The man and Winter

I had three friends, I guess after tomorrow I'll have one. A group text between Mark, Winter, and I started blowing up last night while I was driving home from work. I couldn't get to my phone to read what was happening, but the vibrating was starting to exacerbate me. In the five minutes it took me to get from the final stoplight to my parking spot there were twenty-five new messages from Mark and Winter. I stayed in my car while I opened up my phone and looked at the messages from Winter. Mark and I had been the only ones contributing to the group chat for the last few days so I was looking forward to what Winter had to say in response. She dropped a bomb on us and tried to hide it between two normal texts.

"I'm sorry that your work is being so stupid Beth."

"Mick and I are getting married on Sunday."

"I tried that new place on center street. It's so good."

I sat stunned, my phone nearly fell out of my hands, until my thumbs started frantically scrolling through the back and forth of Mark and Winter. I couldn't believe was I was reading.

I had met Mick, Winter's soon-to-be, three years earlier when my roommate Katie and I wanted to be stupid but were too young to be. I quickly jumped to mine and Katie's conversation and asked if she knew about this. It seemed like hours while I watched those three dots bounce up and down.

"Yes, I'm officiating."

I was filled with an anger and sadness I hadn't felt before. How could Katie have agreed to this and not told me? Didn't she understand that by agreeing to this she was sending a message to Winter that it was okay for her to do this? My car door opened and my wife was standing there.

"Are you okay?" Lark asked. I unbuckled and hugged her as tight as I could. She held me and squeezed me back. I breathed heavily into her neck as I tried to stop myself from crying. "What happened?" Lark asked. I let go of my wife before I answered her.

"Winter is getting married." I cried. Lark had never met Mick, but she knew this was a bad idea.

The last time I had seen Mick had been at my and Katie's apartment. Winter was studying culinary arts and come over to make Katie and me a dessert that she wanted to try. Mick came with her. While he wasn't rude at this encounter, Katie and I already had our opinions about him set. Mick was drunk, already, and had a flask with him. I told Winter that I didn't want him in my home if he was going to be drunk, and she pleaded with me to let him stay. She used the same lines she had already used with me many times.

"But he's so nice. He's just being funny. You need to get to know him, then you'll really like him." Winter pleaded in the locker room of the apartment pool. Katie, Mick, Winter, and I had gone to Winter's apartment to go swimming, and right before joining us Mick had smoked one of his car joints.

"Why does he always have to be high or drunk when he's with you?" I asked.

"He doesn't have to be. He's usually already high when I get there and I'm not going to make him stop." Winter said.

"Will you sleep here tonight?" Winter hadn't slept in her apartment since she had first kissed Mick. She didn't respond. "What about at our place?" Winter had often spent the night on mine and Katie's couch, but not in what felt like a very long time.

"Mick wants me to stay at his house tonight," Winter said.

"I want you to stay at mine." I insisted.

"Maybe, we'll see," Winter said. From the moment our conversation began I knew it was a lost cause.

"You know what Mick, you can get out of my car!" I said and I pulled over. The four of us had been at a concert an hour away from home and from the moment I picked Winter and Mick up I had had enough of him. He was already high and I could smell the weed coming off of him. Winter didn't smoke or drink and I didn't know how she could stand the fact that her boyfriend lived in a perpetual state of drunken haziness.

"No, Beth, be nice," Winter begged.

"I have been nice and I don't want him in my car," I told her.

"How will I get home if you kick him out?" Winter asked me.

"I will take you home," I told her.

"I mean to his house." She said. Katie was in the passenger's seat beside me and she now turned around to look at Winter.

"You're sleeping at his house again?" She asked. "What about work?"

"I'll ask Tom to get someone to cover my shift," Winter said.

"Are you serious, again? The night before you're going to make Tom find someone to cover your eight A.M. shift?" I complained.

"Just because you want to sleep with Tom-" Mick started.

"No asked you to talk Mick! No one wants to hear what you have to say!" I yelled at him.

"I do!" Winter defended, focusing again on the least important part of what had been said.

I turned in my seat to face the road and got back on the road, speeding and cursing under my breath.

I pulled up abruptly to Mick's house and he got out of the car. Winter asked us to come in and Katie gave her a firm 'no'.

"Why would I go in there? So his friends can get me high and give me herpes?" I asked. I had been to Mick's house twice before and wasn't going to again.

"You're going to love it!" Winter gushed to me and Katie about Mick's house. It was really his roommate's parent's house and Mick and his two friends lived in the basement. Winter had been to Mick's apartment multiple times and had been trying to get Katie and me to go over so we finally agreed. Katie who was a germaphobe brought a bottle of hand sanitizer with her. The house itself was nice, but once we went down the back stairs to the basement it was a completely different scene. There were stacks of 12 packs of Tang and beer. I could see three bongs from the door and there were heaps of clothes and blankets all over the floor. Katie opened her sanitizer bottle and squirted some onto her hand. One of Mick's friends was sitting on the couch watching a movie with multiple half-naked women on. The other roommate, whose parent's owned the house came out in just his boxer shorts. Katie and I tried not to look, but he didn't make it easy when he did a Captain Morgan pose on the couch and made crude gestures in mine and Katie's direction. I looked at Winter, but she thought it was all hilarious. She was the den mother to these boys and that was why she was blind to what was happening.

Mick was sitting on the couch with his friend and didn't get up or even turn to look at Winter.

"Hey, babe." He said.

"Wow, what a gentleman," I said sarcastically.

"You've slept here?" Katie asked Winter with worry.

"Yeah, but they're really sweet," Winter replied.

"Isn't one addicted to heroin?" I asked.

"No, he used to be. He's been clean for two years." She replied. When Mick stood up I saw that he was holding a bong.

"Of course, he's high, again," I said. Mick and both his roommates took a hit off it. Mick offered it to us and Katie also indulged. She wanted to fit in. He offered it to Winter and when she said no he didn't press. I wondered how many times she had had to tell him no before. He then offered the bong to me.

"No thanks." I refused, but he would not leave me alone until I said no at least five more times. A few minutes later the two roommates left to go to a club and the four of us went out back to talk. I was trying to give Mick a chance, I didn't know him yet, and the only other time I'd been around him we had all been drunk. I tried to keep an eye on Katie and continued to make my snide remarks about Mick. He had continued to offer me his bong and I finally accepted. I had never smoked before and didn't know what I was doing. I tried to follow the instructions that Mick and given me, but I started coughing so hard my throat burned.

"Well, you did it wrong," was all that Mick offered me.

The day after Mick and Winter had their first kiss she and I met Mark for lunch at our favorite burger place. I had been friends with Winter since seventh grade and in the ninth grade, we met Mark and had all become friends. As we ate, Winter started telling Mark about her new boyfriend. I avoided Mark's gaze and Winter told the story about how she had a crush on Mick for a few months and had spent the previous night at his house after kissing him. Mark was confused about how all this happened and I didn't tell him that we had been drinking, or that Mick had been the one to bring the alcohol to three 19-year-olds; I knew he would not approve.

Winter and Mick had been on and off for the past three years and Winter had shared doubts about Mick with Mark and it made me hopeful that she would finally she logic and leave him. I sat on the couch with Lark and cried. Lark voiced every thought I had.

"She could do so much better. She's not going to be happy. She's just jumping into this because she wants to have a baby. You know why she waited four days before the wedding to tell you she was getting married; so that you couldn't change her mind." I nodded and cried at everything she said. Mark and I had been texting privately about what we could do and we both told Winter why we didn't think this was a good idea.

"I wish I could go back in time and undo that night." I cried.

Katie had been interested in a coworker who was sending her mixed signals and I had just been ghosted by Winter's boss Tom. We were depressed and wanted to make it worse. We said that we wanted to get drunk and Winter told us she knew someone who could get us something to drink. Being as young and naive as we were, Katie and I thought this friend of Winter's would bring some rum and leave, but Mick wanted to drink with us. The rum was bitter and burned going down our throats. We had never been drunk before and expected it to hit us much sooner, so we kept drinking and Mick kept pouring. Winter and Mick sat next to each other on the floor and Winter kept going to kiss Mick then backing out. Mick hadn't drunk anything and simply sat there laughing at Winter with Katie and me. Eventually, Winter did get the courage and kissed Mick on the lips. The two of them started to make out, but by this point, Katie and I were too drunk to do anything but wish we had someone to do that with. I had gone and thrown up in the bathroom and Katie followed me to take care of me. When we left the bathroom about an hour later Winter and Mick were gone. And now, in less than 24 hours, Winter would be married to this man that all her friends and family didn't approve of, and Katie would be there making it happen. There was nothing I could do but cry.