Hearthrobinson.

Billy Robinson will never break your heart. He’s a sweet kid. Lanky and boyish, with light eyes and long fingers. He has the world’s smallest puppy, and his mom thinks I’m cool. His car is always a mess. He keeps his wiry Harry Potter glasses in the corner, on the dashboard. He keeps his guitar case and a week’s worth of trash in the back. He used to use his ex-girlfriend’s old Beatles mug as an ashtray in the cup holder.

“Because she sucks,” he explained, but I saw those old photos of the two of them, smiling in superhero costumes, calling each other things like, “happy,” and “family.” He’s never been able to fool me.

He picks me up at my apartment on Daughtry, and we drive out to the Waco dam at midnight. We sing songs to keep ourselves awake, and we keep an eye out for fireflies. With him, I never sleep. We stay up all night ‘til sunrise, watching our friends fall in love. We drink Shiner Bock because it’s Texas, and we drink tequila because we’re lonely. One day, he tells me he loves me, and we kiss outside the bar. I’m a vampire in my blue dress, and he’s a zombie in his button-up. He plays Everlong by the Foo Fighters on guitar and in my head, I stay here forever in this dinky little town, wrapped up in the moonlight over the Brazos and the lights from the Alico building downtown.

***

I leave town in May. He helps me pack up my car, and we say goodbye. When I get back to Los Angeles, I smoke his brand of cigarettes for weeks because I miss him. He doesn’t text me again because his phone is always dead, but that’s okay. I knew that going into it.

When I move to New York, I listen to the mix tape he made me every single time I ride the subway. White Hinterland by Icarus. Walking on a Dream by Empire of the Sun. Fade into You by Mazzy Star. Something in the Air by Tom Petty. No One’s Gonna Love You by Band of Horses. Young Folks by Peter Bjorn & John. I listen to it underground for months until I have to go back to Texas to graduate college.

***

We arrive at Hemmingway’s Watering Hole and the lights are out. The bar is closed. Eric knocks four times and the door swings open and everyone’s inside; Billy & Renny & Chris & Benn and everyone I love. A dozen arms grab me and pull me in close; they already have shots waiting on the bar.

“To Whitney,” they say, and we drink. Billy’s in the corner, playing Alison by Elvis Costello on guitar. He asks me to take a walk around the block, and then he asks me to marry him. I could do that, I think. I could stay here forever. I could leave my job at Letterman, and we could eat grilled cheese sandwiches and listen to music on I-35.

“Have you ever heard about what crabs do when you put them in a barrel?” he asks me. I shake my head no.

 “Individually, they could easily escape. They could squeeze their little pinchers into the sides and pull themselves out. But then, the other crabs grab onto their legs and pull them back in. The group mentality is more important than the individual's freedom.”

He pauses, takes a sip of his beer, tucks my hair behind my ears.

“Darling,” he says, “That’s what Waco is like.”

***

The next time I find myself in the South, I don’t expect to see anyone. But like magic, Chris picks me up and we drive over to Renny’s. Renny opens the door, and they’re there, somehow: Eric and Billy with Lone Stars in their hands, squeezing me into the buttons on the fronts of their shirts. We ask Billy’s little brother to take a picture of the five of us, grinning like idiots.

“Smile on three,” he says, and Billy gently moves my head so that I’m looking right at him.

1…he tilts my chin up to look at him.

2…he closes his eyes.

3…we’re both home again, his lips on my mouth, and we’re both seeing stars.

The camera goes off. Everyone says, “Ewwwwwww.”

We climb in the car to go get more beer, and we scream out the lyrics to Cannibal Queen by Miniature Tigers. We hold hands in the back seat and sing the line from I Just Do by Dear & the Headlights that we both love. We drink more tequila and put on Katy Perry. We finish our Lone Stars, and we’re all over each other on the balcony. Our friends go inside. I’m stuck to him like glue, like I never even left.

“You don’t have a boyfriend, do you?” he asks, and I shake my head no.

We stay up all night talking. All of us. Eric tells us that his new girlfriend lives in Canada. Chris tells a story about his mom. Renny’s inside entertaining her co-workers. Billy makes us laugh with his stories from work.

“I think I’m gonna be a really great father,” he says, sober for a minute. And then Eric says something, and we’re back laughing again.

At two in the morning we run out of cigarettes, and Chris’s car gets towed from the parking lot.

“I’ll go,” I say, because I’m the least fucked up.

Eric and I get in the car and we drive. I pick up a pack of Marlboro Menthols and they only cost five dollars. I put Billy’s change in my purse.

We get back home, and Chris is beside himself. We start into the house, and he stops me before I go inside. We sit down on the stairs, and I smoke Billy’s cigarettes. Chris plays some depressing music on his iPhone and tells me that he’s broke, and he can’t pay for the tow, and that after I left to go to the store, Billy hooked up with a stranger, that he’s passed out in bed now.

I pull Chris up by his hands. I tell him that neither of us are allowed to start crying. I put on Love Fool by the Cardigans and we don’t know all the words, but we dance in the moonlight, scream the ones that we know.

When the music stops, we pick up his car and drive back to his house and I pack up my things and we head to the airport. I don’t see Billy again because he’s unconscious. I tell Renny that I’ll come visit soon.  I take pictures of Eric sleeping on the couch in Chris’s bright purple Dio shirt. I say goodbye to Texas and I drink one more Lone Star. I sleep on the plane the whole way back to New York.

***

I text Billy in the morning, “Thanks for saying goodbye.” His change is still in my wallet.

He doesn’t answer for awhile, but when he does, he says, “I really hate myself.”

I don’t need to ask why, but I do anyway. He tells me he’s sorry. He tells me he’s really dumb. He tells me that sometimes, when he reads my writing, I don’t use his name but he knows it’s about him. He says he can always tell. He says he knows for sure. I tell him it’s okay, and I mean it. I tell him I still think he’s cool.

I climb back into bed and I close my eyes and I tell myself again:

Billy Robinson will never break your heart. You’re never in town long enough to let him.