The Opposite of Nothing by Shari Slade

always let him, his body going limp as Tayber shoved down on the top of his head.
    He pushed his fists against his eyes, against the burn behind his eyelids, like he’d spent the day underwater. Fucking chemicals.
    * * *
    S he quavered in the center of the apartment, bereft and detached. She recognized her rug and her lamp and the silly stuffed chicken she’d won at first year carnival but didn’t understand how any of it could still exist in a world where she was such a cataclysmic failure. A giant black hole should have swallowed everything up. She tapped her fingers against her lips in a vain attempt to recreate the delicious shock of his tongue. She’d been so damn close to having exactly what she wanted that she could literally taste him. His mouth was warm and sweet, like Fireballs or Red Hots. And she’d blown it. So overcome by the incongruity of a wish fulfilled that she’d frozen. A terrible, choking laugh bubbled to the surface.
    “I need a do-over.”
    She grabbed her stuffed chicken and crushed it against her chest before curling into a ball on the futon. She slept, fitfully, for a few hours. One dream barreled after another. Her teeth fell out. She stepped into an elevator and fell down the bottomless shaft. Every radio she touched only played static. She woke gasping and sweaty, mouth dry from an endless, silent scream.
    She padded barefoot to the fridge and grabbed a soda. Caffeine and sugar were exactly what she needed. No rest for the wicked, I guess. A do-over wouldn’t help anyway. He didn’t want to kiss her—that had been pity. A song she’d heard recently tickled at the back of her brain. She’d tweak a playlist for her next show.
    Blip.
    Tayber.
    Or a message from a professor. Possibly Viagra spam.
    Tay: I’m an asshole.
    Only the most heart-crushing asshole on the planet. Wanting to know why he thought he was an asshole, what he felt about what had almost happened between them, she swallowed the hard knot of panic that always grew in her throat whenever she started down this path and let her fingers hover over the keys. She couldn’t resist. Couldn’t even pretend to resist.
    Sasha: No you aren’t. Well, maybe. What did you do?
    Tay: Took advantage of someone I care about.
    He didn’t take enough advantage. Talking to him about herself was almost as painful as the long moments she’d spent stretched out behind him while the movie played, watching the back of his head instead of the tiny screen. She’d restrained herself then.
    Sasha: How?
    Tay: Kissed someone I shouldn’t have kissed.
    Tay: Shit, I shouldn’t talk to you about kissing other girls.
    Tay: I AM an asshole.
    His concern for her feelings, for Sasha’s feelings, acid-etched guilt into her dirty soul.
    Sasha: It’s cool. You can talk to me about anything.
    Tay: Good.
    The wrongness welled up, a boil she refused to lance. She had to do this. Had to know. And pretending was the only way. The pained expression on his face when he’d realized who he was kissing, like he’d made some horrible mistake, she couldn’t see that again. And he’d wear it if she asked him. Sasha, on the other hand, could ask him anything.
    Sasha: Why did you kiss her?
    Tay: I don’t know.
    Liar.
    Sasha: You just fell on her lips?
    Tay: No
    Sasha: She was convenient?
    She gnawed the ragged cuticle at the corner of her thumb. Waiting, waiting, waiting for confirmation. She knew it. He’d felt an urge that had nothing to do with her. She was simply the collateral damage of his indiscriminate libido.
    Tay: No. She was hurting. I wanted to fix it, and it just happened.
    A rush of breath escaped her lips, as if his words had jumped off the screen and pelted her in the chest.
    Sasha: Doesn’t sound like you took advantage of her to me.
    Tay: She’s my friend. It was wrong.
    Sasha: You shouldn’t be friends with the people you kiss?
    Tay: Usually I’m not.
    A mental slide show looped endlessly in her head, Tayber’s greatest kissing hits. The