We took spins around town.

I kept you round for good measure. We took spins around town, bought our favorite vinyls, acted the maggot, and went to the local pubs for drinks and craic. We had a good laugh for almost a year. Nothin’ romantic. I thought we was just friends.

YOUR TRAPEZE SWINGER BY NICOLE MODUGNO 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 76

The day to dissect a cat had come. Cutting a cat open made my stomach turn even if I’d seen loads of faces smashed in when Da watched gaelic football.

“Jeepers, Alice.You look terrible,” you said. You spread the tablecloth across your body. “Alright then, bring on the boke.”

“Feck aff, Ernest.”

“Oh come on, Alice, it’s not so bad. Listen,” you said. “Is it the blood and stuff or, you know, the cat?”

“I don’t know—”

“Well, how can you not—”

“Alright. Alright!”

Sister Kelly was bleeping out instructions in a monotonous drone.

“It’s the dead cats,” I whispered.

“Well, Jesus, Alice. Why the hell’d you take this class?”

“I needed an extra, and feckin’ pottery was full.” The other students were carrying in their vacuum-packed cats. I tasted bile in my throat with the whiff of the formaldehyde.

“So you’d prefer to sculpt your cats instead of dismembering them, ya would?”

“Oh come off it ya arse weed.”

In the end you helped me stage some sorta illness and we got outta class in a rush. You went with me to the nurse’s office. Then I think you just wanted to see I got home alright.

After joshin over Nurse Griffin’s permanent bitch face and moanin’ about the weather, we carried some awkward silence between us along the rough streets.

We’d been going about this humor-fueled, anatomy-partner friendship for a few months now. My foul mouth must have amused you.

I was convinced you came from the perfect Irish family, the way you talked about them. Aside from your ugly freckled face, I liked you.