Again (13 page)

Carter

“What are we doing here?” I asked as
we’d parked in the lot at Scandals, Kingston’s one and only gay bar.

I didn’t have anything against gay bars,
but Tristan had told me we were going out for dinner. Though I suppose coming
here might be meant to turn “dinner” into a euphemism.

Tristan was big on euphemisms,
especially concerning sex.

He shut his car off and stared at me,
rubbing his gloveless hands together against the cold. “Since you’re having so
much trouble with girls, I thought maybe you’d want to give guys a try.”

I raised an eyebrow.

He paused and blew out a breath. If he
had bangs they would have flown up. “Fine, I didn’t want to drink alone,” he
admitted, his whole body deflating, “and I wasn’t in the mood to see guys
slobbering all over girls trying to decide which one was the right combination
of hot and drunk to talk to.”

“You’d rather watch guys do that, I
guess,” I replied, acting like we were still matching each other quip for quip.

“Of course I would.” He opened the car
door and stepped out. “Thanks a lot for not asking why I need a drink,” he
added, slamming it behind him before I could respond.

My only choice was to follow him or sit
in his car like a freezing cold asshole. Tristan never came out and requested
help, which might have been why I didn’t even think to ask.

Regardless, that didn’t mean he wasn’t
as messed up as me when it came to relationships. Maybe everyone was. Maybe my
past didn’t make me any less equipped to deal with dating than anyone else.

At least helping him with his guy problems
might get Kate off my mind. What would have happened if she’d stayed and studied
with me, if I’d walked her back to the dorm?

No matter what I claimed about wanting
to forget everything that had happened, I would have kissed her again. I
wouldn’t have been able to stop myself.

I hated that I had to keep stopping
myself.

I found Tristan inside the bar at one of
the only empty tables already signaling a waitress. She was all nose ring and
asymmetrical blue hair. She indicated she would be with us in a minute.

“So why do you need a drink?” I asked as
I sat down.

“How nice of you to inquire.” He tapped
his hands against the table. They were still wrinkled from swim practice. I
could smell chlorine. “Unlike you, I attempt to connect with people and
sometimes they rebuff me.”

“That is just like me,” I said. But he
was right. I used what happened with Jeanie as an excuse. Clearly it was a good
plan considering Tristan’s sad eyes. They reminded me of two empty wells,
waiting for wishes.

“My latest rebuff occurred last night,”
he explained.

The waitress arrived and before she
could pull out her pad, Tristan blurted, “Midori Sour. And for you?”

“Sprite, no ice.”

“Wow dude, thanks for the solidarity.” He
rolled his eyes like only he could.

“Fine,” I groaned.

“Two Midori Sours,” he said.

The waitress walked back toward the bar.

“Actually make it four,” he yelled to
the back of her head.

“I don’t want whatever the hell you
ordered,” I said. If I was going to drink, which I never did, I wanted to have
a beer.

“You’ll like it. It tastes like candy,”
he said.

“That seems indecent.”

“The best things always are,” he said
with a half-smile.

“So what happened?” I leaned in toward
the table.

He sighed. “The three date implosion.”

This happened to Tristan a lot. I never
understood why. He was great. But after having had a long-term boyfriend
sophomore and junior year he tended to come on a little strong.

He was like my exact opposite. Put us
together and you might have someone who could actually handle a healthy relationship.

I guess it wasn’t his fault, though. Having
had something so special, he probably expected a lot. He imploded as many guys
as imploded him. I wasn’t sure if any of them sulked as much about it as he did,
though. He wanted what he’d lost.

“I’m sorry, man.”

He hunched over and rested his hands on
his thighs. “I’m getting to the point where I worry I won’t find anyone like
Patrick ever again.”

Our incredibly green drinks arrived,
dotting the table like tiny vats of nuclear waste.

“Don’t say that.” I reached for a glass
and held it to the light.

“Without proof otherwise how can I not?”
he asked, reaching for two glasses. He drank one down in a big green gulp and
sipped at the other.

Tristan was a statistics major. It made
him in equal parts epically practical and annoying as hell.

“So that means you believe there’s only
one person out there for each of us,” I said, taking a small sip. It was sickly
sweet and stung my throat as it went down. I took another and that familiar alcohol
warmth hit me, like a good long shower, like sleep.

“Why, you don’t?” he asked, the ice in
his glass clinking.

I wasn’t sure. If it was true and I was
statistical like Tristan, I’d taken myself out of the running for three years,
which probably lowered my chances exponentially.

“Well, considering I haven’t met her yet,
no.” That was a lot easier to admit than that my actions may have made me miss
her, were
still
making me miss her.

“I think you have,” he smirked.

I dipped my head slightly. “We haven’t
even had a one-date implosion, let alone three.”

“Whose fault is that?”  

“This night isn’t about me, it’s about
you.”

“Sorry, you’re right,” he said, holding
up his hands and sitting back.

“I mean, I’m drinking something that’s
going to turn my piss into Easter egg dye.”

He laughed—his long, loud, full mouth
laugh. “You seriously don’t like it?”

I took a contemplative sip and licked my
lips. “I actually kind of do—please never tell anyone.”

He took another drink; the muscle of his
jaw quivered. “Maybe you have the right idea. Hide in the dugout instead of
continuing to strike out.”

“Eventually you won’t strike out anymore.”
I shrugged.

His gaze was steady with mine. “Eventually
you’ll have to come up to bat.”

“Jesus.” I finished my drink and reached
for the other one. “We are not drunk enough to start spewing out baseball
clichés yet, are we?”

He glanced around the bar. “I took the
only guy who I could talk to about my relationship problems, who is straight,
to a gay bar. I’d say we already are a cliché.”

I checked out the karaoke machine in the
corner. “No,” I said, “Once we sing, we will be.”

He smiled and it said a million things,
like one of those words in another language that translates to hello, peace,
goodbye, and beautiful.

“I knew there was a reason I kept you
around,” he said.

“My stunning singing voice.” I fluttered
my eyelashes.

He tipped his chin in my direction. “You
remind me of the kind of person I should be looking for.”

I nodded. Tristan was always there to do
the same for me. I guess it was why he kept bringing up Kate. She could be
the
person.

“What are we singing?” I asked, drinking
down the rest of my Midori Sour so quickly it made my voice gravelly.

“You’re serious?”

“When in Rome,” I shrugged.

“It’s better than sulking I guess.” His
face creased into a smile.

“So what are we splitting everyone’s
eardrums with?”

“
I Will Survive,
of course,” he
said, regarding me like I’d just come out of the womb. He jumped from the
table. “Because, we
will
survive,” he said as he headed over to add us
to the list.

Maybe it was the Midori, but I was
starting to want to believe it.

Kate

When
I reached the dorm on Friday, Steph and Alex were smoking without jackets on
the porch out front. Even from here I could see their exposed skin was chapped
red from the wind. It was one of the coldest days yet and snow was tumbling down.
It was like they were just asking for swine flu.

Somehow
I’d escaped them all week, and after dealing with everything sober Monday
through Friday, I didn’t need any inducement to drink. It was my downfall. I
was starting to understand why people went to rehab. At least it took
temptation out of the equation.

Temptation
and clothes that needed to be dry-cleaned.

I
stood there, the snow stinging my skin, considering what to do. I couldn’t walk
back to campus. There was no way I was going out into the tundra again with my
wet hair and boots.

I watched
them on the porch, the smoke flying out of their mouths like plumes of atom
bombs. I heard them laugh and immediately wished I knew what they were talking
about, unless of course it was about me.

I
steeled myself and headed up the steps. Apparently, temptation is a bitch
mistress and likes to go after you when you’re most vulnerable. After you’ve
had another week of sobriety and are starting to believe maybe, just maybe, you
can do this.

“Hey,
Crazy Kate,” Steph yelled, waving with her cigarette.

“Hey,
Hey, CK,” Alex added.

I
walked over to them before they had the chance to yell anything else. Mostly
because I knew they would.

“I
definitely acted crazy, but I’m not always.” I eyed their cigarettes. I used to
smoke, even sober, but I’d been able to give it up. I wondered why that had
been so much easier, especially considering the whole nicotine thing.

“No,
that’s your new nickname,” Alex said.

“We
think it’s perfect,” Steph added, stubbing out her cigarette and popping a
piece of neon green gum in her mouth. “Crazy Kate acts crazy,” she sang.

Great,
exactly what I needed, a name to remind me what an ass I’d made of myself.

“Yeah.”
I fidgeted. “Sorry about that.” Could I not stop moving because the snow banks
on each side of the porch reminded me of shaved ice, perfect for strawberry
daiquiris, or because I wished I could be on Alex and Steph’s side of things?

It
was so much easier than my side. Pretending like you have your whole life ahead
of you and actually having it are completely different.

“Why
are you sorry?” Alex asked, stubbing out her cigarette and smacking on her own
wad of gum.

“We
thought it was awesome,” Steph added, a crocodile smile etched on her face.

Why
had my peer pressure chosen the form of these two sirens of Sprits, out of everyone
on campus?

The
thing was, it wasn’t a question. I understood fate sent me two girls exactly
like I had been in college-take-one. Clearly they were a test.

“Awesome?”
I asked.

“Yeah,
except when you left with Creepy Carter,” Steph said with a sour frown.

Creepy Carter?
He was like the
opposite of creepy.

“You
know what he did, right?” Alex asked.

“Sure,”
I lied.

“So
stay away from him,” Steph said.

I
nodded, playing along like I actually knew. I didn’t want to hear about what
he’d done in his past, not from them. I’d always been judged for my mistakes. I
wouldn’t do that to him.

When
it came to Carter, it was all about how he treated me, how he made me feel.

Why couldn’t I stop thinking about the way he made me feel?

A
moment passed between us even colder than the air.

“Anyway,”
Alex said, “we still had fun after you left, a lot of fun, like beyond, but it was
more fun with you there. You know what I mean?”

It
might have been the longest sentence she’d ever uttered. As a real
nineteen-year-old this acceptance would have been all I needed. As a fake one,
I had to admit, it wasn’t so bad, either.

All
anyone wants in life is to be liked. Quadruple that when you have trouble just
liking yourself.

“It
was fun,” I admitted, because it had been until Carter got there and made me
question everything. He was the reason I stopped. The reason I left. The reason
I felt guilty because I saw the way he had seen me.

They
say you can become your best self in someone else’s eyes. Could my best really
be in the eyes of someone who seemed so good and pure?

Or
were the way Alex and Steph saw me the best I could ever hope for?

“I
know, right!” Steph exclaimed.

“Salad
bar never disappoints,” Alex added.

“I
think it’s totally gross you guys call it the salad bar,” I said, relaxing
enough to lower my bag from my shoulder.

“Do
you know what those guys probably call us?” Steph asked.

Alex
tilted her head back. “I’d say we’re being generous.”

“I
guess I never thought of it like that.”

“Words
can be power,” Steph said.

“Just
like anything else,” Alex added.

“What
major are you guys?” I asked, suddenly viewing them differently. They were
smarter than I gave them credit for. I shouldn’t have dismissed them. It was
probably what people did to me sometimes.

“English
Lit,” they both said at the same time.

Like
I had been, the difference was they seemed to be handling themselves perfectly well.
I mean, they were still here. They could get away with acting this way for the
next year, even for the next three.

But
I was going on year eleven. It gave every decision I made more weight, more
significance.

It
made every slipup monumental.

“We’re
going to another party tonight. Come,” Alex said.

“You
should, some of the guys were asking about you,” Steph added. “They actually
have their own nickname for you.”

I
clamped my eyes and lips down, waiting.

“Cute
Kate,” Alex said.

“Really?”
I asked, surprised at the eager lilt to my voice. The simple sensation that is
oh-so-complicated of being noticed, wanted, told you were attractive.

But why
wouldn’t they call me cute? I’d voluntarily gotten wasted and whipped off my
shirt. Some guys spent several weeks trying to get that far and I’d done it in
minutes. Why wouldn’t they be interested in what I had up my sleeves, or
rather, my shirt, for round two?

“I
don’t know that I’ll live up to either nickname anymore,” I said, the cold
coming through the neck of my coat. Like Steph and Alex had said, words could
be power. By saying that, by denying the pull, could I make myself behave?

“Well,
that would be a bummer,” Steph said.

“Don’t
you guys feel kind of dumb about how we acted?” I needed perspective. If I were
nineteen, doing what I’d done was just another night out, but the thing was, I
wasn’t anymore. I guess I needed them to remind me of that.

“Dumb?”
Alex asked.

“I
mean bad, like guilty.”

“Booooring,”
Steph said, making it come out like a yawn.

“Yeah
seriously,
Crazy
, that doesn’t sound like you,” Alex added.

For
college-take-one Kate, for the Kate I was before I came here, it didn’t. When
things got bad I forced them down with more alcohol. I never ruminated about
them, never made myself sit with them. Eventually I guess it became me. Forgive
and forget, more like forget and forget some more.

“Don’t
let us down,” Steph said.

“We
don’t like being disappointed,” Alex said.

“You’re
coming,” Steph said, lighting another cigarette.

“You
have to,” Alex said, mirroring her.

I
just nodded and walked inside the dorm alone, unsure of what I was going to do,
wishing maybe there was something, anything, to make it so I didn’t even have
to decide.