The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories by Marina Keegan Page B

day, I watched the play again. It was a matinee, so the cast scraped out of Ricky’s house at eleven o’clock with the pouty camaraderie of a communal hangover. Too tired and confused the night before, Danny and I had had sex that morning—emerging last into the kitchen, secretly superior. I ordered another to-go lobster on the way to the theater and it came with its claws flopping over the sides of a fast food container, which I liked. I sat in the back again but felt a strange sinking when the lights dimmed. Danny looked handsome in his costume: styled, slightly, and forced to wear jeans that fit him.
    I don’t think I’d ever had a truly violent impulse before that afternoon, sitting in a velvet chair in a dark theater as old people laughed. I had a boyfriend in high school who got into a fight at a party in someone’s basement and I remember driving him home in silence, fully incapable of understanding why he felt compelled to punch Joey Carlton in the face for the shit he said about Mike and AJ. But I understood now. Danny and Olivia were just so charming! The part where they first kissed, his hand on the small of her back and her fingers running through his hair. The part where they giggled and eye-smiled and confessed things and fought and made up and cried and kissed again. I wanted to take Olivia’s face and hit it as hard as I could. Shove her to the ground and kick her in the side. Smash her against the wall, pull at her hair, punch her again right between the eyes. I imagined doing these things as the audience laughed. Imagined getting up on stage and beating her up. Just literally beating her up. Fuck you, I would say. Fuck you and your stupid clothing and your stupid attitude and the way you talk to everyone like they fucking love you. Stay the fuck away from Danny and if you ever fucking talk to him again I will kill you, I would say. I will literally kill you.
    During intermission I went outside to sit in the car because I didn’t feel like talking to the lobby and its circles. Part of me probably knew it was coming because as soon as I shut the door, I started crying. I let my head hang forward and press against the steering wheel but after a few sobs I sat up and stopped. I texted five or six friends from the city. Small things like “hey how’s work?” or “ugh I want to kill this girl in Dan’s play.” I do that sometimes when I’m feeling lonely; it’s a strange and compulsive habit, but it usually works. I waited for a minute before anyone responded. Flipped down the mirror and rubbed my knuckle under my eyes, exhaling. My sister and my friend Tara texted me back and I responded to both immediately. I spent the second half of the play reminding myself of particular ways in which I was better than Olivia: I was thinner, I had nicer eyes, I went to a better school.
    I didn’t know what my problem was. Danny had been a (struggling) actor since the day we met and I’d seen him kiss girls onstage before. I guess the summer had been hard; the cell service in northern Cape Cod wasn’t great and I’d wonder about him all day as I sat in my office. The envy was twofold: jealousy of the girl he was spending time with and jealousy of how he was spending his time. Playing around all day doing stretches and dumb acting games, getting wasted at night at the Beachcomber, the local bar he raved about whenever we talked on the phone. “It’s so fun,” he’d say. “There’s this group of local alcoholics who are too freaking funny. But they have these bands that come and everyone just sort of goes with it, you know? None of that too-cool bullshit.” “Yeah,” I’d say, in bed with my salad. “It sounds amazing, you’ll have to take me when I come up in August.” “For sure,” he’d reply. “I can’t wait.”
    We got dinner together between shows and had sex again on these inland dunes. Danny parked the car on the side of Route 6 next to a beach pine marked with an orange plastic