What We Needed (Not At All)

“You’re practically inhaling. Slow down. Are you trying to drown yourself in beer?” 

I raise my eyebrows. Rather unsuccessfully, it seems, because he’s looking at me like I’ve licked a streetlight. Also, I can’t feel my eyebrows. 

“For your information, I have no intention of plummeting to a foamy death. This is nothing. I’m not even drunk, you know? I’m just getting a little tipsy so I can get it on.” I wiggle my eyebrows, this time hopefully with greater success. 

“Get it on?” He’s struggling to keep a straight face. My friend can probably guess what I’m about to disclose, but since he takes pride in acting as an advisor to my frequent conundrums, flaps his ears to show that he’s listening.

I lower my voice to a stage whisper that’s really just below a holler. Nobody here can hear us anyway. “The only times I’ve hooked up with people were when I was a little... inebriated.” 

My friend’s blurry silhouette shakes his head amusedly. “Sure. Inebriated. Or just... hammered. You know, like a normal alcoholic.” He smacks his lips and slams his cup down much like how a judge would pound his gavel. “Right. So you’re saying you’ve never even kissed someone while sober?”

“No. I have. I meant, as of late,” I stretch out every word, “it seems that alcohol is the only thing motivating me to,” I feign demureness, then with a flourish and a change of tone, I say, “go and get some.” 

“And why is that? You’re not one to believe that drinking is the solution to everything, are you?” He peers at me.

“Well...” I cross my arms. “I don’t habitually agitate the state of my liver.” 

“Yeah well done, that’s not good.” He adds, “Also, you are the worst at holding your drinks. That’s your second, and you’re already drooping. Why do you even like the stuff?”

I reply, “I don’t. Not at all.”

I’d been texting and talking to him for a good four months. Before, I’d see him at school but did not go out of my way to share things with him. At first, I thought of this friendly interaction as a diversion from the dreariness of January. At first.

I had to start doing my homework during my easy classes and lunch breaks because I'd spent the whole night debating with him why Lays were better than Pringle’s. (He was intransigent; he was adamant that Pringle’s were far superior.) 

And so the conversation never stopped. Why he liked frogs and I liked turtles. Why he loves walking at midnight in the near-empty streets, and why I hate doing so. Why we stopped believing. 

Whenever we met up in person, it would be no different. Well, we were a little less eloquent, much more jocular, and were wont to cover up our vulnerable depths with babble. But essentially, it was no different. We felt a togetherness.

I started to look for him in classes before any of my friends. He skipped lessons so he could join me during my free periods. My eyes widened and my fingers twitched whenever I got a text from him. I wanted to share things with him.

One time, seeing that I was rubbing my eyes due to insufficient sleep, he would say,“Are you high?” Groggily, I would grin, “Off licking toads? Probably.” 

While waiting for the storm to subside, he would say, “Thunderstorms are so soothing.”

I’d peer at him and mumble, “It looks like the world is crashing down.” 

“Not really,” he’d say, “It’s like a better one is emerging.”

“Destroy to create? How very Flatliners of you.” 

I could hear my heartbeat against my eardrums when I saw both of his dimples.

He was the kind of person that listened. His mind was by no means idle, and he loved to discuss things that interested him at length, but for things that mattered, he would listen. And remember. He would always listen to me. 

It’s easy to guess what happened next. 

He appeared in my mind and he wouldn’t go away, especially when he was uninvited. My ego and my anxiety battled every day: how much did I want this, how much did he want this, what it is that I wanted. I calculated. I tried to calculate an incalculable equation. 

I experienced that instinctual fear that he would soon be far away from me — too far away for me to reach him, whether that be physically or emotionally. 

One day, I felt out of sorts. What does that even mean? I felt like a teenager: like the world was against me. 

So I walked up to him and asked if he had time after school to “spend some time brooding”. He did. I didn’t know the area as well as he did, so I left it up to him to decide where to go. Neither of us are particularly comfortable in large crowds, so we went to his house.

We watched a movie, by turns praising and mocking. We made some food. We talked more. Still, I only felt marginally better.

So we sneaked a glass or two of wine. The bitterness, the feeling in the sternum. It made me relax. It made calculations seem ridiculous.

I stole a glance at him, then dropped my gaze down to the wine glass. Glass, him, glass, him. Glass. Him.

He moved closer. (Ten centimeters.) 

I moved closer. (Four centimeters?)

I could see the pupils of his eyes, bigger than usual. (I was never good at gauging distance by sight.)

He put a hand on the nape of my neck. 

Our lips met. Slowly. Softly. Breathlessly. 

I think, It wasn’t the alcohol I needed. Not at all.

***

My calculations weren’t for nothing, though I wished they didn’t matter.

He’d broken up with his girlfriend before we started talking. Something had happened. He couldn’t go to certain parts of the city because of what happened. He couldn’t talk about it. He wouldn’t.

I believed in the healing powers of discussion, but he thought it was pointless in this case. 

He pretty much stopped opening up altogether. “What’s the point? It won’t fix anything.”

I got tired of waiting.

At that point I probably couldn’t have listened to it anyway.

We remained “friends” for the rest of the year, but we didn’t cross that line again. There was a new tension between us. I resented his uncommunicativeness. He resented my egging him on. I missed him. 

Soon, my final year of high school crept up on me. In many ways, it was all things a decent senior year should be. But in one way… Let’s just say, I consumed too much liquor during that time. Just trying to conjure up that sense of serenity.

I’ve snapped out of my alcohol-induced reverie now. No, not reverie. Brooding.

“I drink to fill up the empty spaces,” I say simply. “You should know that. You’re the one who listens to that Pink Floyd song every day.” 

My friend’s eyes turn soft. Nostalgic. 

“You are just like how you were five years ago, do you know that? Either you’d tell me something inspiring, then bite it back with a sardonic comment. Or you’d tell me something depressing, then cover it up with a witty thought.”

He inhales, “I’m sorry.”

I gaze into the eyes of my old friend. 

My friend that still stops to take a picture of a frog that is perched on a leaf on a rainy day. My friend who still believes that Pringle’s are better than Lays. My friend who always listens to my concerns but would not let me listen to his.

“For what?” 

“I’m sorry for pushing you away because I didn’t know how to talk about it. I'm sorry for worming my way back into your life four months ago and pretending like we have a clean slate when I hadn’t even fixed things. I’m sorry that I let you go.”

I try to keep my breathing steady. “I wanted to pretend we were meeting for the first time again.” 

He gazes into my eyes. The pupils dilated just like they had five years ago. “I want to confide in you. I want to share things with you. If you’re willing to listen.”

“I am. I had been then. I am now.” I gaze back.

His lips quirk into a smirk. “By the way, didn’t you say that you need to get it on?” 

I pretend to punch him. “Such ridicule is not to be borne.” I say as loftily as I can. 

He smiles; I can see his dimples. “Well, start borne-ing it forthwith.” I hiccup a laugh. I’m not drinking anymore. 

I lace my fingers with his, knowing this time that it wasn’t the alcohol that I had needed. Not at all.