We have been friends for years, colleagues and friends. The kind of friends that carpooled to work, picked up each other’s coffee because we know what each other takes (a sugar in the raw and a splash of something for her, a cold brew for me), the kind of friends who don’t text regularly because we see each other almost every day. And the times we don’t see each other we have each other in the back of our minds. Or I have her in mine. And maybe not so much in the back of my mind as much as in the forefront of every single moment.
And I never know when the shift happened, but it did. Sometime last week, when we were in traffic again and our conversation drifted from our idiot boss at the school we work at to our weekend plans. She was seeing someone, on and off and she does that sometimes but never really talks much about it and I never push. Mostly because I don’t really want to know because if I did, she knows and I know that it would probably hurt my feelings. Which is dumb because we’re colleagues and friends and she can date whoever she wants, I guess, but I really don’t know why. They aren’t ever good enough for her and maybe she doesn’t need them to be. Maybe she just wants someone to have weekend plans with or someone else to get her coffee the way she likes it when I’m not there.
But this weekend, we have plans together. An engagement party for our other work friend and we like her boyfriend/fiance and the rest of our group is going and there is absolutely nothing different about these plans. We’ve done things together on the weekends, of course. We’ve gotten shit-face drunk together, slept in the same bed, even. So there is absolutely no explanation for the nervousness I have at seeing her tonight. I get ready in my usual 20 minutes, maybe a touch more because I smoked a little pot to calm my nerves. Had a shower beer and actually put some makeup on, which she knows and I know and everybody knows is a rare thing. She never says and I’d never ask, but I know she thinks I’m attractive when I try and I usually don't ever even think about trying. And it’s not because of any particular reason, but I want to look hot tonight, even though it’s just work friends who don’t care and who have never cared but maybe she’ll care. Or maybe even notice, and that would make me feel something. So I do the smokey eye thing with my makeup and gloss my lips, take another hit of my vape as I walk over to her house. We’re going to have a drink before we uber to our favorite dinner spot in the city before we go to this party and I think for some reason that I need the courage to walk up to her door like I have a million times before this. She’ll be excited to see me, I think. She’ll probably already have had a couple glasses of wine like she usually does when she’s getting ready to go out. I think she’ll look amazing because she always does. There’s so many things that I know will happen tonight, so many expectations but all based on the deep knowledge of each other. Like I know she’ll wear that leather jacket that she loves. She could take on anything in that jacket. She’ll do her makeup but somehow look like she doesn’t have any on at all and that’s my favorite. She’ll be listening to her getting ready music which is not much of a prediction on my part because I can hear SZA blasting through the windows as I walk up. She’s never not listening to SZA and I love that about her. And if I’d just knock and open the door and go in, she’d give me a hug and say she’d be ready in a sec before going back in the bathroom and scream-talk to me over the music rather than turn it down a little. But I can’t go in just yet for some reason and I just stand on her porch and breathe. Breathe in for luck, but I’m not sure why I’d need luck at all and I don’t believe in luck anyways.
When I finally do knock and walk in, she does exactly what I think she is going to and it might be my imagination or the pot but I think she hugs me a bit longer than usual and definitely said that I look fucking hot tonight, but I’m never sure if that’s something she says to everybody and I’m not sure how I should take it. So I don’t take that part in, I just let the moment go, if there was a moment at all which there probably wasn’t. And I wouldn’t have guessed this because I didn’t know it was going to be this type of night but she demands that we do a couple shots before we go out and I’m definitely buzzed. I’ll have to slow down a bit at dinner, drink some water so I don’t get too drunk or too sleepy or too stupid too early. We know how each other gets when we’re drunk. She’ll usually get philosophical and will tell me things that she wouldn’t normally, let her eyes linger longer and hold my hand sometimes. She will tell me about her family or about college and relationships and her on and off again girl that she sees sometimes. And I like it when we both get disarmed like this but I wish she could tell me without the buzz but she can’t and I can’t so we wait for times like this when it feels ok and we can blame it on getting a bit too drunk and not remembering.
And just like that, everything feels like a dramatic shift has taken place. Right here in her kitchen as we’re sucking on limes after tequila and certainly in the uber when it’s only us and the city lights that make me notice the mischief in her eyes more than usual. But it also feels so easy, like everything is exactly how it’s always been and how I’ve wanted it to be but more too. More and better. The conversation feels like it could take us through the night and straight on til morning and we don’t even notice that we’re more than fashionably late now and our friends will be wondering where I am. They won’t wonder where she is because she's late for everything, always. It’s almost her signature move at this point- to show up two hours into an event because she’s busy wrapping up at work or busy wrapping up a conversation or stuck in her own head and needs someone to tell her it’s time to go, we’ll finish that tomorrow, put it down babe it will still be there later. But for some reason when all of her attention is on me it feels like the next thing can wait because I want to stay in her orbit for as long as I can and the last thing I want to do is share her with a crowded bar. It will feel like the last two hours together was just the same as it was before and not at all like I’m itching to have her hand in mine or have her laugh be only for me like it is right now. So I finally get the check and loop our arms together as we walk, marching towards the bar that will take her away from me for the rest of the night and maybe that will be it.
Maybe I’ll continue into the bar and hug all my friends and they’ll tell me how fucking hot I look too. They’ll give out the gossip like I didn’t just see them all yesterday at work, like I haven’t been texting about this same bullshit all week, all month, all year. I’ll buy the bride and groom to-be a round and I’ll try my best to give her some space because I know that if I let myself, I’ll end up next to her without even thinking. I’d end up talking to only her because really, that’s all I’d want anyway but I force myself to make the small talk and laugh at the jokes and I don’t try to find her eyes when I look around the room. I don’t notice how she throws her head back in a laugh, how she twinkles her fingers at me as she’s dancing, how my heart feels like it's in my throat when she crinkles her nose at me in the way that she does when she thinks I’m being cute.
It’s eventually that part of the night that I need to decide if I’m going to get drunk-drunk or just tipsy enough. It’s getting to be midnight, then one and then one thirty and my friends start settling their tabs, giving promises to text when they get home and make plans for next time. By the time I go to the bathroom and come back to close out, she’s at the bar with another drink in hand for me and a barstool that is so close that the only way to sit comfortably is with my knees interlocked with hers. And we talk and talk and it’s like falling into the deep end of a pool because it’s scary but makes me feel alive.
The bar starts to empty out and I know that she doesn’t want to go yet because she tells me she wants to find another bar. Or some place with fries, wouldn’t fries be great right now. Or a stack of pancakes. So I laugh and tell her that I’ll find her a diner where she can get fries and pancakes and god doesn’t coffee sound good too. She holds my hand as we leave the bar and if I saw how we looked together from the outside I’d know and she’d know and everyone would know how perfect we look together. How happy she is when I’m holding her hand. How much fun she had tonight. With me. But it’s hard to keep everything straight right now when she’s looking at me like that and I need to get the girl some pancakes before she realizes how late it is. Before she realizes it’s two thirty in the morning and how it would be smarter and safer and easier to just grab a ride home and get into bed but I’m desperate for this night to never end. So I don’t look at her as she smokes a cigarette that she only smokes when she’s drinking and I don’t mind as she stands too close to me while I’m looking at this damn google map to see where the hollywood diner is. And god she smells good, like tobacco and whiskey and leather and I wish there was a good reason for me to hold her right now but there isn’t.
And over pancakes and fries and coffee and pie, the conversation feels like it means everything, everything, everything. About how she doesn’t want to date because she always ends up disappointed, or they do. How she doesn’t even know what she’s looking for or who her type is anymore but the way she says that makes me think she knows exactly what her type is but she can’t say it out loud to me. And the whole time I think I probably have a face on that doesn’t at all tell her how I feel which is good. Because if my face gave anything away it would ruin things. It would ruin what we have because she is her and I am me and what I don’t want my face to say in this moment is that you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever met and won’t you let me take us home and never leave. So instead of anything at all, I just smile and tell her it’s time to go, that I’m getting tired and it’s late.
It’s pushing four in the morning and getting an uber takes a while but somewhere between the diner and the sidewalk she got in a mood. It’s probably that she’s drunk and I’m drunk and I desperately want to keep her eyes on me because if she could just stay in this moment with me, she’d be happy again like she was before. But now she’s brooding and I can tell there’s nothing I can do other than let her rest her head on my shoulder as we wait for a Kia Soul to show up and take us home. I can tell that if she wasn’t as drunk or if I were a bit more sober I would be able to find the right thing to turn things around but I’m not and she is so we sit in silence on the ride home. I’m sure our driver thinks we’re in a fight and somewhere between here and there, I think we might be but I’m not sure why. I thought it was going well. I thought she was having a good time. But I am too in my head now and instead of wanting to stay here with her forever, I desperately want out of the car so I can salvage whatever I can that is left. We pull up and I hop out right away but she takes a beat too long and I can tell the driver is exasperated because it’s four thirty in the morning and all three of us should have been in bed hours ago. When she finally sways past me she flops herself down on the front steps rather than go up to her door and I think I made a huge mistake of not keeping her on her feet because now I have to sit down next to her. We sit with our forearms on our knees and I’m thinking that I have no idea what to say right now which is not something that feels natural to me. I usually need to fill the space but this empty street and this dark front stoop feels way too full already so I just let it be. And be. And just about as I’m ready to push myself to either make her go inside or walk home alone she says that she’s too drunk for this. And I say too drunk for what and she doesn’t answer. She stands up and I do. She kisses my cheek and stares at me for a second. And another until I can’t help but look away.
She says I love you Carson and walks through her door.