Last Night

The smell of freshly brewed coffee filled the small kitchen. Crusted food covered last nights dishes piled in the sink. Any students flat surely could have looked worse than this and in fact, Ben had been in worse before, hence his acceptance to live in what most would consider an unacceptable mess. 

Ben is sitting at the table with his head in his hands.

Ben’s roommate Stephen walks into the room with an amused look on his face. “Good morning, how’s your head?”

Ben looks back up at him annoyed. “It’s fine”

“Why do you look like shit then?”

Ben leans back in his chair and shifts his head to look up directly at the ceiling. “I fucked up last night.”

Stephen suddenly seems a lot more interested in what he has to say now. “Do tell.”

Ben stays silent for a few moments, unmoving from his position. “So I was out last night.”

Stephen raises his eyebrow.

“And I met someone”

Stephen smiles back at him. “About time! Of course you find someone to hook up with the one time I’m not there to wingman for you!” 

“Ehhhh… not exactly.”

Puzzled, Stephen looks silently back at him for a few seconds before replying. “What happened?”

“Ugggh, so I met this girl at the bar”

“Onto the next book bud, move on”

“And things were going well, I had just gotten us both a drink”

“Yes”

“And we were talking”

“We’ll damn, there’s your first mistake right there” Stephen sarcastically jokes. 

Ben just stares back at him.

“Oh seriously… can’t have been that bad.”

Ben replies: “It was. It really was. I fucked up.”

Stephen looks back at him, taking what he’s hearing a lot more seriously. “Did you insult her? Start talking about politics or religion or the normal uh oh I don’t know your views or personality and stating my opinion on a given topic can be a flip of the coin about whether this is the start of a good night or the end of a bad one?”

“Worse. I…” Ben fumbles while trying to speak. “You have no idea how much I want to go back and just not say what I did.”

“If you could travel back, realistically your conscience and knowledge wouldn’t magically go back into your body. You would exist in that timeline and would have to stop yourself from doing it. Perhaps a preemptive slap to the face would do it?” 

“Shut up you know what I mean.” 

“Well, what did you say to her?”

“I… told her she had brown hair.”

“You told her she had brown hair.”

“Yes.”

Stephen looks at Ben puzzled. “You forgot to say something nice about her hair? I mean that’s… not great but anyone could…”

“No. Not just that”

“What else did you say?”

“No. No. STEPHEN. SHE HAD BLONDE HAIR.” 

“Oh.”

Stephen just looks at Ben, unsure of what to say. Unsure of how to react in any way. Before long he just laughs out loud.  “That is gold. That is one of the funniest things I have ever heard from you. Not only did you forget an adjective, the one thing that differentiates what you said from being a statement to a compliment, but you GOT THE STATEMENT WRONG. Well done.”

“I can’t talk to women.” 

Stephen continues to laugh out loud uncontrollably. “Evidently.” 

“I know. I really need to apologise”

“Sure you do, if you ever see her again on a night out! Hopefully I’ll be with you then and stop you from making that much of a slip up.”

Ben shakes his head in response. “No no, I mean I need to reach out to her and say sorry.”

Stephen stops laughing and looks at him. “How?”

“By texting her of course!” 

“YOU GOT HER NUMBER?????”

“Yes.” Ben meekly replies.

“You got her number. After saying that.”

“Yes and I need to say sorry right now.” Ben picks up his phone, but Stephen reaches across the table and snatches it from his hand.

“You’re stupid. What happened after what you said that made her want to give you her number?” 

“Nothing she had her drink quickly because her friends were leaving to go to another bar and she put her number into my phone.”

“Ben, right now I want to go back in time and slap you in the face.”

“You think she wanted me to text her back?”

“I think she wanted you to text her then and meet her at the next bar, or later that night.”

Ben looks sheepishly down at the table. “I didn’t want to presume…”

Stephen cuts him off. “You didn’t presume anything, it was an opening for more conversation at the very very least. Nothing more, nothing less, don’t read into it any more than the fact that she wanted to talk to you again. That’s it.” 

“So I should’ve texted her then?”

“You can’t change that now, it’s a road not crossed, don’t worry about it and reach out to her.” He hands the phone back to Ben who takes it.

“Why do you think she gave me her number?”

“I don’t know, maybe your idiocy was endearing to her?”

“Please be serious.”

“I am. Who knows what did it, you were awkward and maybe she found it funny, not in a haha look at you but in a haha that made me laugh kind of way. Text her now”

Ben looks down at his phone. “Well what do I say?”

“What do you want to say?”

“Something funny, something witty. I honestly don’t know.”

“It could be anything man. What’s your heart saying, not your brain, no need to overthink it”

“I can’t help overthink it. What I really want to say is something that doesn’t make me want to go back and stop myself from saying it.”

“Okay then. Try something simple. How about ‘Hello, this is Ben from the bar?’”

Ben types it out and presses send. A minute of silence passes between the two as they both struggle to think of what to say.

Ben’s phone vibrates on the table. He picks it up without thinking and is surprised by what he sees on his screen. He looks up at Stephen, who in response raises an eyebrow at him. 

“It’s her”

“Seriously! What did she say?”

Ben excitedly looks down at his phone and takes a few seconds to read the text to himself before smiling widely back at Stephen. He shows the phone screen to him and on it reads:

‘Hello Ben, my colourblind friend :)‘