The clean up

-Great party,huh?- I said as I started to dry the glasses he was washing.

-Yes!! Micah always throws the most epic parties! I met him this year at Uni and we got crazy close, crazy fast. You must have seen me in his stories. We are graduating in June and we are sooo excited. But we also want to hit every party we can before it’s too late for us. So that is what we do these days, parties mostly. We also do some studying and research for decent jobs. We go everywhere together and we’ll see where life leads us.

- Yeah, I’ve seen you together. You are Nico, right?

- Exactly, you must be Anna, his first and forever friend. You met at kinder and now your ways have gone a little apart. But he misses you all the time and always wants to see you. As you probably know, I am an ALMOST engineer, Gemini and dirt bikes lunatic.

- Oh yeah, Micah always talks about you. So much it feels like I know you.

- So you must also know I am a well brought up boy and always stay to clean up after my partying mess. I usually take care of the dishes because I know everyone hates it. That way,when people see you doing them, they bring the dishes right to you. When everything is clean and shiny, I can go home. Mama raised no slob.

- Good strategy. I came to help because I saw you had no more room for clean plates. Plus, I wanted to get to know you in person.

- I know! We haven’t met properly, only through stories. And stories never show the full personality of someone. Micah probably told you terrible things about me. Sincerely, those are the best stories, but they don’t show the full Nico picture.

- He did tell me you killed a very well liked hamster…

- Whoa whoa whoa. Let’s not judge a book by its cover. First of all, Tippytap was very old. He had lived in that laboratory for almost a decade. Second, he was kind of rude. Whenever someone put a finger in his cage, he would bite it. And third and most important: I DID NOT KNOW YOU COULD KILL IT IF YOU FED IT PARSLEY. I’m not saying I’m innocent, just that I didn’t know the consequences of my actions. And I replaced the bloody mouse!

I couldn’t stop laughing and neither did he. So his only defense was to splash my face with his wet fingers. I of course, fought back with the rag I’d been using to dry. But there was a limit to the dryness of my rag and I gave up. My stomach and cheeks were hurting from laughing too hard. The hardest I’d laughed in months. He did not look too good either. His cheeks were wet and his eyes were puffed from crying with laughter.

We suddenly stopped.

-This is why I come to these parties- He confessed.

-Why?

-Because nothing ever happens the way you think it will. I did not even know you’d be here. And we find each other having a tremendous time. I knew Micah had cool friends, but I did not know I wasn’t the only one.

-Now you know you are not alone on cool-friend-island.

- Thank God, I am a terrible camper.

-I know! Remember last summer? I saw pictures of you from when you fell in that creek. Very gracefully, I must add.

- NO. Micah is a dead man! I hope you enjoyed meeting him because I am going to positively kill him! HE PROMISED HE WOULDN’T SHOW THOSE PICTURES TO ANYONE!

He looked so embarrassed I had to make my own promise.

- Oh please don’t do that! I won’t tell a soul- I lowered my voice to a whisper – I won’t tell a soul how you fell, bottom first in a creek just to get water…

The water battle was resumed. We made an actual mess of the kitchen we were supposed to be cleaning, but it didn’t matter. We were laughing so hard we were unstoppable. It all ended when we fell, very much like Nico had fallen in the creek. We were covered in water and soap. But the smiles on our faces were all worth it.

We tried to get up, only to slip and fall again. Wiser after our second fall, we held hands and helped each other up. I had not calculated it, and maybe he hadn’t either, but our faces were merely an inch apart when we were up.

Electricity moved through my hands and into my butterfly filled stomach. He was so gorgeous. And not in a Ryan Gosling kind of way. He was perfectly imperfect. His crooked teeth only showed happiness and his crying brown eyes made it so contagious I could not believe it.

Laughter left out faces and we looked deeply into each other eyes. We knew so little about each other. At the same time, we knew each other perfectly. We breathed in. And Micah appeared.

-Que viva el amor!!!!- He screamed, probably as a testament to our interrupted no-kiss and his Spanish classes.

We all laughed and Nico and I separated instinctively. Micah continued his walk as he sang the happy birthday song in Spanish. He was usually a Spanish drunk.

-He is so drunk he will probably won’t remember a thing- Nico said as an exit for me. Or maybe for him?

- Do you want him to forget? - I asked filled with fear.

- Not at all- He said and kissed me

Micah would have been ecstatic when we told him. He would have loved the idea of having us all together in the same city at the same time. He would have loved to have me closer and double date with us.

But it wasn’t possible.

 I wish I’d been so talkative.

I wish I’d been so charming.

I wish I’d started the conversation.

I wish I had had the courage to just say:

-Great party huh?