Clarity

Sirena stood in front of the dark wooden door with no sign. She could feel her breath hitch in her throat and her heart begin racing despite her body being at a complete standstill. It’s just nerves, she told herself. You got this. You can do this. Anxiety was something Sirena had tread through her life, in which she could sometimes gracefully glide through bouts of perpetual fear, while other episodes felt like she was choking on a whirlpool of quicksand that continuously dragged her down the more she fought against it. The door stood in front of her with an ominous foreboding presence. She knew she would have to push it open in the coming seconds, maybe minutes, and face what was waiting for her inside. After taking one final deep breath, she pushed open the door and stepped across the threshold.

           For a bar with no sign outside, Sirena thought it was amusing that the venue was named Clarity. Not only was it difficult to locate, but Clarity was known to have an everchanging menu of drinks that were said to induce various effects in people, despite being entirely non-alcoholic. Influencers on social media who claimed to be connoisseurs of both solid and liquid gastronomy delighted in raving about this place, telling their fans that Clarity will shape the future of social interaction in public venues. According to a friend, Sirena was told that the mixologists take a ‘naturopathic’ approach to blending their concoctions to induce similar but not identical states of mind that are associated with more synthetic and noxious compounds. Additionally, every propriety blend of exotic herbs and spices used in their drinks was said to have undergone scientific studies to ensure safe ingestion, although Sirena was confident that she was unlikely to find peer-reviewed literature on said work.

           “Name?”, the hostess at the entrance asked her.

           “Sirena Andresen for two at 7:30”, she replied. The hostess nodded and moved to lead her to her seat. As she followed the hostess through the bar, Sirena marveled at the décor surrounding her. A wide variety of voluminous plants transformed the industrial warehouse foundation into a glittering rainforest of cascading vines, some of which imparted almost a sense of privacy and seclusion around each party at their respective tables. Dark gossamer curtains seemed to be lazily draped between booths, in which she could observe different groups and the packages they seemed to purchase. A group of women in one corner were holding hands in a circle, smiling with the remnants of dried tear streaks glinting from their cheeks. A man sat alone with a sketchbook and pens scattered on his table, while his eyes appeared to travel to distant galaxies. After weaving around a few tables, Sirena was guided to a tiny corner booth surrounded by calatheas and English ivy swirling around the velvety cushions that brightly contrasted with the dark leaves of the surrounding plants. Although she had initiated these plans herself, she was nevertheless a bit surprised to find her guest already seated at the table, waiting for her.

           “Hello, Luka”, Sirena managed to say quietly. Years of repressed hurt and anguish were beginning to simmer underneath the surface, which fought with the familiar tinge of rose-colored hope and adoration that tinted her perspective whenever she saw him in person.  

           “Hey Rena, it’s really good to see you”, he responded.

           “It’s been a few years.”

           “Yeah, I was surprised to hear from you. Happy to hear from you, don’t get me wrong. But surprised nonetheless.” He paused. “You look good, Rena.”

           Sirena opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted by the server who arrived at their table.

           “Good evening, my name is Aspen, and welcome to Clarity. Have you dined with us in the past or is this a novel experience?”

           Sirena answered, “Hi, yes it’s our first time here. I believe I ordered the Disclosure package when I made the reservation. Would you mind telling us what that includes?”

           “Absolutely!” Aspen responded. “Our Disclosure package includes three drinks per person. The first, which we call Reminiscence, allows our guests to feel at ease and temporarily releases any possible anxieties and tensions. Shortly after, we will serve your second drink called Rekindle, which is meant to release inhibitions to enable our guests to transcend to a deeper level of communication. After about an hour or so, we will arrive with our last drink, the Resolution, which helps our guests reach a state of peace and acceptance to advance from the overall experience of the Disclosure. Are there any other questions you would like me to answer? If not, we will bring out your first drinks in a few moments.”

           “No, that sounds great, thank you so much”, Sirena replied.

           Aspen nodded and walked away. Luka stared off after her then focused back to Sirena, who appeared to have a wave of anger and sentiment conflicting across her face. Luka broke the silence and said, “Quite the place you picked out for tonight.”

           Biting back the urge to say something along the lines of It’s not like you would ever initiate these plans, Sirena instead said, “I’ve been meaning to reach out for a while. Felt like this could be a good place to chat.”

           “And do you really believe this whole naturopathic approach that this place advertises?”, Luka jokingly said. He huffed a small snort of doubt and took a sip of water.

           “It’s probably all placebo, but I figured it couldn’t hurt,” Sirena responded while shrugging her shoulders.

           Aspen suddenly returned with two small crystal goblets. Transparent ruby-red elixirs swirled around sprigs of candied thyme as the goblets were placed on the table before the lit unscented candle.

           “Well, cheers”, Luka said as he picked up his glass.

           Sirena quietly said cheers in return and took an extended sip from her drink, leaving the goblet almost empty. Although impressed by the likeness in flavor to a gin and tonic, she felt repelled by the powerful saccharine aftertaste that now dominated her palate.

           “You really do look good,” Luka said after a pause. “Uh, so what made you reach out after all this time?”

           Before answering, Sirena finished what remained in her glass and set it down. Why did I do this, she thought to herself, why didn’t I just stay home? Every instinct she owned was currently screaming at her to run, but she knew she had to force out an answer carefully to not unleash all her conflicting feelings at once.

           “I saw on LinkedIn that you left Boston for a consulting position in New York. Um, and I guessed I missed you, like in a friend way. Because we used to be close friends.”

           “I missed you too, Rena. How have you been doing?”

           For the next twenty-five minutes, Sirena and Luka updated each other on their lives over the past four years with frivolity and occasional laughter. Their conversation drifted from unrelated topic to topic, encompassing the ‘humans versus cows’ jokes in Cunk on Earth, to how the siblings and parents are doing, all the way to their mutual friends. With every new event the two of them covered in rapt discussion, Sirena could feel the pent-up icy tension in her chest melting away to evaporate. It was almost as if the last four years didn’t happen and that they had never spent time truly apart with a vast physical and emotional distance between them. In the past, Sirena would often feel like she and Luka were the only two people in the room whenever they were deep in conversation. In the present, she could sense that feeling returning, unaware that it would soon fade away with the inconspicuous arrival of their second drinks that they had blindly begun to sip.

           As Sirena finished a story about a recent roller-skating mishap with her friends, Luka laughed and said, “Wow, your friends sound so fun – I’d love to meet them sometime.”

A sharp icicle suddenly reformed in Sirena’s chest. Invasive thoughts began to extend their warped tendrils into her brain, with the razor-sharp reminder of why she needed to initiate this conversation with Luka in the first place. The dream-like state she was in had shattered. Your friends hate Luka, the jagged tendrils whispered. They will never forgive him for what he did to you – what he put you through. What kind of person just drops off the face of the earth after promising to always keep their friendship no matter what? Why do you so desperately crave his attention despite the sadness and emptiness you experienced after he left?

“I don’t think that’s a good idea”, said Sirena.

“Why not?”, asked Luka with a small laugh. Upon realizing her sudden shift in tone and the loss of warmth from her presence, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

Say it, the invasive thoughts spoke. Say what you’ve been wanting to scream at him the moment you realized he was no longer your friend.

Sirena slowly found her footing with her words and replied, “Luka… it feels weird that you suddenly would want to re-insert yourself into my life after being gone for so long. You disappeared and that truly hurt me.  We used to talk every day and then one day we couldn’t do that anymore. I honestly don’t know how to incorporate you into my life with who I’ve become over the last couple of years. I honestly don’t know if I want to. I’m sorry.” She looked away and continued to finish her drink.

Luka’s expression shifted from happiness to hurt and he set his glass down. “What do you mean ‘you don’t want to’? You also stopped speaking to me. You could have reached out and kept in touch all this time.”

“Me?!”, Sirena retorted while working to not raise her voice as the repressed anger was beginning to boil inside of her. “I’ve always been the one to coordinate plans with you. Take today, for example. Or every time I wanted to visit you while you lived in Boston or every time you said you wanted to visit me even though you never did, I always did the planning. I would always reach out and check on you to see how you were getting along with your PhD and to see how your presentations went and how your projects were going. Did you ever do that for me? No, you did not!”

“Why did you care about me for so long then if I was such a bad friend?”, Luka said. “It’s not my fault you decided to spend so much time and energy dedicated to me if I wasn’t deserving of it.”

Luka’s words felt like a knife thrust into her back. He continued his argument.

“When we started hooking up, I was very clear that we were strictly friends. That doesn’t mean I didn’t care about you. If I showed that I cared any more than I did, you would have liked me a lot more than I was ever going to like you back. You could have been seeing other people at the same time as I was. You made the decision not to. It’s not on me how hurt you were after I started seeing my girlfriend at the time.”

The knife dragged down her back, severing the feeling of her outer extremities so she could no longer feel her fingers. Her vision began to blur with tears. Nausea prevented her from washing away the acrid taste in her mouth with her drink.  The only sense she could detect was the blood pounding in her ears as she anticipated what he was about to say next.

“And throughout that time while we were seeing each other, I would check in repeatedly and ask where we stand. Maybe my feelings towards you were changing. Maybe I thought you would tell me if yours were to. And how did you answer me every time I would check in? You always said we were still just friends.”

The knife was finally wedged in her spine, paralyzing her with overwhelming anxiety and internalized self-hatred of her past self that she had worked so hard to overcome. Words that would save her from this suffocating feeling were failing her. They clogged the blood flow to her brain, disconnecting her voice from her racing thoughts.

Sirena wanted him to know and experience the despair she felt that day he called her to cancel his visit to New York. Instead of telling her how disappointed he was to have to change his plans after they had been discussing for weeks how excited they were to see each other, Luka said he would no longer be joining her because ‘things are getting serious with my girlfriend’. A girl that Luka had only mentioned once before and had previously changed the topic when Sirena tried to pry and ask more questions about her. When that phone call ended, she had never felt such a swift and crushing hollowness that took over her entire body, leaving her empty with a dark nothingness that she tried to drown with nameless men and copious drinks.

Sirena wanted Luka to understand how much his actions frequently conflicted with his words throughout their friendship and that it confused her. She recalled one night while they were undergraduate students, she had slept over at his apartment. As she was curled up in his arms, he told her that he would never develop feelings for her and that their physical closeness was only ever of a platonic nature. Her young and inexperienced self didn’t know any better, so she accepted his words as the truth. Little did she know the impact these words would have on her future relationships, and how in her later years she would struggle to read people and their level of interest in her. Whenever someone new would enter her life whom she genuinely liked, Sirena would often miss her chance because she thought the non-verbal signs were wholly platonic.

Lastly, Sirena needed Luka to see her internal struggle every time he checked in with her about how they were feeling about their friendship. She was constantly haunted by the missed opportunities to just admit to him that yes, she did harbor feelings for him as much as she tried to deny it. She had always worried that if she did make herself more vulnerable, he would reject her. The memory from their youth of him declaring his permanent lack of feelings for her would always replay in her mind during these conversations. She was even more perplexed when he one day admitted that he did like her in undergrad despite him telling her otherwise at the time. Maybe he did have some level of romantic interest in her after all this time and she could admit the same to him when he finally visited her in New York.

But that was then, and this is now, she told herself. As her breathing returned to a steady pace and her stream of thought became more coherent, she helped herself to the final drink that was placed on their table – a colorless soda with the faintest tint of rosewater.  

“You were one of my closest friends, Luka”, Sirena said out loud. “And I did like you. But I was scared that you would disappear if I told you. And you disappeared anyway. Even if I were to reach out to prevent you from disappearing entirely, it wouldn’t have been the same because I wouldn’t have wanted to impede on your new relationship and your being happy,” She hastily wiped away some stray tears that escaped from her clouded vision. As she scanned his face which appeared devoid of emotion, she realized she no longer knew the person sitting in front of her and that he was oblivious to the strenuous personal growth she endured to become more assertive and direct.  

“I know”, he replied. “I just wanted you to be honest with me and tell that to me upfront. But you didn’t, so it always felt like you were shutting me out and never being your most authentic self around me and just doing things that you thought would make me happy. It didn’t feel real.”

“I’m sorry about that”, Sirena answered.

“I’m sorry too”, Luka said. “I should have been more empathetic. I knew you were shy, and I wasn’t being very fair.”

I guess he’s gone through some personal growth too, Sirena thought to herself. As they apologized and forgave each other for their inability to meet each other’s communication needs in the past, the two discussed how to move on with their future.

“I’m glad we had this conversation”, said Luka after the two decided it would be best to part ways and keep their lives separate for the time being.

“Me too”, said Sirena. They sat holding hands across their table for a few moments in silence before quietly standing up from their booth to exit.

Once they were outside, Sirena and Luka hugged each other goodbye. It made her remember their tearful hugs when they completed their bachelor’s degrees and would no longer be living on the same street for the first time in knowing each other. She recalled their last hug before this one when she left his place in Boston full of hope because he promised to visit her in the next month or so. After a few minutes, they let go of each other and set off in opposite directions. As Sirena took her first few steps away from Luka, she no longer felt the need to look back.