I ONCE PERFORMED DARK MAGIC AT A SLEEPOVER AND NOW I HAVE TROUBLE EXPRESSING MY AFFECTION FOR ROMANTIC PARTNERS

by Bob Powers  —

"I had a teddy bear named Stanley Patches as a child," I say, nuzzling Emma's shoulder. “I loved Stanley Patches more than I loved anybody in the world. I told him so every night when I went to bed and every morning when I woke up. He was just a toy, at least I thought he was just a toy, but I loved him more than my parents or my siblings or anyone in my family. He was my first love.”

“What happened to him?” Emma asks.
“It didn’t work out,” I say.
“Meaning you outgrew him?”
“Meaning it didn’t work out,” I say.

My body grows tense against her bare torso.

Emma kisses the top of my head as I tell her about the Magic Genie game.

“It was just a dumb game at a sleepover,” I say. “We painted this soda bottle green, and once we dried the paint with a hairdryer, we spun it like spin the bottle. Except whoever the bottle pointed at got one wish. We’d spin the bottle, and when it stopped, all the kids put their hands on the bottle and chanted ‘Magic Genie’ over and over while the kid it pointed at silently made a wish.”

“Did you get a wish?” Emma asks.

I nod, tears welling up in my eyes now. “I wished for the only thing I ever could wish for. The only thing I wanted in the world. I wished that Stanley Patches would come to life.”

“Aww,” says Emma before kissing the top of my head again. I slide away from her kiss, pull my body away from hers, and slip out from the mattress onto the floor. Naked on my bedroom carpet I finish my story while Emma sits up in bed.

“I spent the whole sleepover wondering if my wish would come true,” I say. “I couldn’t wait to see if Stanley Patches had come to life. I became certain he had, and I worried that if I wasn’t there, he’d be confused about why he was in some little boy's room and climb out the window to go to the forest. I worried that by making my wish I’d actually made it so Stanley Patches would run away from me.”

Emma reaches over from the edge of the bed to rub my shoulder, but I twist away from her.

“As soon as everyone else was asleep and it was safe for me to leave without being made fun of, I gathered up my sleeping bag and ran home as fast as I could. I sprinted up the stairs to my bedroom to go and make sure Stanley Patches was still there.”

"Was he?" Emma asks,  now sounding like she's worried about where this story's going. “Was he still there?”

I nod, and Emma lets out the sigh of a girlfriend relieved that her boyfriend doesn't believe that his childhood Teddy Bear ran away from him.

“He was there,” I say. “Right on my bed, where I’d left him. Except he was sitting up. He was staring at me.”

The concern enters Emma's voice again. “Maybe you’d left him like that?”

“I thought that could have been it,” I say. “Until I called out to him. I said, ‘Stanley?’”

Emma doesn't say a word. Just waits in the quiet, like she's frightened of what will happen when the silence is broken.

“Stanley said to me, 'Hello,'” I tell her. “He said, 'The wish came true. You brought me to life.'”

Emma pulls the blankets up over her a little higher.

“I said to him, 'Oh Stanley you’re real! I love you so much and now you’re able to love me too!' I ran to him, but he held up a paw, stopping me before I could pull him from the bed and into my arms.”

Emma, speaking in a monotone while staring at a spot on the wall, asks, “Did your Teddy Bear say more stuff?”

I nod, my eyes on the carpet. “He said, 'I’m glad you brought me to life so I can finally tell you that I don’t share your feelings. I’ve heard your repeated declarations of love for me, I’ve felt your affectionate embraces, but I’ve been inanimate and unable to say that your feelings are not reciprocated and your embraces are unwanted.'”

“That must have been hard to hear,” Emma says.

“I was so shocked I couldn’t even cry,” I say. “I said, 'Stanley it’s me. Please!' I grabbed him and squeezed him as hard as I could. All he said was, 'Let me go.' When I put him down on the bed, he took a breath to gather his Teddy Bear thoughts and said:

"I know this must hurt, but it’s better than going through life not knowing that your deepest emotional attachment is only one-sided. I don’t love you and never will. But I still belong to you and have no intention of leaving. Though I’m alive now, I’ll go back to being an inanimate toy, one that will never speak or move of its own accord ever again. Just know that no matter how strongly your feelings for me might be, they are unrequited.’”

Emma is pulling on her pants now, looking for her shirt, letting out an occasional, “Mm hm,” to let me know she's still listening.

“I grabbed him off the bed and held him again,” I say. “Squeezing him and shaking him and begging him to speak or show some sign of life, begging him to say he didn’t mean it, but Stanley Patches never moved or spoke again. Though still filled with the spirit of life by my wish, he chose to remain silent and inanimate for the rest of his days.”

There's a wet spot on the floor where my tears have been puddling while I speak. I can't look up at Emma when I say, “This is why I have trouble telling you my feelings for you. I worry that one day you'll react like Stanley Patches did, that no matter how sure I am that your love is mine, one day you'll hold your furry little paw up and tell me, in a cold, matter-of-fact tone, that my feelings for you aren't shared."

Still unable to look at Emma, I get up and go to my closet.

"I should have thrown him away," I say. "But I couldn’t. I tried to change who I am. My interests, my personality. I read more books, bought better clothes, learned a wind instrument, started smoking, all in the hope that I might become a different, more interesting, more alluring boy, one my Teddy Bear could learn to love enough to stop acting like an inanimate toy long enough to tell me he was wrong, and my feelings are shared. But he never did, and he never will, no matter how long I wait.”

I reach into my closet and turn around to face Emma with Stanley Patches held tight in my arms. “But wait I shall,” I say to the empty room, my voice punctuated by the sound of Emma pulling her car out of my driveway and speeding off down the road.

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