Unconscious Equivalent

You wake up on the couch with your head inside a bowl. A bowl that contains your drinks from the last few hours. Trey’s lying on the floor next to you and wakes up at the same time. He apologizes and says he was trying to hold your hair back, but he passed out. You ask him, “What happened?” He says, “You got kicked out of the bar.” You ask, “Why?” He says, “You kept falling.” You have this vague memory of the bouncer carrying you out of the bar like a baby. You are so relieved that Trey’s with you. That means nobody did anything to you. You did this to yourself.

You head straight to the bathroom, start washing your hair, and have this feeling like Schwarzenegger did in Total Recall when he wakes up in a Johnny Cab. Just like Arnold’s character, you are on a mission to put the pieces together and find out what happened. You know exactly who to look for. It’s four o’clock in the morning when you and Trey head out to collect his car parked outside the bar. You are anxious to find Dan, because if anybody knows what happened, he does. Trey’s a genuinely nice guy and you’re lucky he’s there tonight. He has blond hair, blue eyes, and all the gay guys are in love with him. His company isn’t your usual fare. You generally prefer the company of womanizers because womanizers know how to talk to women. They are lots of fun and enjoy entertaining girls with drinks, stories, and secrets, but you never get romantically involved with any of them because they’re womanizers.

On the way to the bar, you are aware that all this really began the night before last, when you met her at the library. Walking past her on your way out, you recognized her, and blurted, “Oh my God! Lara! How are you?” You were so happy to see her because after a year, things were going very well for you and all the past was forgotten now, it was water under the bridge. She nervously said she was waiting for her boyfriend, a graduate student. You weren’t sure when you’d ever see her again and you silently reminded yourself to “just say it.” You knew you’d regret it if you didn’t, so you asked her if she wanted to meet before she left. She said she could meet you at noon tomorrow in the cafeteria for lunch. Even though she clearly wasn’t as excited to see you, her lunch proposal seemed promising. After getting into your car, you saw her and her boyfriend outside the library. They didn’t look like a happy couple, or a sad couple for that matter. They had the demeanor of a student and teacher walking slowly through campus. You took note of this as you drove away and looked forward to lunch.

You and Sophie were smoking a cigarette outside the library, when you noticed it was almost noon. Sophie was going to join you for lunch but decided against it at the last moment. Walking into the cafeteria, you spotted Lara and her male colleagues eating lunch together. You felt disappointed that she wasn’t alone because you wanted to talk privately. She introduced you to everyone. Thankfully, they soon left. Observing her, you were surprised at how different she looked. She had cut off all her hair into a bob and wore khakis with a white polo shirt tucked in, emblazoned with the name of an oil and gas company. A company she swore she would never work for back when she used to listen to NPR and drink herbal tea before class. That was before she changed her major from Environmental Engineering to Chemical Engineering. Seeing her this way made you think of the past, of all the wild days. The days when she used to drunkenly sing in Spanish and throw empty beer bottles into the street. She was such a handful then, but the deep discussions you had together were always worth all the crazy nights.

Seated across from her, there was so much you wanted to say, but the bright lights and general clatter of the cafeteria didn’t feel like the right place. Still you persevered, hoping to remain friends, but it didn’t seem like that’s where the conversation was going. She kept things professional and talked about work; she told you she was back at school to recruit students for her company. You tried to keep things personal and told her about your relationships, to which she snickered and said, “I think everyone knows about that one.” She said someone told her boyfriend and you vaguely remembered telling her boyfriend one night. Then you told her that you were in love. She smirked and said, “B______’s in love.” Her bitterness struck you and then you remembered how mean you all treated her towards the end. You and the other girls were so disgusted because you all were always there for her when things went wrong. And they always went wrong. Then after everything, she just left with no explanation. But really, you did have an explanation. She’d been saying so for months but you just weren’t listening.

You told her that the other girls left for various reasons and invited her to meet your new friends, that she would love them. She liked foreigners and most of them were from other countries. She demurred and didn’t want to meet them, and you realized this conversation was over. The friendship was over, and you decided to make peace with it. You said your goodbyes and walked back to the library. Sophie was still smoking outside the library with friends, and you made plans to meet later. You tried to tell her about your meeting with Lara, about how you were so close, and how it’s all come to an end. Either there was a language barrier, or Sophie really didn’t care. Or a little of both. You felt so overwhelmed with emotion and couldn’t really articulate how you felt. So, you did the next best thing. You picked up Dan--and a fifth of whiskey--on the way to Sophie's house. A night of heavy drinking, while not the most efficient way, felt like the easiest way to sort out an emotionally overwrought day.

Walking towards the bar, Trey helps fill in the blanks as best he can. Apparently, you invited him to Sophie's house. You vaguely remember him walking up the steps to her porch. Everyone was sitting outside, and you offered him a taste of your drink. He made a face and said there was too much whiskey in it, but you were too drunk to taste the alcohol anymore. Everyone decided to go to the bar, and it was someone’s birthday, so you joined everyone for shots. After the first shot, you couldn’t remember anything. You finally reach Trey’s car. You jump in and he drives you to Dan’s house so you can fill in the rest of the pieces.

Dan’s your best good friend. His door is unlocked, so you walk into his house and crawl into bed. He wakes up and doesn’t seem surprised to see you. You ask him what happened. He says, “You got kicked out of the bar.” Hoping for a different answer, you ask, “Why?” He says, “Because you kept falling.” He tells you Micah was there, tried to hug you, and you broke the hug. Then you pointed at Dan and staggered over to him. You ask him if he’s lying, and he says, “Nope.” You can’t understand why you would do such a thing. He tells you that you kept stumbling, falling, and making a general fool of yourself until you got kicked out of the bar. You feel like crawling under a rock and ask him, “Why didn’t you help me?” And he says, “I did! I got you a ride home.” Apparently, he was trying to find you a ride home and flirting with some girl at the same time—a pitfall to having womanizer friends. So, he asked this guy to drive you home, who you didn’t even know. Thankfully, Trey was there and came with you.

 You press him for more details. Then he remembers Micah confronted him in the bathroom. Dan says, “He trumped me, then I trumped him, then he trumped me, then I trumped him.” You ask him what they were talking about. He says he can’t remember. Then you ask, “Well then how do you know that he trumped you, then you trumped him, then he trumped you, then you trumped him?” He insists he still can’t remember. This is Dan, always teasing and torturing you with the truth. You begin to think you may have too broad a definition of the word friend. This seems like all he’s willing to tell you, so you decide to drop the matter. His easy manner and good nature give you some measure of comfort. Dan quickly falls back asleep and starts to snore. Lying there, dreading the reckoning coming tomorrow, you take a moment to silently acknowledge the end of a friendship that meant so much to you, hoping to see better days and do better things.