The dark red bottle feels cold and heavy in my hand as I get out of my car and step into the night. My friend stands waiting for me on the sidewalk, shivering in his socks, jeans and T-shirt, refusing to wear a sweater as always. I hand him the bottle and we scurry inside the house, racing with the cold air to get through the front door.
It’s been months since I was in the small one-story home, but it feels though almost no time has passed once I see the kitchen cluttered with dirty dishes and post-it notes, the scattered alcohol bottles and random objects that could only serve as décor in a house full of frat boys. My eyes shift to the large whiteboard that hangs above the kitchen table.
Last time I was here, it was mostly empty; he had only recently moved in and I wondered what they would fill up the board with. Now it’s covered with quotes and inside jokes scribbled messily in different colored markers, the kind of quotes that scream “you had to be there” and I wasn’t; it was an unwelcome reminder. I’m tempted to ask if I can contribute to the colorful mosaic, but my mind draws a blank at what I would write and I notice how there’s barely any room for me anyway and I push the idea out of my head.
We can only find one wine glass in the mountain of dishes piled on the counter and sink. He grabs it and begins washing it, telling me about the time he and his friends threw a party with wine and they were left with purple-stained tiles and countertops for weeks. Sure enough, I notice small, faded stains scattered on the countertop, like pink mushrooms in a field of gray.
We go to his room and take turns sipping out of the wine glass and updating each other on our lives. How is school? How’s your family? You changed majors, when did that happen?
Pink and white iridescent shadows bounce off the corners of his room as we pass the glass back and forth, creating a cave of pink gems. It forms a spotlight in the center of the room and I realize how close we’re sitting to each other; how much time has passed. Hours and minutes, months and months. The bottle is nearly empty.
We talk about how we almost went to the same school, how things might have been if I had gone, or if I wasn’t too scared of my own feelings. We remember my crammed little orange house down the street with the white picket fence and the small yard that could never grow grass and the Mexican food place down the street from that. The tacos we ate after the masquerade ball and how they never tasted the same after that night, no matter how many times we had gone back. How maybe we should try again.
We move closer and I’m imagining it — all the different versions of ourselves and who we might be together. My mind wanders back to the whiteboard. I think maybe there’s room for me after all. Maybe we just need to pick a color marker and start writing, squeeze our story in where we can. But I always get writer’s block at the most inconvenient times.
I wake up hours later and my head is pounding, pounding, pounding. A rush of moments hit me at once: pink shadows, the crowded whiteboard, our lips touching.
He’s already awake and offers me Tylenol and water.
I walk back through the long hallway, the tiled floors and the cluttered kitchen. I walk past the damned board and obscure decor. We promise to make plans to hang out soon and I wonder if we will, or if we’ll let months pass again, maybe longer. I wonder what will be different next time.