I didn’t want to go to the thing but he wanted me to go to the thing. He always wanted me to go to the thing and I never wanted to go. All year long, he thought about the thing and so did I. He thought about liking it and I thought about not liking it. But sometimes he thought about me not liking it and I thought about him liking it.
Though I didn’t like the thing, I thought it was of great importance. I thought it was important that he liked the thing and I didn’t. Though he liked the thing, he thought it was of little importance. He thought his like and my dislike of the thing was just one thing among many things. But I thought it was a significant thing among insignificant things.
While he was at the thing, I went to a different thing, a thing I liked. At the different thing I met a man who also liked the different thing. We left that thing together for another different thing, which we also liked. After that, we found yet another mutually likeable thing. But the whole time, I thought about the other thing, the one I didn’t like, and the man who liked it. Not liking the thing he liked was my thing, and liking the thing I didn’t like was his thing, and together, we’d made a whole other thing. And I liked it.
Jennifer Wortman is the author of the story collection This. This. This. Is. Love. Love. Love. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and MacDowell, she lives with her family in Colorado, where she teaches at Lighthouse Writers Workshop and serves as associate fiction editor for Colorado Review. Find more at jenniferwortman.com.