The Wipes

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here.

One minute I was in the sticky and dark bathroom having the best rendezvous with my fiancé, the next I am suddenly in a coffee shop, my head reeling.

There is no one here, not even a barista.

Only floor-to-ceiling books opposite the entrance, encased on mahogany bookshelves. Matching brown booths are erect on either side, with the barista’s station smack bang in the centre.

‘Hello?’ I call.

‘Ah, so happy you could meet with me, Beth,’ a voice pipes up in the far-right corner of the room.

‘Who are you?’

‘I’m you, just 8 years younger.’

I watched as a tall, skinny figure stood up. With bright pink hair and stunning high cheekbones, yep, that is no ordinary person, unfortunately. She is 19-year-old me.

Just dressed in my favourite clubbing outfit, a black bandana tied in a bow on my head, a high-top pair of black Converse, with my favourite black skater skirt, and the band t-shirt of the week is … drumroll please … “Green Day”.

I can’t believe how much pleasure I got trying to be as emo/grunge as I possibly could. No wonder I hated being carded every time I ordered a beer, I literally looked 15, but, oh to be back in 2017.

‘I’m surely hallucinating,’ I mutter.

There is no way that this is real. I literally just exited the bathroom. I still had on my short red bodycon dress that drove Aaron mad! What is going on!?

Were those makeup wipes laced with something?

‘Maybe, but if you were to pinch yourself, would it hurt?’

I dug my white stiletto-shaped artificial nails into the sensitive skin on my wrist. ‘OUCH!’

Curiouser and curiouser.

‘So what am I doing here?’ I ask.

‘Why else would I be here, a younger version of you?’ I shrug my shoulders. ‘Oh you poor thing, come sit. I ordered you a large black coffee.’

She is happy, so happy. Clearly, she hasn’t started to feel the toll of Oliver’s drinking and weed smoking yet. Her uni studies would’ve been going pretty well, but I give it, maybe six months tops and all hell would break loose.

She drinks her coffee, completely oblivious to the life she’s about to live. Oh poor, sweet, innocent, naïve Beth. You have so much to learn about life.

It’s like I’m watching a stranger in my own reflection.

‘So tell me, do we marry our dream boat CEO?’ She asks.

‘No,’ I reply bluntly.

‘But look at that rock!’ She exclaims picking up my still soft manicured left hand, admiring the large diamond on my finger.

It wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, I would’ve been happy with a plastic toy ring from Kmart or Big W, but it is gorgeous. It was a 0.67-carat diamond pear cut with a halo.

‘Relax, it’s not that big, it’s a reasonable size, only a couple of thousand.’

‘That’s all?’

‘Hon, the ring doesn’t matter, it’s the guy who buys it. Aaron is beyond anything than I ever could’ve imagined.’

She sulks and sinks into the comfortable worn leather cushion.

‘You’re no fun. Why are you here?’

‘I don’t know, you tell me.’

I am seriously getting sick of the dodging of the question.

The entrance opens to nothing, the bathroom entrance is like the club’s graffitied bathroom doors, so I think I’m still in Hardy’s Manor.

‘Oh my god, I really hope someone is calling triple zero!’ I exclaim, hoping and praying there’s someone around me listening to my pleas.

Ladies, never borrow another girl’s makeup wipe, you never know what it may contain.

‘Chill would you?’ Young me says she pushes the mug of steaming black coffee towards me again. ‘Just drink your coffee.’

I don’t trust it.

Something about this feels off.

Is this what it feels like to be on acid?

‘So who’s Aaron?’

‘Wow, I don’t recall myself being big on asking questions.’

‘Well, this is a unique situation?’

‘I suppose it is. Well, in that case. His name is Aaron Wright, and he’s an architect and project manager. Helps out at his dad’s firm. He’s 29, and Polly’s older brother.’

‘No way!’

‘Yes, way.’

Polly is our high school best friend and an absolute girl’s girl (with limits), she’s off working for her mum’s law firm but looking to start her own sector in family law.

It’s so surreal watching the dreamer stand proud, letting her voice command attention and standing solid, their life like a well-written novel. Whilst I find myself in a jumble, in one chapter I’m engaged to an amazing man, the next I stumbling through the woes of my Masters.

Sure I’m happy about my engagement, I love him, it’s a huge accomplishment and milestone in a person’s life, but even then I feel like I’m ticking a milestone, and one that is miles ahead of a secure job.

‘How’d you get him?’

I start laughing and tell her about the day I broke up with Oliver.

The douche had it coming. He kept going on and on about how he was going to be the CEO of his dad’s company when he graduated. Except he didn’t consider the copious amounts of weed smoking and alcohol intake would have.

He got himself into some serious trouble with the law where he went on a night of pure mayhem with public nudity and urination, break and enter, the list goes on.

I don’t know where he is, nor care.

The day after I refused to pay his bail and made the cops call his daddy, I went off to the clubs with Polly.

‘He happened to be there?’ She was heavily invested.

‘Yes. Can’t remember how it happened but one thing led to another, and we screwed around in the bathroom of Hardy Manor.’

She gasps and starts laughing. ‘Oh my god, Hardy Manor?!’

Hardy Manor was known for its EDM and shocking bathrooms that if you shined a blue light on it, the whole room would light up. In fact, I don’t think many people used it for its main purpose considering the toilets were the only clean thing in those cubicles. You saw more couples coming in and out than singles going in.

‘I’m not proud of that night, but it did lead to a sexless friendship. Six months later we end up in a dazzling emotionally intimate relationship.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah, except Aaron is healthy, he’s a ball of fun and catatonic. We knew sex worked, our chemistry, sky high, but emotional intimacy is what we both needed.’

‘So what about our work?’

‘We’re not working yet.

She stands up in a huff.

Fists clench into tight balls, and the knuckles are as white as a ghost. I watch on like I was a stranger caught in the web of my own indecision. I didn’t have the opportunity to stop, there were plenty of opportunities out there for a First-Class Honours psychology graduate. But I wanted to go further, a necessary evil for my newfound love of forensic psychology.

‘Time stretches, warps, and takes unexpected turns,’ I remark. ‘Sometimes we find a different path than the one we’re on.’

‘Well, that’s profound.’

‘Oliver was your first love, and a shitty one at that, we grow and develop. Did we jump into a relationship with Aaron too soon? Maybe. Have we built something beautiful and strong? Yes.’

She releases her balled fists, arms swinging by her side. ‘I don’t get it.’

‘Ugh, I forgot how bloody hopeless you are!’ I stand up, placing my hands firmly on her shoulder. ‘Our undergrad trashes us. We made a shit guy our entire personality because we fed into his toxic ways. Do you remember any of your weekends, girl?’

She shakes her head. ‘Oh, the weed and goon!’

‘Precisely!’ I exclaim. ‘We’re happy now, Beth! H.A.P.P.Y! HAPPY!’

I am practically dancing, forgetting the conundrum I found myself in what felt like five minutes ago.

‘What am I doing here?’ I repeat.

‘Don’t you remember?’ She asks. ‘It was the wipes.’