Chimpanzee by Darin Bradley

had no idea how he’d gotten from the beginning to the end. I was lost, and so were the other two students—the last two. I knew, then, for the first time, that I simply wasn’t smart enough. I felt calm. For the first time all semester.
    â€œIt felt much the way I feel now.”
    â€œWhy do you think that is?”
    I think about the truth.
    â€œI don’t fucking know.”

    â€œDo you feel different?” Sireen says.
    â€œI feel hung over.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œI don’t really remember.”
    I finished vomiting hours ago. We are lying in bed, beneath only a sheet. Because it’s hot. Sireen has it pulled down to her hips, and I watch how the moon’s blue light makes her skin seem violet, her breasts wine-dark.
    We are nothing but our entire lives here. I still feel calm—an aftereffect of the chemicals and sedatives Cynthia administered earlier. I think of Sireen’s skin in the sunlight, in the woods, and I wish we could build our house there. Around a tree, like Odysseus.
    She touches my neck, and I concentrate. This is how I contribute now. How I build a better life, family, place to be. Trading myself for our good.
    It’s important to remember that I love her.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  I’d made a friend.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Ben, he said, finally. The bar was crowded when I arrived. There were pictures on the walls of the campus architecture. Which was looming just outside.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  He was another taciturn alcoholic. From my program, studying poetry. He knew Sireen, which darkened him. He had written poetry about how she didn’t love him and why this was the same thing as something more meaningful, like science.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Meet Sireen, he said.
    She rolls over beside me. Brings those breasts against my ribcage. Divots her chin into my shoulder.
    â€œI read the doctor’s literature,” she says. Quiet. Straight into my skin. “About collateral memory damage.”
    We met when she was drunk and beautiful. Arms and legs in unsteady arcs.
    â€œTo anything that pertains,” I say.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Ben, Sireen said, extending a hand languidly from her seat. Sit down. She still had an accent then.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  My friend put Sireen’s hand in mine, to shake, because she was too drunk to coordinate it herself. He said, She’s another one from the math group—
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Non-positively curved geometry, Sireen said.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  One of Sireen’s neighbors, a woman, leaned into her. You look positively curved to me, darling! They laughed.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Can I buy you a drink? I said.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  You know, Sireen said, I can predict your future with statistical theory. Her eyes widened, as if she’d impressed herself.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  My friend brought us drinks. Ben, I found out about the              , he