Listen closely. Never owe someone a favor. You might find yourself locked in a bathroom, clutching a half-empty bottle of wine, during an engagement party for the ex-girlfriend you haven’t seen in ten years.
Liz is pounding on the door, begging me to let her in. Absolutely not. She’s the reason I’m here. I was at home, ready to rot on the couch with leftover Chinese takeout when she called. There was this party, and Ethan, her cheating, pill-popping sometimes-boyfriend couldn’t make it. Would I go with her?
No.
Didn’t I remember that time she drove me to the airport at 4 a.m? In a snowstorm? After my dad had a heart attack?
Goddammit. Let me find my pants.
We’re in the Uber before I ask where we’re going. Fucking Festus. An hour away. For some dude from grad school? Friendship is such a racket sometimes.
The house looks like a Cracker Barrel. Maybe it’s the oversized rocking chair on the porch. Maybe it’s my complete disinterest in being there. But now I’m craving pancakes.
Anthropology Dan, as I take to calling him, kisses Liz on the cheek when we walk in. He says Annie’s around. I see her immediately. The short blonde hair, the smile, the freckle at the corner of her mouth are magnetic as ever. We met in Freshman Lit, broke up in her empty apartment at the end of junior year. It didn’t go well. Hundreds of phone calls. Late-night drives by her parents’ house. Grief, I called it. The police had another word: harassment.
We haven’t talked since, and we’re not about to start. I pull Liz away from Anthropology Dan and gesture to Annie, mouth “ex, college” like a game show contestant with fifty grand on the line. Liz grabs my elbow, her face turns this sickly green. But I don’t have time for that.
I grab the bottle of white wine with a screw top from an ice bucket on the living room table, then push past the line for the bathroom. Bottle open. Glug. Glug. Better? Not in the slightest.
Knocks. Liz.
Annie’s voice. Fuckfuckfuck.
I open the window and pray my ass doesn’t get stuck. I have one leg draped against the vinyl siding when the alarm goes off. No turning back now. I climb the rest of the way, rolling to protect the wine when I tumble into the lawn.
I stand and dust myself off. Liz sprints out the front door. Sirens wail in the distance. I uncap the wine, sip, toss it into a bush, and just start walking.
Nate Butchli is a writer from St. Louis, Missouri. This is his first publication.