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“Yeah,” she says, “I do.”
“I know what you mean, too,” Alex says, and I’m reminded of what I walked into. “I wonder where Cori is a lot now.”
Judging by the look on her face, this had struck a chord. He both looks and sounds drunker than I’m used to seeing him. Either that or I’m used to out-drinking him. Sensing the awkward tension, I decide not to stick around to hear the rest and instead announce that I’m going to hit up the bar. I sit and watch from a distance for a couple of minutes and then, when it seems like they start to argue, and I use the opportunity to make my way to the door and out into the warm, October air. We’re having one of those years—where the Seattle summer bleeds late into fall, and I’ll take it—every minute of it. I breathe in the smell of salty air and dry leaves and will it to sober me up a little, but I know that it won’t work. I start most of my days with a hangover. Tomorrow won’t be much different.
I stumble down a staircase and into my murky, basement studio apartment. It’s small and dark, save for one tiny window at street level that lets in just a little bit of light and that's only when the sun shines just right but it’s fitting because I think I’m the same way. It isn’t much, but everything in it is mine. The tiny kitchen, the full-sized bed on pallets in the corner, and the dark green velvet couch are enough for a girl that doesn’t like to cook, keeps weird hours, and just needs a couple of comfy spots to sleep and write. The potted plants are barely hanging in there, but I haven’t let them die completely quite yet. Most importantly, it’s a safe place for me to exist. I didn’t always have that, and most days, just having that is enough on its own.
I slide into bed and loudly exhale my day. Just as I’m about to fall asleep, I hear a knock at my door.
“Hey. Cori and I had a huge fucking fight. Can I sleep on your couch?”
“Sure,” I tell Alex. What are friends for?
I hold the door open, and he passes through without saying a word and is seemingly asleep as soon as his body hits the sofa. It’s not unusual for him to do this, or me the same, but is it okay? It feels good to be needed like this, but it doesn’t feel normal. I get back into bed and find it harder to sleep with him merely feet away, and me just teetering on the edge of drunk enough to say all the things I’d really like to say.
But I already know that none of it would matter.
I wake up—with a headache and the hangover I had anticipated—to the sound of Alex shuffling around in my kitchen and one of my favorite smells. He’s making coffee. Thank god. If someone were to dissect me, they would probably find that I am 70% coffee and the rest a mix of vodka, whatever bodies are actually supposed to be, and sometimes cigarette smoke, depending on my mood. I look towards my window and see that I’ve missed my small allotment of sun for the day, so it must be closer to afternoon than I had wanted it to be.
“Hey, Ruby,” he says. “Yes, there’s coffee.”
“You’re still here?” I say, not quite meaning it to come out like that. “What happened?”
“Yeah, sorry. I crashed here; Cori and I had this big, stupid fight. I was drunk, and she was probably just a little too drunk too—I don’t know. I’m sure it will be fine now.”
“Yeah, I bet that’s all it is,” I tell him.
“She makes me really happy,” he says, and I know that it’s true. I’ve seen it. It isn’t necessarily an easy task to take on, and for good reason. Alex is like me—a little bit broken, someone the world took too many things away from too early. I think that’s what it is that draws me to him. I have always felt like no one could ever really know the real me, or maybe they could know her, but they would never understand her. Alex knows what it is like to suffer and to lose and to grow up in survival mode while no one even notices. I can tell him things that I am not even comfortable telling my closest friends. But his light shines brighter than mine. He’s always surrounded by people, he makes friends easily, and he loves deeply. He still craves all those things that make up a normal life, and maybe that’s why he never wanted anything else from me. As for myself, I live much quieter, I love quieter. I take solace in the peace and safety I’ve found in my life, and that’s been enough to sustain me.
“I’d better go call her,” he says. “Are you working tonight?”
It’s Saturday, so of course I am. Wait, I’m not actually. Shit, I almost forgot. “No, actually I took tonight off. I have plans,” I tell him.
“Oh, with who? Evie?” he says with a hint of vitriol. I have no idea what the deal is with those two. My life would be a million times better if they would just get along, or at the very least do a little bit more than stomach each other in public and choke on each other’s names in private. They’re two of my closest friends and they both get along with everyone. It doesn’t make sense that it’s such an issue. But—to summarize—Alex thinks she’s fake and Evie thinks he’s untrustworthy. I can see where they’d get the idea, on the surface, but they have known each other for two years now, and they should be past the surface.
“Don’t be like that, please. You know it drives me fucking crazy. And yeah, with Evie, or she will be there at least. It’s Olivia’s birthday, so we are going out to celebrate.”
“Is that your friend with all of the fancy friends?” he asks.
“That’s the one.” Olivia, like myself, is someone that Evie met in college and took under her wing. We’ve all been friends ever since. She seems pretty buttoned up to the untrained eye, but she’s loud and opinioned and she will love you into submission. She’s hard on herself sometimes, though. She doesn’t deserve it. Her other friends, most of them from her high school days across the lake in Bellevue, can be a little hard to stomach. They tend to find a lot to complain about. I think I make them uncomfortable. I don’t know if it’s the tattoos or just my aura. Maybe it’s just that they can sense that I’m missing something essential, and seeing me out here masquerading as a normal person is simply unsettling.
“Cool. Text me about how much fun you’re having later. I’m going to go try to get ahold of Cori and then I’m going back to sleep. I’m taking this cup, by the way,” he tells me, holding up a black mug that says, ‘My people skills are just fine.’
“Fine,” I tell him. I’m sure there must be at least three mugs in my cabinet that are his. He could have taken one of those.
He walks over and hugs me for what feels like a little too long, and once I feel myself sinking into it and fighting the urge to inhale his scent, my arms turn stiff and awkward. At some point, our friendship as it stands will become unsustainable. Doesn’t he know, after all this time, what he does to me?
Once he leaves, I sink into the aforementioned green velvet couch. I’d like to sleep, but I have work to do. Alex is lucky. Well, not lucky—he's skilled. He works for a huge tech company, so he doesn’t have to work weekends like the rest of us. He gets to live upstairs, with a big window that lets a lot of light in and a bedroom that has walls. I pick my laptop up from the floor and login. I should try and get some kind of writing done before tonight. I have a bad habit of taking on more projects than I can handle and running them down to the wire. I’m sure it’s a symptom of whatever kind of personality disorder I’m doing nothing about. Just as I’m about to get started, my phone buzzes and it’s Evie.
Evie:Hey! You’re not going to flake tonight, right?
Me:Nope.
Evie:Okay, I’ll head your way later tonight and we can walk together.
It isn’t that far, and it’s supposed to be another nice night, so I tell her okay. Evie and I met in college where we were both journalism students and roommates. When I moved in with nothing but a bad haircut and a melancholic disposition, she was there—drenched in optimism and exuding a sense of purpose and confidence that I’d never felt entitled to myself. I figured that she would hate me, but she didn’t. She loved me and decided right then that we would be best friends, and I found it impossible to say no to her. It’s still impossible to say no to her.
I think about the way that we met a lot, and how lucky I didn’t know I was when life threw us together. She was exactly what I didn’t know I needed: a whole person, to help make me whole and show me what real people are supposed to be like. We were inseparable. We still are to some extent, even though our lives have gone separate ways since college ended and real life set in, and it’s a lot easier to tell where I end and she begins now. One of us took an unpaid internship for a year and now has a full-time job with a lot of potential at KOMO-TV. The other one can’t afford to use their degree because none of these entry-level jobs pay enough for me to stop bartending and I have student loans to pay. Sometimes, if I stop and take the time to unnecessarily compare myself to others, it feels like failure, but deep down I know better. We aren’t all dealt the same cards. The playing field isn’t always level. I do the best I can with what I’ve got, and what I’ve got is a lot better than what I’ve had. So, for now, I’m a kickass bartender that takes on way more freelancing work than I can currently handle.
