[04/08/26]

[ESSAY]

Crank Baby

by Kassie Frid

You were all I ever wanted. 

I used to sing you to sleep, as if you were my baby. The opening tunes to your favourite video games. It worked on me as well. The constant lull. The ache. The pull. Did you ever get a chance to listen to that song? It’s my favourite. I must’ve told you that. I can always hear it playing right before you call. Not last time, though, something was different. It has this way of swallowing you up whole. Which was all I ever wanted. 

III.

Stunned, watching you wipe your top lip in anger, sweaty, telling me to relax. It’s our secret game. Who can be the chillest of all? A soon-to-be game show, and I’m going to win, no matter what it takes.

"I don't like your moustache," I say. "It doesn't suit you, and there isn't enough of it."

I'm allowed to be shallow now. Three years, and you’re still trying to dress me up and down. Choosing my wig, putting the Xbox controller in my hands, as though it’s all up to me.

Worn Down Teenage Skater Girl to Earnest Housewife to Business Barbie.
I’m a Kim Wexler Cardboard Cutout, and even that isn’t hot enough.

“MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MIND SO I CAN FIGURE IT OUT AND GET IT OVER WITH.”

You don’t reply. I said it jokingly enough.

Beat.

“Was this a good idea?” I mumble, referring to my big move in t-minus nine days.

It’s freezing in your room and either you didn’t hear me or pretended that you didn’t.

You can't afford to take me out on a final date, but you open your computer to start scrolling through Grailed, legitimately asking if the Solomons are worth it.

“No,” I say, “but get them anyway.”

I’ve trained myself so well that you can’t see the fire dying in my eyes. We are dying. You're wiping away the lust with each salty drop. Take off the goddamn creeper stache.

I’m wrapped in the same blanket you’ve had since we met. It’s disgusting. There is a Band-Aid stuck to it. I’ve claimed it as mine. I want you to think of me every time you see it. I want you to find strands of my hair forever.

“Now that’s the spirit,” you say, flatly, adding the same black sneakers to your already three-hundred-dollar cart. This is when I feel my final crank. 

II.

Finally, we know romance. Dancing under the moonlight, our bodies sticky and hot, covered in someone else's glitter. I love this song. You tell me it isn’t a dancing song and start playing Bladee instead. I don’t like it. Not now. Not ever. Fast forward, the moonlight becomes a cheap disco ball. We are at the preppy college club next to the Italian restaurant where I work. We get to skip the line because I know the bouncers. I pray that you think I’m cooler for it. Our pupils glow thanks to the MDMA we took in the washroom. My manager doesn’t care. He would’ve done it with us if I’d asked. Everything I’ve ever dreamed of.

I see her coming close. She’s stunning, of course, and looking right at you. One of the many you gobbled up during our time apart. I only had time for one and I envy you for it. I always want what you have. She starts coming over. You move to the side of the dance floor, grabbing my shoulders, taking me with you. I shove myself out of your limp hands and rush to the bar. She’s talking to you. I’m freaking out. But I’m not an angry girl. That's why you like me. No space to be crazy. She’s definitely crazy. I’m jealous of her because I know you want to fuck her. You go crazy for crazy, but love me, and that confuses you too. It isn’t enough. This is where it starts getting blurry. I’m not counting the points anymore. I dance my way back to you with my three-shot triangle hand formation in place. One for you, one for her, one for me. The natural order of things.

I fall for your impressed grin. You whisper, “You’re bluffing,” grabbing my neck.

Smiling back with the porn eyes I’ve been studying for weeks. Finally, I’ve figured it out.

This is romance, isn’t it?

Three months later, I take the leap of everlasting freedom and decide to sleep for five days.

I don’t ask anyone for permission. Honestly, I would’ve preferred longer if I’d had the choice. I was scared that I’d get angry with you, so I thought it was time to take a break in the only way that I knew how. Fucking someone else and then fucking off all together. The best advice to date. They told me you visited and laughed at the sight of me. I get it, the tube coming out of my mouth must have been vivacious. No one else seemed to think so. You’re just chill like that, a real take-it-as-it-comes kind of guy. You ignore my calls for a week, and when I finally guilt you enough to meet. The only thing I can clutch onto is your prickly beard. Absolutely hideous. Like you’re mocking me, revealing your unkemptness to prove that you were weaker than me in my own game of sadness. It's a single player, idiot.

I still have the blue stuffed fox that you had left on my hospital bedside. I won it for you from a claw machine the year before. I think you left it there to let me go. I brought it across the country and now it serves as a voodoo doll, when the thought of you pisses me off. Crank two.

I.

Oh, the sweet, supple taste of the firsts. The first meeting. The first drive. The first late-night harbourfront make-out sesh. You piss in the ocean and dance around a little as you dry off your dick. I find this charming. You have Blonde on CD, and as it plays out of your shitty Toyota Camry speakers I find myself stripping the quickest I ever have. Somehow, I already know you’re my soulmate. Little do I know, we get a lot of those. 

Your face, soft and clean and new. 

It truly can all be revealed from the first time.

This is when you installed the crank into my spine. At my most vulnerable, you just want to try something new. Even I can forgive that. It doesn’t make much sense on your end, the crank, but that’s alright. It isn’t going to work in your favour, nor mine. Perhaps a double user error, or perhaps I really am the prototype of your dreams. There is no way to ever be sure.

Our first fight is out front of my friend's house. She is hosting a replacement prom party in her backyard, and you claim to like her just fine. Later, you admit that isn’t true. A shadow of dust follows behind me as I walk to your car, the grass so dry I can catch the smell of the fires before they even start. It isn’t quite August yet, but the cicadas are hissing. The first warning. I get in the front seat, the torn leather immediately burning my thighs. I sent you a screenshot of a comment you’d left on a girl’s TikTok. A sexy cosplay of your favourite anime. You didn’t know she accepted my follow request. You didn’t know I knew about her at all. I speak softly of how I wasn’t going to let it slide, but that it’s okay to make mistakes. It is so sweet how much we have in common.

You cry, pleading guilty, promising it meant nothing. You call yourself a monster, and I disagree. I pet your head and let you shake in my arms. It’s okay, baby. I know you didn’t mean it.

When I break up with you for the first time, I bring you to the bench on the hill next to my first grown-up apartment. I tell you that I’m not feeling loved by you anymore. I don’t know what this means. My casual cadence disheartens you. You cry again.

You say, “How can you be so fucking cold?” The first crank.

The crank officially wore down with geographical distance, or maybe time zone difference. I’m thanking God, either way. 

In April, after moving away, I went to New York for my birthday. You let me sob to you through the phone as I rode the ten-hour night bus. You claimed that you were over it. What we had was special and all, but it’s done and gone now. We have to move on, call it quits. 

In June of that same year, I flew to you without telling any of my friends. We biked along the freeway for hours. High on forbidden love.

We took mushroom chocolates from weird guys on the nude beach and walked, hand in hand, towards the low tide. You told me you were terrified during the come-up. I told you that being scared of love was a good thing. That it meant it was real. I misunderstood the placement of your fear. We walked for what felt like forever, until we hit the warmest water I had ever touched. This was a sign. Nothing can stop us now. 

You showered me with gifts and fancy dinners. We skipped through new streets like it was our first go around. We always did better when we knew our time was limited. If only there were a way of making our flawed system work. 

Long-distanced, short-term, conditional, true love. 

Doesn’t quite seem to add up. 

We said this was the last time. 

In September, it was your turn. You came to me and I dropped the elixir of another life on the tip of your tongue as you slept next to me on my air mattress. I had just moved into a new place. You said it reminded you of when we first started dating. When I had bed bugs that required me to throw away my real mattress. There we were again, fucking, in almost the exact same circumstances. 

No one will ever know me like you. 

I showed you a city that I had created on my own. As your excitement grew, I could feel mine diminishing. 

I wanted to scream, “GET OUT. GET THE FUCK OUT.” But I didn’t. 

And just like that, the crank reappeared. You were going to tell me to take it easy, so I thought I might as well beat you to it. 

We discussed our options as if they were the rules of a card game. Unserious as always. We decided to reassess for next year. “It’s just too rash,” you insisted. You needed to make your big break first, somewhere familiar, somewhere safe. I didn’t resonate with this. You called me brave for leaving it all behind. Once again, I can’t tell if this is jealousy or mockery. It could have been genuine, even, but it wasn’t true. I didn’t leave it all behind. 

It’s nice to know I still have the magic touch of the firsts when it comes to you. Whatever it is, I stuck it pretty good under your skin. I guess it goes both ways. The last time we saw each other, I didn’t have to do much convincing. Got a free ride from the airport in the same shitty Toyota. Liked songs on shuffle alongside awkward side glances and a lot of silence. You finally broke it by speaking of your ex, how much you missed her. An apology on the subject included. It didn’t bother me. I wasn't even really listening. 

NO SMOKING! 

This was the sticker I had put next to the passenger seat years prior. Still mostly intact. You continued yearning for her aloud. I nodded my head between pauses, playing with the top right corner of the sticker, coming off slightly. I found solace here. I think I’d make a great therapist. If it’s not a strand of hair, it will be something else. This will do just fine. I've played my part. I’ve won the game. Inside the box reads:

I am all I ever wanted.

KASSIE FRID is a writer, student, and server based in Montreal. She loves to write letters. You can read some of her unedited essays on her Substack, “far from discreet.”