Magnus Opus

The dance floor moved like ants parading to the beat of Can’t Stop the Feeling. Everyone celebrated the marriage of Bradley and Theresa; except Justin, who sat in the corner with a loose leaf paper in his hands. The paper was well worn, crinkled and folded so thin the corners were peeling off and the blue lines that striped the page were fading. The paper was detailed with corrections and ideas all catalogued into a poem. Justin concentrated on the poem tremendously; clearly months, if not years, had been slaved over these words, and the passion behind his poetry was extreme.

As Justin labored over his poem, a hand blocked his eyes as it slipped between the paper and him. He looked up and saw Mallory smiling; the hand she offered was an invitation to the dance floor. Justin glanced back and forth at Mallory and his poem, finally deciding to join her. He folded the well creased folds of the paper with ease and slid the poem in his right jean pocket. Mallory lead him to the dance floor. It took almost an entire song to ease Justin back into the spirit of the wedding, relaxing and letting loose.

“You guuuys!” Theresa whined cutely as she admired the couple dancing together. Bradley stood next to his bride as they hugged Justin and Mallory.

“Theresa, you look incredible,” Mallory complimented.

“Oh, thank you. And Justin, I see not even a wedding can get you out of jeans, huh?”

Justin chuckled embarrassingly. “Well, you know why, right?” They all shook their heads, as if anyone would know why he only wore jeans. “You don’t have to wash them!”

“Says who?” Theresa criticized.

“Yeah, says who?” Bradley inquired hopefully.

“It’s true! When they first made jeans, that was the sales pitch! You don’t have to wash them, not nearly as much at least.”

“Uh-huh…” Theresa glared. She turned to Mallory and gave a her a look only women understand.

“I know, I know,” Mallory reassured her.

“You still writing, Justin?” Bradley chimed in.

“Yeah. I’m still working on that poem.”

“The same one? Feels like that’s all you do! As long as I’ve known you I feel like you’ve just been working on this poem.”

“Well, it takes time to get it right. Miles Alabaster will be here next week so I’ll finally get it to him then and I’ll be done.”

“Done with writing?”

“No, of course not! Just… writing something else, I guess.”

“Alllrighty then,” Bradly chuckled.

Theresa smiled coyly. “Well, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule, Justin, to come. Seriously, though, It means so much to us.”

“Seriously,” Bradley contributed. “We know you’re like family – well, Justin, you are her brother. But not everyone can make it, so it means a lot.”

They all hugged once more. Theresa admired the couple next to them and transitioned into a new conversation with new guests. Bradley thanked them one last time with a wave.

A slow song faded in, encouraging the dancers to press close to their loved ones. Mallory did so gladly as Justin looked around the room. Though they swayed together, Mallory had to take her hands and moved Justin’s face to look at her. She took a deep breath in – nodding as she held her breath to get Justin to mimic her, which he finally did – and they both exhaled slowly.

“Hey,” Mallory asked gently, “what’s on your mind, babe?”

Justin inhaled and exhaled once more. “Miles.”

She nodded, expecting that answer yet grateful he admitted it. “I get it. It’s a big deal.”

“I’ve been waiting and waiting for a shot to… I don’t want us to stay here, Mal. I want something better. I want to marry you.”

“I want to marry you, too,” she reassured him.

“But not here. Not in some small town like this. No offense to Theresa or anything, but what I want for us is so much more. And this—” Justin took his hand off her waist and reached in his right jean pocket to reveal his poem. “This is our shot. When Miles Alabaster reads this, if he publishes this… babe, we’ll have our whole lives ahead of us.” He refolded the poem and put it back in his right jean pocket.

“Have you asked what I want yet?” Mallory questioned him lovingly.

“No… no, I haven’t. You’re right. What do you want, Mallory?”

“You.”

He waited for more but realized that’s all she meant. “I can’t…”

She repositioned his face once more to look at hers. “I don’t care where we go or where we live, as long as it’s with you.” She smiled sweetly. “Except Louisiana. Louisiana scares me.”

“Darn, that’s where Miles lives,” he winked. “Truthfully, Mal… all I have is this poem. And it feels like I don’t have a grip on anything else aside from this opportunity. This is who I am. This is all I have.”

Mallory understood what he meant, but she couldn’t help but feel hurt. She pressed her face against his chest as the slow song concluded.

Mallory knocked on Justin’s apartment door the next day. She had two coffees on a carrying-tray and sipped delicately from one. Mallory waited but there was no response. She bent down and flipped the outdoor mat over and grabbed a hidden key. She unlocked his apartment and walked inside.

Mallory set the coffees on the dining table and took in the disaster his apartment had become. Food was scattered everywhere, molding in takeout boxes and hardening in bowls. The kitchen looked like a soup bomb had exploded. The couch was littered with crumbs; it was a complete mess.

She dared herself to see what his bedroom looked like and was met with an ever worse fate. Clothes covered the entire floor that Mallory only knew it was supposed to be carpet beneath the sea of fabric because she had been there plenty of times before. Besides the dirty laundry piling on the floor, water bottles and soda cans were placed sporadically throughout the room, some weren’t even empty. And laying sound asleep in the mess was Justin, who snored pantless over his bedcovers.

Mallory pitied her boyfriend, realizing the extent his stress had consumed him. The pressures of writing this poem and making a name for himself burdened him, and he couldn’t keep anything clean or organized because of it. It was true that he overworked himself, but she understood why. Deep down Justin wanted to be the very best he could for her. He wanted her to have the best life she could, and he wanted to be the one to give it to her.

She knelt down and collected a small pile of clothes, quietly as not to wake him, and carried them into the laundry room in the apartment, where she started his laundry. She began cleaning the kitchen between loads of laundry, wiping down the counters and taking care of the apartment for him.

Justin awoke with his mouth open and drool cooling on his lips. He wiped it off and saw his pillow had been slobbered on. He grabbed his phone and checked the time. 1pm. He shot up and placed his feet on the carpet, which startled him from the unusual sensation. Justin then saw the cleanliness in his bedroom. He walked out pantless into the dining room and saw Mallory reading a book and eating some leftovers.

“Hey, you,” she said mid-bite. “I hope you weren’t saving this. It’s really good, actually. Your coffee is in the fridge if you still want it.”

“Hey. Um…” Justin looked around and saw the cleanliness of his entire apartment. “How… how long have you been here?”

“9:30. Like you said.”

“Mallory—why didn’t you wake me up?”

“You seemed like you needed the sleep.” She checked the time on her phone. “Clearly — sheesh.”

“Yeah, but…” Justin spun around and then walked into the kitchen. He pointed into the kitchen and then pointed in the general area of his whole apartment. “Did you do this?”

“Yeah,” she said proudly.

“Wow. Why?”

“I saw how stressed you were about everything, and when I let myself in I didn’t realize exactly how stressed you were. Last night at Theresa’s wedding you said you felt as if you didn’t have control of your life. So I wanted to help.”

She walked towards him and assumed he would hug her and thank her, so she wrapped her hands around his waist and looked at his eyes. But he didn’t reciprocate the affection. Instead he looked around anxiously.

“You cleaned everything?”

“Everything. For you, babe.” She leaned up and kissed him.

“What about my clothes?”

“I did those, too. I thought about leaving them for you to put away but I figured you wouldn’t wake up if I snuck in and out. Which I was more than right because I also vacuumed.”

“Where are more clothes?” Justin asked.

“In your closest,” she chortled. “I mean, fix them how you want—” Justin pulled away from her and walked away, entering his bedroom.

Mallory followed him, “What? Justin?”

Justin reached in his closest and yanked his jeans onto the floor. He spread them out and furiously searched through the right pockets of them. “Shit, shit – oh shit.”

“Justin, what is it?” Mallory asked worriedly.

“Where is it? Where is it, Mallory?”

“Where is what?”

“Did you check them first? Did you check the pockets?!”

“For what? Did I check for what, Justin?”

Justin reached in the right pocket of a pair of jeans and pulled out bits of paper, soaked and dried into shreds of a ruined poem. Justin leaned back slowly and held the remnants of his hope between his fingers.

Mallory covered her mouth in fear. “Justin… Justin, I’m… Oh my God. Oh my God, shit.”

“Why didn’t you check the pockets?” he asked calmly.

“I didn’t think that anything would be in them.”

“You see me put this in my pocket every day. You see me write this every day, and when I’m done I put it back in my pocket – the exact same right pocket every time. And you didn’t think to CHECK?!” He exploded.

She jumped back in fright. She’d never seen this side of him before. “If I means so much why didn’t you take it out? Why didn’t you put it somewhere safe?”

“That was safe! This—” he waved his arms around his room, “—is safe! My room, my home, where I know what’s going on, is safe!”

“It didn’t look like you knew what was going on, Justin! It was a mess – I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I just wanted to help.”

“You ruined everything. You ruined absolutely everything, Mallory. I have nothing now. Nothing! Everything in my life depended on getting this chance to have Miles publish my work and make a career out of this but now it’s over!”

“Can’t you just write it again?” she asked innocent and nervously.

“No – no I can’t just write this again! I can’t sit here and write the very best I can do in an afternoon, Mallory! I can’t give all I have in an afternoon, because I spent almost a year writing this — all for you to throw it away!!”

“I didn’t throw it away! I didn’t mean to do this, I’m sorry, I really am, but if it mattered so much you should’ve take better care of it.”

“Son of a bitch!” Justin turned around and punched the wall behind him. Mallory cowered in fear and shook. Justin began sobbing. “It’s over. I have nothing.”

Mallory took deep breaths as she watched Justin wail on the carpet. “You know, you say you have nothing, you say you had nothing besides that stupid poem of your when that's not true.”

“No, no, no… that was all I had to give you. It was all I had to prove myself.”

“To who? Miles? Some guy who doesn’t care about you? You acted like you had nothing! Every time you say that you make me feel like nothing! Like I couldn’t be enough for you, like no matter what I did I could never make you happy. You put so much in this poem that you made it all you had. You traded my worth for a stranger’s approval so you could feel better about yourself because you’re too insecure. So you know what? I’m glad. I’m glad I washed your poem because now maybe you’ll look around and see what you’ve lost. Goodbye.” Mallory left his bedroom and walked out of the apartment and slammed the door shut.

Justin stared out of the bedroom and in an instant felt the absence of her presence. He held the torn poem in his hands and rubbed them with his fingers. He had spent the better part of a year trying to better his craft instead of himself. He spent more time on this page than with Mallory. He cared more about what Miles might say than what Mallory did say. He put his worth in these shreds of paper than in what truly mattered. His identity was washed away, and he no longer knew himself.