers that composed one sheet at a time through movable block print, they are an adaptation of reading for the next generation. Just as each adaptation to book creation has compounded on its predecessor, audiobooks are a combination of contemporary print and the origins of storytelling. They meet the needs of current readers and allow them to engage with literature in a manner that suits 21ST century needs.

Despite debates on the merits of audiobooks, they have nevertheless changed the way many readers engage with stories by both providing more accessibility and presenting the possibility of simpler narratives exclusively in audio form. There is an interesting subcategory of reader that Don Katz, the CEO of Audible, calls a “media agnostic”—that is, those who do not recognize a difference between the visual text and auditory listening experience (Dali & Brochu, 2020). Although this is not every or even most readers, it presents a significant addition to the literary community. Going forward, research from the literary community needs to continue to explain the impacts, both benefits and possible detriments, of audiobooks. One aspect that particularly needs attention is the possibility that the promise of adaptation changes the way authors write stories. This applies to audiobooks but should be examined from the perspective of any audiovisual adaptation that an author knows will take place as they write their novel.         

Sources

Audio Publishers Association. (2025, June 2). The Audio Publishers Association Annual Survey Shows Audiobook Sales Grow to 2.22 Billion Dollars. https://www.audiopub.org/surveys

Berry, L. (2025, October 22). Audio Storytelling: How Writing Fuly-Produced Audiobooks Has Changed the Way I Write. Writer’s Digest. https://www.writersdigest.com/audio-storytelling-how-writing-fully-produced-audiobooks-has-changed-the-way-i-write

Bone, J.K, Bu, F., Sonke, J.K., Fancourt, D. (2025). The decline in reading for pleasure over 20 years of the American Time Use Survey. iScience, 28(9), 113288. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2020.113288

Dali, K., Brochu, L. K. (2020, July). The Right to Listen: A Not So Simple Matter of Audiobooks. Public Knowledge Project, 64(3). https://doi.org/10.5860/lrts.64n3.106-119

Garner, L. A. (2016). Stories Which I Know to Be True: Oral Tradition, Oral History, and Voices from the Past. The Oral History Review, 43(2), 263–291. https://doi-org.libproxy.library.unt.edu/10.1093/ohr/ohw050

Kosch, L., Stocker, G., Ahrens-Schwab, A. & Boomgaarden, H. (2025, August). Media, modality, and motivation in literary-aesthetic experience: exploring auditory and visual reception of literature. Poetics, (3). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2025.102021

Peterson, A.H. (Host). (2026, January 28). How an Audiobook Gets Made (with Julia Whelan!) [Audio podcast episode]. In Culture Study Podcast. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culture-study-podcast/id1718662839?i=1000746994280

Thompson, J. B. (2021). The Remarkable Rise of the Audiobook. LOGOS: The Journal of the World Book Community, 32(2), 10–19. https://doi-org.libproxy.library.unt.edu/10.1163/18784712-03104013

It’s time for UNT to step up: Students deserve affordable housing

 Brian Gonzalez estimates that his commute from Fort Worth to the University of North Texas campus takes about one hour and 45 minutes. He uses his UNT identification to secure a free ride on the A-train, then settles in to do some reading for classes. After half an hour he switches trains and takes out the rest of his homework.  

Despite the lengthy and crowded trip, Gonzalez, like many UNT students, chooses to commute from home to save money on the increasingly unaffordable housing prices in Denton.  

Over the past decade, Denton’s population has risen by 24% or around 41,500 people according to census data from 2015  and 2025. At the same time, there has been a 23% increase in UNT’s estimated cost of attendance in the past ten years, according to the 2015 and 2024 fact sheets.  

As UNT continues to enroll a larger population of students each year, the university has neglected to account for the increased need for housing. Since UNT is such a large part of Denton’s growing population, the administration has a responsibility to provide more, diverse housing accommodations rather than leave students struggling to pay their rent.  

Diverse housing options could include on-campus housing exclusively for upperclass-students, housing-share programs, co-op communities, or commuter hostels and sleeping pods.  

 

This chart uses data from the 2015-2016 UNT Fact Sheet (shown on the left in green) and 2024-2025 UNT Fact Sheet (shown on the right in blue).  

As the chart depicts, although enrollment and faculty and staff populations have increased marginally, the on-campus housing has not increased nearly enough to accommodate these growing numbers.  

While the university may not be directly responsible for the majority of Denton’s increasing housing prices, it is nonetheless a major contributor that has not taken any responsibility for the issue.  

Recently, on-campus housing has only been able to accommodate freshmen, housing employees and some students with physical accommodations. In 2022, UNT could not even accommodate those students, and many stayed in hotels for much of their first semester.  

 

This chart uses data from UNT’s fact sheets.  

The most recent dorm built at UNT was Joe Greene Hall and it accommodates 500 students with a yearly cost of $7,044 for double occupancy suites.  

Dorm costs currently range from $3,000 to $4,000 a semester not including parking or dining fees. At a minimum, the dorm costs are equivalent to $600 in rent for accommodations that, more often than not, do not provide individual bathrooms, living spaces or kitchens.  

Students like Evan Travis who live at off-campus student housing such as UCentre at Fry Street, pay about $1,100 in individual rent for a triple occupancy apartment. This is a significantly higher cost than the dorms, and, despite its convenient local, is not an affordable price for most students.  

Students like Ashley Gomez, who pays $2,056 in rent divided among four roommates, settle for affordable housing that is further away from campus. After commuting for  several semesters from Royse City, Gomez felt she was missing the UNT campus culture and decided to get an apartment.  

“I honestly wish I didn’t have to work multiple jobs and have roommates to afford my apartment, especially since it’s lower quality,” Gomez said. “If I think my apartment is expensive, I could not imagine the newer ones.”  

Students that live in Denton often utilize buses provided by UNT through the Denton County Transportation Authority. Others brave the notoriously expensive and chaotic campus parking lots.  

Although other college towns may have room to build more dorms and housing near or on campus, UNT has little space to develop more accommodations and is heavily restricted by antiquated zoning policies. However, more alternative and diverse options for existing housing could make it more affordable.  

If UNT cannot make improvements to housing costs for students, then the administration should push pause on increasing student acceptance and enrollment each year.  

UNT’s newest program, the North Texas Promise, will offer eight semesters tuition free to high achieve low income Texas. Although this program is generous and creates a culture of accessibility, it also incentivizes a large number of students to enroll in UNT and continue to increase the Denton population.  

As UNT continues to actively contribute to Denton’s rising population, the university has a responsibility to provide quality housing for all students that wish to live in Denton. Without solutions to the ever-increasing student population, dorms will overcrowd, commuters will face more traffic and local students will struggle more to pay their rent. 

END

Note:

If I were to prepare this piece for. Future publishing it would be necessary to reach out to the university for comment. Additionally, this post was written just before UNT announced the $45 million deficit. As of now I do not believe the opinion is appropriate because the university has cut a plethora of other programs to make up the financial deficit.

Public university education belongs to students

 In the past year Texas universities have seen an increasing number of controversies regarding complaints about ideology and bias in classes. Schools like Texas A&M, Texas Tech and even UNT have stripped classes and lost professors over student complaint about controversial topics such as gender identity or race.

As these student complaints became more prominent, Texas opened a website for the Office of the Ombudsmen to receive comments and complaints from the public about public universities. The Ombudsmen then manages significant complaints to hold universities responsible for following laws and policies regarding higher education.

Many institutions are preemptively reviewing course syllabi to cut back on controversial topics in classes. As a result, courses with elements that might involve diversity, equity and inclusion are being oversimplified or erased.

Highly politicized restrictions have put academic freedom at risk as policies to revise higher education have proven to be inefficient and neglectful of students. These changes are heavily censoring academics that acknowledge disenfranchised groups and infringing on academic freedom in a way that is detrimental to the quality of higher education.

Although it is important for the state to listen to students’ opinions and manage the quality of higher education, proponents of recent changes show a bias towards conservative beliefs. 

Organizations like the American Association of University Professors protect the right to educate students without government censorship. The AAUP has condemned recent curriculum reviews as they are a detriment to professors’ freedom to study and educate on all subjects and from all perspectives.

In the December 2025 UNT Faculty Senate meeting, President Harrison Keller announced that Michael McPherson, the UNT Provost, is in the process of reviewing all 9,000 courses offered at UNT using AI.

The provost office will individually review courses found in violation of state or university law or policy and work with professors to adjust the curriculum accordingly.

At Texas A&M, the administration announced that about 200 classes would be affected by changes to adhere to policy restricting conversations about race and gender. One professor expressed their frustration when they asked to remove Plato’s “Myth of Androgyne” from the syllabus of a philosophy class.

The censorship was made to stay in compliance with recent Senate Bill 5356. The bill established a federal definition of “male” and “female” in 2024. Recent curriculum reviews have sought to eliminate instruction that might explore varying ideas on gender.

While the world-famous philosopher’s discussion of a possible nonbinary gender construct may contradict federal law, but that does not mean it is illegal to learn.

Policymakers and administration are restricting course topics to prevent professors from pressuring students with subjective world views such as “race and gender ideologies”. However, many college level courses revolve around understanding multiple ideologies.

College students, especially those over the age of 18, have the right to pursue the education of their choice even if the research they pursue is contrary to the beliefs of politicians.

Topics like feminism, critical race theory and gender identity might not be universal beliefs, but that does not mean that they are not worth learning about. The same classes that teach those topics also educate students on religion, capitalism and eugenics because those systems, and the people who endorse them, exist whether or not people believe in them.

Academic research from multiple universities, such as Georgetown University, have found that healthy classroom debate is a great way to challenge students. It is worth considering that an overwhelming number of students, more than half, are reluctant to speak on controversial topics because they are afraid of social retribution, according to a 2022 study by Heterodox.

Given these statistics, it’s clear that the culture of classroom debate needs to change. However, removing classes rids any students of the opportunity to have hard discussions altogether.

Instead, solutions should revolve around individual choice within higher education.

By reducing these class requirements, or offering more substitutions, students will be able to avoid uncomfortable or controversial curriculums. Furthermore, fewer core classes means students can graduate and enter the work force faster and therefore pay less tuition.

Policymakers and university administrators, allow students to dictate which classes they need to take more freely. Core and major class requirements often require students to take unnecessary classes and even classes that teach topics students don’t want to learn about.

The Other Woman

    Rain drummed along the roof as drops chased each other down the windows, leaving remnants of themselves behind. They caught each other in little pools before flying off my car entirely, and I could only watch. The gentle storm reminded me of the day I first met Xander.
    Grey clouds hung low in the sky and caught us in a downpour on our way to class. We ran,
laughing together, into the same building. The romance of it was mesmerizing— his wet hair,
which he shook out onto the floor carelessly, and his big brown eyes that locked onto me. My
shirt was soaked and see-through, so he gave me his jacket before asking for my phone number.
He was a gentleman, if nothing else, and I fell for him faster than the rain fell onto our heads.
Three months later, the world was hazy again. The boy in the rain became the boy in my
diary and in my passenger seat. In that time, he washed over me like a tidal wave clearing away
all the undesirable things I disliked about myself. He recognized the parts I wanted people to see
and appreciated them— ever the optimist. I drove us over slick roads and ran the wipers across
the windshield as I accelerated beneath the green light.
    “What could you possibly talk about for that long?” I asked.
    “Everything,” Xander replied. “Our lives, politics, science, philosophy.” His fingers tapped anxiously on the dash.
    The nervous tick pulled my eyes away from the road briefly.
    “So, you save all of your boring worldly talk for her then.” 

    I laughed at the prospect of my solemn boyfriend discussing philosophy every quiet Sunday morning before going home to watch hours of ESPN and ignore his math homework. He was a critical and factual being with a fear of being proved wrong.
    “Occasionally, we talk about you,” he said, placing his hand just above my knee. “You look pretty today, Ciara.”
    I tried to focus on the road. “You’re not making me less nervous.”
    By the end of our second date, I knew everything I needed to about Molly, Xander’s best friend and the person he could talk to about anything and everything. They were neighbors growing up, and he described her as something of a little sister. Of course it bothered me at first, like it would bother any girl in a new relationship, but her opinion mattered to him, so it mattered to me.
    After parking the car on a back street, we walked carefully under the same umbrella around the corner to the restaurant. His hand rested on my lower back, guiding me around the corner. I brushed my palms over my jeans and praised my closet’s loyalty to dark colors. Black clothes hide the nervous sweat.
    Molly waited for us at a small table under a skylight. Even in the cloudy grey, the sun found her. She wore a bright yellow dress, and a brighter smile aimed toward us. When we approached her, she jumped up, opened her arms towards Xander and then hesitated. She turned to me instead with the smallest frown creasing her brow. It vanished in a heartbeat.
    “It’s so nice to meet you! I’ve heard so much about you.” She looked at me expectantly for an awkward moment. Neither of us knew how to act, but it seemed I was much better at pretending. She returned to her seat and set off in a sprint for words. “This is fantastic. I’ve been bugging Xander about meeting you for weeks, I swear.” She spoke so fast that I missed a few
words and started simply nodding along with the rhythm of her sentences. Xander hung on to her every syllable, bouncing our joined hands on his knee.
    She talked at me incessantly, but barely with me. She commended me several times for my great taste in men, and eventually she posed the ever-repeating college questionnaire: What are you studying? Early Childhood Education. Oh, what do you want to do with that? Teach elementary students. I love kids. How long until you graduate? Next Spring, I hope.

    I guess he hasn’t told her a lot about me.
    “This is nice,” Xander said. He looked at me and smiled at Molly.
    She smiled back at him, and I felt, for a short moment, that there was an unspoken secret between them. I sat back, conversationally lost.
    “It is. It’s so nice.” Molly turned to me with plastic enthusiasm before returning her giddy attention to Xander.
    Their rapport assumed a melodic pattern that I listened to in admiration for the rest of our meal. They poked fun at and interrupted each other, but they never managed to say the same thing simultaneously. They had built up a systematic dialogue from years of Sunday coffee dates.
    “Molly,” he laughed. “Every once in a while, you have to stand up to people.”
    “She needed someone to drive her to the airport,” Molly said. “I mean she couldn’t do it she was—”
    “Drunk.”
    “Inebriated,” Molly corrected. “It’s fine. I needed the cash, and she only threw up once.”
    “Molly!” Xander exclaimed, his hand on his head. She lit up every time he said her name.
    I grimaced at her story. “You suck at driving anyway. You need a new gig.”
    “I’m a better driver than you.”
    They went on like that while I silently emptied the chip basket till salt and crumbs were all that remained. My boyfriend, the mellow and shy, wore a wide, toothy smile and spoke like a cartoon character, silly with thoughtless sentences. I enjoyed being in the presence of their friendship, and although we never met again, I liked Molly. Sitting next to her made me feel elegant and mature. She was the chatty friend I would have needed a break from had I spent more time with her. She was humble and imperfect. Her clothes didn’t quite fit her right, and her hair had patches of dry shampoo. Her makeup was splotchy, and her skin was untended. Xander didn’t seem to notice these things. He looked her straight in the eyes and never mentioned the knot in her hair or the lipstick on her teeth.
    When we parted ways, she gave me a friendly hug and said, “It was nice to meet you.”
    Then, she left without giving Xander so much as a high five, though I could see, it was a painful and purposeful avoidance.
—
    The Friday after I met Molly, Xander texted me to come over to his place before our weekly date night. When Xander and I first started seeing each other, we moved fast. He did more than kiss me on the first date, and by the third, I was packing a bag with the expectation of staying over.
    “There you are, gorgeous,” he said as I walked in. “How do you always look so hot?”
    The door shut behind me as he pulled me in for a kiss. “Hi,” I said, flushed. I never knew how to respond to his abundant compliments. They gave me a certain unease as if there was an expectation I had to fulfill. I wanted to reciprocate when he said these things, but anything I said seemed insincere and meaningless to him. My only form of reciprocation was physical. We were so enamored by each other, most date nights we abandoned the formality, and I would go straight to his apartment to start the night off with sex.
    Afterward, we lay in bed together, embraced, with the lights off. In these moments of bliss, we became individuals again with separate bodies and separate thoughts, silently dozing off from time to time. I liked to let my mind wander, and that day, it wandered off to Molly and her yellow dress. I thought of how talkative she was and how Xander laughed at her words.
    Something churned in my stomach, but I couldn’t quite name the feeling.
    I shifted around until I was facing him. “I love you. I love your smile and your kindness and the way you tease me sometimes.”
    He kissed my forehead and closed his eyes. “I love you too.”
    “Why?” I needed something deeper than sweet nothings to pull me out of whatever discomfort I had.
    He laughed inwardly and thought for a moment. “You’re sexy, and you’re fun. We always have fun when we’re together.”
    I hummed a confirmation, but I didn’t understand his answer. I thought of things I considered fun: parties, rides, movies, but I’ve never been in love with any of them.
    “I’m hungry,” I said. “We should make dinner.”
    He groaned into the pillow.
    “Or we could order something?” I suggested.
    “That’s a good idea,” he said. “I need to take a shower. Can you do it?”
    “Ok. My phone is dead. Could I use yours?”
    “Of course.” He sat up, grabbed his phone off the side table, and handed it to me, unlocked. “Pizza?”
    “I’m lactose intolerant,” I said.
    “Right, I forgot. Wings? You know the ones I like.”
    I ordered our food, and, while Xander was still in the shower, the mix of temptation and opportunity became overwhelming. I needed to find some semblance of evidence in the least possessive-girlfriend, creepy-stalker way possible. Something to calm the dull ache behind my ribs.
   I opened up his texts with Molly.
   To my satisfaction, they exchanged no pictures, lies, or doting words. I kept scrolling up and up through the past eight months. Aside from repetitive confirmations about where and when they would meet each week, there were very few messages at all. A few texts from Molly, spaced weeks apart, stood out in which she asked to meet Xander on days other than Sunday. She invited him to concerts and plays, and he always replied with excuses, saying that Sunday mornings were the only time he had for her. He even rejected her requests to call and talk. It pleased me to know that he kept her confined to that one time.
    When Xander came out of the shower, I closed out of his messaging app and set his phone down. We dressed, and he cleaned up his room while I read my book until the food came.

We wordlessly coexisted.

I waited for that feeling in my stomach to go away, but my inexplicable jealousy was undeniable at that point. I considered telling him. Then I considered what I could possibly say. I had no justification for my feelings. It wasn’t that I thought they were cheating, it was this quiet constant fear that he was going to wake up one day and realize he’s in love with her.

—
    Four Friday nights later, I still wasn’t sure, but I had let the theory drift into the “It’s Probably All In My Head” folder of my brain.
    I was with him, reading in his bed, when he received one of those rare, unexpected texts from Molly.
    “Oh,” he said, scrunching his eyebrows together, frowning.
    “What is it?” I asked.
    “Molly can’t make it to coffee this weekend. She says she’s going home to visit her parents,” he said, tapping his fingers against the back of his phone.
    He frowned like he’d just found out his dog died.
    I chewed on my lip. “I’ll go with you instead. How about that?”
    He sat up from the wall, rubbed his hand against his mouth, and looked at me, “Maybe. I mean, if you want.”
    “Of course I want to.”
—
    That Sunday, I stared at my closet searching for something nice to wear for the demure occasion. I thought back to that lunch and the way she smiled at him, cheery and reserved, meanwhile Xander often compared the way I dressed to that of a funeral attendee— although, there was a low-cut high-hemmed quality I’m confident he enjoyed. There was something about having a man wake up every day and choose me that was intoxicating.
    But he didn’t choose me for this coffee date. I wormed my way into her spot, like an understudy excited for the lead to be sick. This was my opportunity to prove I could play the part just as well as she performed it. I stood up and dug through the pits of my hung clothes. At the edges of everything I actually wore, I found a yellow sundress. A costume fit for the character.
    Something Molly would wear.
    Xander was already at the café, given he could walk there from his apartment; however, the drive from my place was fairly long. I ordered and sat across from him. He usually greeted me with a hug and kiss, but he didn’t even stand up that day. He dressed comfortably in a t-shirt and jeans, a deviation from his usual polo and khakis. His shoulders were taught, and everything about him was frigid. He stared at my dress, “I didn’t know you owned anything that bright.”
    “I thought it was nice. Different.” I didn’t want him to think of me as manipulative, but I suppose that’s what I was doing. I wanted him to forget I wasn’t her.
    He nodded. Chewing on my bottom lip, I absorbed his non-compliment, and the unnatural silence compounded with his disapproval, churning my stomach sideways. I wondered what Molly would say if she were here.
    “You look nice,” I tried. “Is that a new shirt?”
    “No,” he said absently.
    We went on like that for a few minutes, and I struggled to think of what to say. How was school? How were your classes? Have you made any plans for the summer? Good. Fine. No. My plan was failing, my composure cracking at the seams. I wanted to be there for him, but instead I hurried away to get my drink when it was ready. It was a brief escape from my game of pretend. The coffee was bitter, but I couldn’t drink dairy, and the barista had no other options. I added two packets of sugar and looked to Xander for sympathy, but he was distracted.
    “What drink did you get?” I asked.
    He tapped his fingers on the table and looked around the cafe, biting his lip. “Green tea.”
    “I didn’t know you liked green tea.”
    “Hmm,” he looked at my dress again.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked.
    “It’s just weird,” he said. “I’m not used to being here with anyone else.”
    “Right.” I stirred the sugar in and shivered under the air vent. “I should’ve brought a jacket.”
    This comment elicited quiet laughter from Xander, and he smiled for the first time since I’d arrived. “I remember this one time Molly came in late and bundled up in too many layers of clothes. It was so cold outside that day. She kept her scarf and coat on and just shivered in her chair, but when I asked her what she wanted to drink, she asked for an iced latte. She loves that sugary crap that doesn’t even taste like coffee anymore,” Xander traced his finger along the rim of his mug, his eyes were unfocused. “Her teeth chattered the whole time, but she still talked and talked. Her hair was matted from the wind. She was angry because the groundhog had said Spring would come early that year, but it was still snowing. She loved Spring and superstitions like that.” He sighed, dramatically.
    “Geez, Xander. She’s not dead. She’ll be back next week,” I said harshly. With instant regret, I softened my tone as if comforting wild animal to keep him from running away,
    “Hasn’t she ever missed a week before? What do you usually do when this happens?”
    “No, we never have.”
    “I see.”
    Not so suddenly I could feel all my frustration toward Molly creeping back to forefront as I tried to form logical reasons and plan reasonable actions to counterattack this assault on my
relationship.
    He tipped over his cup to look inside, then drank the last few sips.
    “I wanna leave. I don’t feel good about this.” He stood up and awkwardly leaned over to give me a kiss on the forehead.
    “I’m really sorry Ciara. Text me when you get home. OK?”
    I nodded, masking my internal war plans behind a complacent smile, and watched him walk out of the cafe and turn his face to the sun. He’d never talked to me about Molly this much before, and something about her emotional presence having more power than my physical one aggravated me more than any text or private joke between them ever could.
    He left me with his dirty dish and my unfinished coffee.
    My head rested against the wall, and I sighed, eyes fixed on the empty table, before pulling back to see a mural of wildflowers covering the wall in yellows, oranges, and reds. The vibrancy was too much for my tired eyes, so I closed them. At that moment I began to teeter on the edge of indecision. If I stayed with Xander I’d have a quiet version of infidelity. A secret promise that she would give him what I couldn’t. I’d have to learn to cope with my shortcomings instead of running through our relationship throwing on sundresses anytime I felt bothered. My eyes ached with swelling tear ducts as I considered my other options. How do you leave someone you know you’re falling in love with? In vain, I tried to disappear into the painting, behind the wall of daffodils.
—
    The air was thick with the smell of fried foods sizzling in the summer evening heat. In the humidity, walking felt like swimming through cooking oil and sweat stuck my jean shorts to my legs. I tied my hair up, combing through the bottom strands that had melted into my neck. The Saturday after he left me at the cafe, I guilt-tripped Xander into joining me at a local carnival. He gave in only to appease my complaints about how he ditched me the previous week.
    I was testing him— testing us.
    “It’s hot,” he said, fanning himself.
    “It’ll cool off as the sun goes down.”
    We wandered through the colorful booths filled with bottles, balloons, and plastic figures. Xander guided me with a hand on my lower back. We played a game of mini basketball, and he stood behind me, helping me aim.
    He swung a hammer for another game, and a red notch shot up a scale to ring a bell at the top. The carnie in charge of the game cheered and clapped his chubby hands together. “We have a winner,” he announced to passersby, who continued on, disinterested. I felt sad for him, putting on such a show for the crowd, and his efforts were unappreciated. I smiled at him, but his caricature excitement faded away. “Pick any prize,” he said to Xander.
    I eyed a pink dinosaur plushie, and Xander pointed. “We’ll take that one.” The man pulled down a panda bear so large I couldn’t imagine where he would put it in his small apartment. “For you,” Xander said, handing me the bear and smirking with pride.
    “Oh. Thank you,” I replied, grabbing the stuffed toy by the neck.
    We continued through the grounds, and when we reached the end, we got in line for the Ferris wheel. The seat didn’t have room for more than the two of us, so I left Xander’s prize behind to watch from the ground. We strapped the bar down, and the ride took off, pushing us forward and rocking our bench. I grabbed Xander’s arm for security, and he laughed and slid out of my grasp to wrap around my shoulders.
    “This is fun,” I said, turning to look over the carnival grounds as we rounded the top.
    “Yeah,” Xander said. “It’s kind of pretty when you look at it from this high.”
    Yellow lights flashed over every stall, and people in brightly colored clothes passed out ice cream and funnel cakes to little kids with balloons tied around their wrists. Game sirens echoed into the air, announcing winners and clashing with the pompous music that stayed on a loop over the loudspeakers.
    “Molly loves stuff like this,” Xander said.
    I cringed at his comment, and the seat started to feel cramped. “Do you know what I love, Xander?” I asked, the words spilling out of me like groceries out of a paper bag too heavy to be contained.
    “What do you mean?” he said.
    I couldn’t explain it. I was a substitute that day, filling in a space between Fridays and Sundays where someone else was supposed to be. I was a puzzle piece jammed into the wrong spot and broken by the force of it. The epiphany ached in my chest that I was half a person to him.
    “Nothing. Never mind,” I said.
    And I couldn’t even bring myself to explain that to him because it was suddenly, clearly, disgusting that he never talked to me about what I was feeling.
    When we reached the top of the wheel again, the gears squeaked to a halt. “I think this turn’s almost finished,” I said.
    Whether my theory about Molly and Xander was true or not, the way I let it bother me and did nothing about it was my fault.
    He nodded, “Maybe we can come back another time.”
    The sun had set below the trees behind us, and a cold wind picked up. The city beyond the carnival was pitch dark and silent; it was all I could see once I started looking at it. I glanced at Xander. The moon’s glare reflected in his eyes, but he was too distracted by the carnival lights to see that the black of night had overcome the city.
    We moved backward towards the bottom, and I unlatched the safety bar.
    “Maybe,” I said. I knew then that I would never have every inch, every spread, every facet of his love. I was sure that I wasn’t enough for him. I left the ride, left the carnival. I left the boy in the rain to find sunshine for himself.