Fallout

“I’ve been thinkin’,” Randall says, forced levity coloring his voice; it cracks just enough for me to raise a critical eyebrow at him, and his eyes dart back down to the hammock we’re attempting to string up across the hallway of our dormitory with bungee cables from the emergency kit my dad assembled and stashed away in my car.

“I think maybe we should have sex.”

I straighten now, my side secured to the not-totally-kosher eye bolt screw I’ve sunk into the drywall. “Oh?”

Randall plows ahead, his words tumbling out one atop another. “I just mean, you’re my best friend. And shouldn’t my first time be with someone I care about? And I mean, you obviously know what you’re doing, so…”

I let out an indignant gasp and swat the solid slope of his shoulder. “I am not taking your virginity, Randall. It should be someone you’re in love with. Or some random girl at a party…I mean, whatever, no judgment.”

He winces.

“What in the world are you two up to now?!” Amy, our RA, is barreling down the hallway toward us and takes in the small snowy piles of drywall dust on the floor and our Dollar Tree hammock and launches into a lecture about property damage and our residential life contract violations (last week we were caught sneaking a freshly-purchased pet chinchilla into the building), and the moment slips away, the building tension deflated by a small southern girl with a messy bun and a clipboard.

--

“You’ll never guess what I did, man!” Randall barrels into my dorm room where I’m hungover, draped over my boyfriend of the moment, Darren, lazily scrolling the rollerball of my Blackberry.

Randall is tall and lean, with light blonde hair coiled into tight curls that bounce when he speaks. He’s got a six-pack and runs marathons and is studying nuclear engineering and he buys me beer. Sometimes, when I’m too broke or too lazy to go to Walmart, I sneak into his suite and chug his milk directly from the jug.

“I did it. I met some girl at Kermit’s party last night, just like you said! And we did it!”

Darren chuckles and tips his drink in Randall’s direction, then takes another sip of Pedialyte. 

I cringe, and they both narrow their eyes at me, searching.

“Okay, okay- I lied, I think? Maybe I’m judging a little. But…some random? Really?”

“Oh god, you’re right.” I can almost see the Catholic guilt wash over him, and worry crumples his face. “Do you think I should like…call her?” 

--

 “Are you sure your girlfriend won’t mind?” I’m feigning concern, and he knows it. “I mean we’re practically naked.”

We are practically naked. It’s Halloween, and I’ve talked Randall into dressing up as Adam and Eve for a costume contest at a foam wrestling party across town.

(Later that night, I’ll challenge his girlfriend, dressed as Betty Rubble, to a match in the foam, and win by submission.)

We’re wearing nothing but nude underwear and some plastic foliage we scavenged from fake plants in the student center.

Randall is distracted, adjusting the elastic edges of his seamless women’s boy shorts and wondering aloud if he should shave his balls.

“Nah, she’ll be chill about it,” he waves the thought off.

(She was not chill about it.)

--

“Do you ever think we should just be together?” I ask, riding shotgun in Randall’s silver 4Runner. The question is both easy and loaded. We’ve been having sex for months, but mostly because we’re bored and usually drunk and both happen to be single.

Randall speeds up and the droplets of rain pelting the windshield start to streak upward.

“Nah,” he answers breezily. “If we started dating, we’d just never break up, and the next thing you know we’d be married.”

He says it as if it’s the worst thing he can imagine, and I nod along like I get it. 

“Totally.”

--

“Have you ever listened to the song Anna Begins?” Randall asks. He slides the pizza pan into the oven in his apartment where the floor is springy and soft with rot.

I shake my head while I lick the last of my yogurt off the convex face of my spoon.

“It’s kind of how I feel about you.” He tosses the sentiment out casually, like out of date chunks of bread tossed to ducks in the park. I’m ravenous for any morsel of affirmation, any indication that all of this means something. A sitting duck.

That night, after the pizza has burned and we go to our usual place for enchiladas instead, I go home and listen to the words and sob.

--

“Just tell me not to go, then!” I scream. I’m drunk again, in a scratchy sort of shiny formal dress. The night is fading into morning and wet black trails of mascara line my cheeks. 

I’m moving, but I’m losing my nerve. I’m begging, and my face flushes crimson with shame, but I’ve had one too many rum and Cokes to shut up.

Randall loosens his tie, hooking his index finger over the top of the knot, his mouth curling, eyes looking anywhere but at me. I can read the discomfort on his face as if I’d written it myself.

“I can’t ask you to stay,” he says, slowly, carefully, “because I can’t promise you it would be worth it.”

I whirl around, only stumbling a little, slam the door shut behind me.

--

“Maybe when you come back, we should try it again,” he says. It’s 3am where he is, and the screen is grainy with the static of the early 2000s.

I glance down at my keyboard, purse my lips together. “I’d like that,” I allow.

There’s a knock at the door.

--

“Hey, I’m sorry I’ve been MIA,” I start. It’s been three weeks since I told him I’d call tomorrow.

“I’m just happy to see your face,” Randall says, and I can tell he means it. He’s beaming. He takes a sip of Bud Light. My eyes are swimming in salty tears at the sight of him.

“So, the other day, when someone was at the door?”

“Three weeks ago,” he corrects.

“Yeah. It was….Darren.”

Randall guffaws. “Darren?” He’s incredulous. “What the fuck is he doing over there?”

“He called it a grand romantic gesture.”

“What are you talking about?” Randall’s voice tightens, the way it used to when we were teenagers.

“He asked me to marry him.”

Randall is looking hard at me, as if he’s seeing me for the first time, but he doesn’t say anything, so I keep going.

“And I said yes.”

He recoils, ever so slightly, like he’s been hit, and I wonder if anyone but me would notice the nearly imperceptible clenching of his jaw.

“I know that we were just talking about maybe trying things again, but Darren stayed for a few weeks and we-”

“You don’t have to justify anything to me.” Randall’s words are pointed, sharp like spikes, and he’s speaking at a clip just above normal. 

“Randall, I-”

“Congratulations.” The melancholy robotic plop of the Skype call ending punctuates the word, and then it’s only my reflection in the inky black emptiness of the screen.

--

“We got married.” I keep my voice low and gentle, like a state trooper notifying next of kin. We’re sitting on the front stoop of his apartment in DC, and I’m afraid for a moment he may kiss me, so I say it.

He sits back and sighs. “I know. I noticed the ring.”

We’re sitting shoulder to shoulder and it feels so familiar but the air is charged in a way it’s never been before. I said the thing out loud that shatters this brittle possibility we’ve incubated for so long. I lean back on my elbows and pretend to look at the stars.

(There are no stars for the city lights.)

“I think things have to be different now.”

“Yeah, I know.”

--

“What’s new with you?” Randall calls me sometimes on his commute. He’s got a PhD now and a penthouse.

“Well…” I let the suspense build. “I’m pregnant!” Darren and I have a house in the desert with a pool, two dogs and a cat.

 I heard a few weeks ago that Amy died of cancer. 

The smell of rum and Coke makes me cry.

Randall’s congratulations are obligatory, hollow. I didn’t expect him to be happy for me, but I needed it, was desperate for his approval of the life I made without him.

“Well, I guess that’s really it then, huh?”

His question catches me off balance. Several silent agonizing moments pass, and by the time I realize what he means, he’s rattled off an excuse to cut the call short, and the line goes dead.

--

Hey, this is Randall. I’m not here; leave a message.

--

You’ve reached Randall Espinoza, Vice President of Hazards Management. I’m currently unable to take your call. If this is a nuclear emergency, please contact the FEMA Department of Radiological Emergency Preparedness.

--

The number you have dialed is not currently in use. Please hang up and try your call again.