Taking off my rose colored lenses

This is finally the moment Jose is going to ask out Erica, finally. He has laid down the groundwork for this exact instance, beginning with their first introduction seven years ago, to their engaging late night conversations at college bars, and culminating with this moment right here: Erica across the room, laughing with her head held back while Jose nervously plays with the button on his coat. 

Jose is tense for two main reasons: although he has conjured up this moment multiple times in his day dreams and regular dreams, he really has no idea what he’s going to say or do to present the dating proposal to Erica, and there’s a deep fear that no matter how Erica answers their friendship won’t survive the aftermath. You see, Jose is a classic overthinker. Not only does this overthinking ability allow him to fantasize a future with Erica, but it feeds the fear in him that this might be a big mistake, so much so that it has taken Jose five years to even consider asking her out. He questions this life changing moment. As Jose turns around to make a quick exit while he can, an arm grabs him and forces him to look back. Erica’s emerald eyes. 

“Hello, welcome! Would you like to leave your coat in the other room there?”

Jose looks back and forth between her eyes for a minute before realizing she doesn’t remember him. Like a robot, he obeys her instructions and heads towards the the coat room, which is really just an unused bedroom with a pile of coats on the bed. Jose’s legs can no longer continue the robotic charade and he collapses on the coat pile. The soft fabrics are comforting in Jose’s time of need. Jose takes these few moments alone, with only the muffled music from the other part of the house filling the air. What could have gone wrong? Although Erica and Jose had not spent time together since leaving college, Jose had never assumed she would forget him. Think, Jose, think. Jose turns around and sits up, hair more disheveled and his carefully chosen outfit a little more crinkly. Most of their conversations were at bars, and given it was their college years, they usually ended with both of them getting wasted. Is it possible Erica has forgotten Jose in the haze of college intoxication? It’s certainly possible.

Jose surprises himself by standing up determinedly. He can try to jog her memory, after all, she must remember him a little bit, or else why would she invite him after all these years? They were often drinking when together, but as Jose sees it, that doesn’t take away from how connected they were in those conversations. He would pour his heart out about his childhood, his hopes for the future, and she would confess her own fears and other intimate details. Jose shakes his doubts off and cracks his neck. Now that he knows what he’s up against the situation actually feels a little easier to handle. A couple of deep breaths. Here we go again.

Jose finds Erica in the kitchen, applying frosting on a cake. Thankfully, she’s alone. Jose approaches and smiles. Erica smiles back. Before Jose can begin part one of his strategy, which involves engaging in small talk to gauge the depth of her forgetfulness, she proclaims:

“Sorry about before, I meant to introduce myself but I saw people coming in behind you and wanted to greet them, too. This party has been a little stressful for me (giggles) so I’m just trying to be a good hostess to distract myself.”

Jose asks why she feels so stressed. 

“Well, you know, the reason why I’m having this party…”

Jose finds it strange Erica won’t divulge the party details but she acts like the answer’s so obvious. He sits down and pauses to allow her time to continue.

“You know, a ‘jogging my memory’ party, I guess…”

Jose chuckles before realizing she’s serious. “What do you mean?”

Erica laughs again, this time a little forced. “Didn’t you read the invite? It wasn’t even a proper invite, it was just a public invitation on Facebook to my friends… Do you even know what happened to me?”

Jose senses Erica’s growing exasperation so he tries to regain control. “Uh, sorry, no, but if it’s on the Facebook invite I can just take a quick look.”

Erica nods her approval of this solution. Jose takes his phone out and searches for the invite quickly. The invite details mention a car accident, recent memory loss, and this party’s goal in helping Erica regain recent memories by surrounding her with old friends.

Jose wants to read the description over and over again, unsure of how he missed this in all his planning, but he knows that will annoy Erica. He looks up at her instead, unsure of what to say.

“I know, it’s totally weird, but my mom came up with the idea of having old friends visit to see if it would help me remember anything and I figured, why the hell not?” Erica smiles again. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name before.”

“Jose."

“Ah, and how do we know each other?”

Jose has the rare opportunity here to rewrite history. Erica’s encounter with him at the door had him questioning his original romantic lens for their college years. Maybe it wasn’t as amazing as he thought, maybe he was under the romantic spell of alcohol all those years ago. A deep breath.

“Well, Erica, we met in college. You had intense legal courses and I had intense English lit classes. To let off some steam we would go out to some local bars with friends.”

Erica tilts her head to the side as she absorbs all this information. 

Jose continues. “To be honest, we would get pretty drunk and do some stupid things. But sometimes we would just sit down and talk for hours about things that are important to us.” That’s as unbiased as Jose could present the details.

“Sounds nice.”

Jose knows how important it is for Erica to reconnect to her life so he decides to be truthful, no matter the outcome. “It was. It was messy too, I’m pretty sure you puked a couple of times on the sidewalk, but it was school, you know. I wish you could remember all of that, but honestly, even having my memories, I think I morphed them to the point where they might have turned into something they’re not, so if it helps, I might be just as confused as you.”

Erica’s blonde eyebrows furrow as she now begins piling frosting without looking. She gently reflects, “I guess we should focus on making new memories, then.”

Jose gently pats her arm to stop her from making this cake more frosting than cake. “That’s what I want focus on for myself, at least.”

“So, let’s do it together.” 

Erica fills two glasses with wine and takes a sip of hers while passing the other to Jose. Jose smiles down at the glass, feeling a tinge of déjà vu. Erica begins by speaking on the confusion she felt after waking up from the accident. Jose takes the time to truly listen to her, without considering his old agenda, and a new friendship sprouts out of an old unrequited love.