Dylan likes to wear black on black, he says it reminds him of his New York roots, and I don’t oppose this idea at all. He takes my carry-on and I follow him through the back gate to his apartment, watching the sun bake his shoulder blades underneath that black tee. The heat is thick and boiling here, and I say, “Is it always this hot?” but he doesn’t hear me.

I flew across the country to visit him for a weekend, just a pop-in before a work thing in San Diego. I figured one night was better than no night. The last time I’d seen him was maybe three months prior on his last night living in New York City. Alcohol blots out everything except blurry images of short cab rides and kisses in the dark. Los Angeles has since ripped him from me and planted him somewhere in “The Valley” where condos exist and his career goals are accessible. Not to mention, breakfast burritos are only $7 there. My plan was simple: land in LA, spend the night together, leave for my conference the next day. I was going to take every minute I could get with him.

I’d seen his room a million times before through the phone, in varying degrees of pixelation, but being here now feels like visiting the set of my favorite show. It’s familiar and new all at the same time. I take in everything I can’t via FaceTime: the hardwood musk, the buzzing AC, the cool feel of his sheets. He drops my suitcase by the bed and steps right into a kiss, his gaze just as solid and direct as the LA sun. I’d been thinking about this for weeks, letting myself fill up with anticipation for it on the plane ride over. Feeling high, 30,000 feet up in the air and not coming down.

In my world, it goes like this: wake up every morning to his text and try not to count how many days in a row it’s been. G-chat about nothing and everything in between busy moments at work and remind myself it’s okay if we don’t really talk much today. Temper my excitement before picking up his evening call and wonder if it’s really excitement that I feel or just relief. At first there wasn’t any counting. No mathematics involved, no time zone conversions, no piecing two and two together to get five and telling myself that this is a fact that I don’t need to understand right now. All of that changed when @mimichelle97 accidentally ‘liked’ a photo of mine from 87 weeks ago. Just a slip of the thumb, perhaps Instagram’s interface isn’t the most forgiving to lurkers. But still, I hate her for it.

Now my world is full of overanalyzing social media behaviors and constantly erasing “@mimichelle97” from my search history. I’ve looked at her profile enough times to have it memorized: Sunset photos and flash-photo group shots. Downtown LA and Venice Beach thrift shopping. Sunflower dress with platform leather sandals. Cat. Juul pod. Chipped metallic blue nail polish. I feel like a stalker every time, but maybe I wouldn’t have gone super-sleuth if he hadn’t said he didn’t “know a Michelle” at first.

I told him, “You follow her.”

And his response was, “Oh! I know who you’re talking about now,” and I tried not to let my stomach drop 30,000 feet. He explained to me that she’s his new coworker who he’s “adopted” into his friend group.

“She just moved to LA and is already the most granola chick in Van Nuys,” he laughed to me on his way home one night. “Vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free. She won’t even eat gummy bears because apparently they’re not vegetarian?”

“Does she wear Tevas unironically, too?” I tried joking along.

“No, but she smudges.”

“Smudges?”

“You know, like saging. Like getting rid of ‘bad energy’ or whatever.”

I said, “I can just picture her so clearly right now.”

He laughed, and I tried not to spiral into asking myself why, if she’s just a friend, she feels the need to watch my Instagram stories every now and then. But I guess he sensed it, because he asked what’s on my mind.

In the din of the whizzing cars on his end of the call and my stale, stagnant room, I confessed that I felt insecure about her.

He replied with, “Charlotte, we’re just friends. I would never lie to you, I swear.” And that was enough for me in that moment.

Now we’re lying in his bed with my suitcase on the ground and his fingers tracing circles down my back, my favorite bra lost somewhere in these sheets.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says, soft and slow, brushing my hair behind my ear.

“You are?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Even for just one night?”

He does a little shrug. “Probably would’ve made more sense to come in another weekend when you can stay longer.”

I don’t know what to say here except maybe, “It feels worth it to me.”

He responds by kissing me.

I lay my head down on his chest and say, “I love these freckles,” but the moment I say it, I realize I mean something else. Constellations of little brown patches scattered over him where the sun touched the harshest. Maybe I don’t really love the freckles; maybe I just love that they’re a part of him and that I love whatever parts there are of him.

Long pause, he doesn’t say anything. I stop tracing the freckles on his chest and just wait for a response, but really, there is none. He just looks at me and, “Yeah.” His mouth — a hard, straight line.

I mark the moment down as a loss. Underline, underline, underline. Clench my throat, tighten the leash, I won’t say I love anything else about him unless he says it, too.

His phone buzzes on the nightstand, and he’s quick to check it. He scrolls for a second, the blue light illuminating his face. I wish I could zoom into the reflection in his eyeballs and see what’s capturing his attention right now.

He drops his phone — face down — and pinches the bridge of his nose. “They’re trying to get me to go out.”

“Who’s they?”

“The group from work.”

My mind rips back to Michelle, the new, vegan coworker. “You don’t wanna go?”

“I don’t know. Might just stay in and Netflix something.”

“No, we should do something,” I say, rejecting the idea of wasting the night on his couch, sitting through another episode of Rick And Morty that I don’t get because I don’t watch.

His phone buzzes again and he checks, then turns to me, “So you wanna go out?”

“Yeah, let’s get out of the house.”

“Okay.” He sends a response, then says to me, “They wanna go out in WeHo,” and starts moving out from under me. But that’s not what I meant by let’s get out of this house.

—

Here’s what I’m wearing in anticipation of meeting the girl my boyfriend says is just his “friend:” heeled sandals (just one-inch thick, so it’s casual but still lengthening); a gold hair barrette that looks like either a precious family heirloom or a lucky thrift find (just her style, maybe she’ll notice it); that sleeveless, yellow dress I bought for this trip (just the right length, right above the knee with a little side slit, in case he’d forgotten how much he likes the way I look).

Dylan comes back, slick from his shower, and asks my opinion on which shirt. “The blue one fits better, but you look good in both,” I say.

He looks in the mirror and cocks his head to the side. “My friends say I look good in green.”

I laugh, “Which one of your bros has an opinion on how you dress?”

He chuckles and then peels it off and throws on the green tee. No answer.

—

Here’s what I ordered now that I’m out with his friends in West Hollywood and wondering why @mimichelle97 is nowhere to be found: a dirty martini, three olives. I second-guess my drink when the rest of his friends just want beers.

The bar we’re at is called Medium Jake’s and it’s a themed bar. You walk in, and at first it’s this tiny, little hallway with yellow sconces and vintage Playboy covers lining the walls. There’s a fridge, except it’s not really a fridge. It’s a doorway that you have to crouch through to get into the bar, and that’s where the party is.

Neon red and orange lights over a ‘70s living room scene made up of cliques of wicker chair furniture and tacky floral couches. There’s a tiki bar and actual porn playing on the old TV sets. I’m sure it’s a classic, but I don’t really feel like watching a woman deep throating when I’m only one drink in.

His friends are the unassuming type. Nice guys, until one of them says they’ve been avoiding this girl the whole week but might hit her up tonight.

“Is this the same girl from last weekend?” one of them asks. Before I can stop myself, I’m trying to recall whether or not Dylan went out last weekend, too.

“Yeah,” the guy smiles, but I don’t like the way he does it. Poor girl.

Some other girls from the office are here, too, and there seems to be an unofficial night-out dress code for them. It’s either a plunging or backless bodysuit with either frayed denim shorts or a pair of those soft, printed pants that somehow make your ass look more revealing than if you were actually just naked. And heeled booties. No open-toe.

I tried getting to know them, but it seems as if they gave up caring the moment I introduced myself. But that’s fine — they’re mostly just gossiping about the office anyway.

Dylan has stayed mostly silent. Mostly clutching his beer in one hand and standing with the other in his pocket. I want to reach out and touch him, just interact with him in some way, but that feels oddly too forced right now.

Someone suggests we move to the back patio, and I get hopeful that a change in scenery would also mean a change in tone when we get there. But it turns out to just be the same, except now I get to stare at fake grass under the yellow glow of string lights overhead.

Then someone squeals, someone gets up. Dylan’s head turns and his hand isn’t in his pocket anymore.

The gaggle of bodysuits rushes over to greet her, and I know who she is immediately. Small eyes. Ice-pick sharp cheekbones. Mouse brown hair. She side-hugs Dylan and looks at me as she does it. Dylan turns to me, his arm hovering over the small of her back. “This is Michelle.” Note how he avoided introducing me.

She waves. I feel so awkward, I wave back? I say, “Hi, I’m Dylan’s girlfriend,” and smile. And then remember, “My name’s Charlotte.”

She says, “Yeah, I know who you are from Instagram.” Okay.

We make room and she ends up sitting next to me. I feel that wave of anxiety wash over me, that cool feeling erupting up the back of my neck, tingling like menthol. I hate that feeling.

“So, you’re from New York,” she says. No drink. Shouldn’t she go get one?

“Yeah, well, I live there now. I’m from North Carolina, actually.”

“Oh, really?” she says. “What part?”

“Raleigh.”

“Oh, cool. I’ve only been to Wilmington.”

“Oh,” I say. “I’ve never been there.” And the conversation is dead.

Dylan points to us, “I’m gonna get another drink. Want anything?”

I ask for a margarita this time, and he points to her. She asks for the same, and as he leaves to go get the drinks, I think about how he only has two hands.

“So, what do you do,” she asks.

“I’m a strategy consultant.”

“What does that mean?” Uh.

I say maybe a little too slowly or hesitantly, “I help companies make decisions.”

“Oh, cool. So, like a confidante, or like a —”

“Consultant.”

“Consultant.”

Idiot. There’s a pause. Then I ask, “What do you do?” Like I don’t already know.

“I work with Dylan and them as an executive assistant — it’s my first real job! It’s a small team, so I got to know everyone super well, super quick.”

“Oh, no way, I didn’t know that,” I lie. I look down at my empty drink and ask myself how many times she and I have said, “Oh,” in this conversation alone.

Dylan makes it back, holding our twin margaritas, and I try ignoring the fact that he just paid for her drink.

Michelle whips out her phone with Venmo ready to go and asks how much it was, but he tells her to just get his next one. I take a sip, wincing at the salt and wiping the drip from my cold glass off my thigh. Trying not to look like I’m listening in.

Then she turns back to me like she actually wants to keep this conversation going and offers up, “But what I eventually wanna do is join the Peace Corp.” Of course you do. Of course you do of course you do of courseoi you dfuckin gdo. She’s so fucking thin. She flings her hair over her shoulders and slumps forward with her elbows on her knees so that her collarbones stick out like the Grand Canyon. She touches it. Metallic blue nail polish running down the length of her frail chicken bone, and now all I’m thinking about are chicken bones and how maybe he thinks her chicken bones are sexy.

One of the guys comes by with a tray of whiskey shots, and thank god for him. I take it like medicine.

By the end of my drink, I’ve gotten to know the Bodysuits better, thanks to Michelle, I’ll admit. They’re all overworked and have seemed to bond over their collective misery and Sundays spent at the Grove.

The shopping plaza isn’t really Michelle’s “vibe” though. Too manicured. @mimichelle97 prefers the beach, and even though I don’t live here, I find myself agreeing with an impassioned, “Yeah, totally! Plus, fuck capitalism.”

Michelle starts clapping and screams, “Yesssss! Fuck capitalism!” I can see the drunk on her, like a veil, the way she moves like she’s underwater, all sluggish and clumsy. But the girl in me is flattered by her response. Some sort of allyship.

One of the girls pitches to the group that we move to another bar. Dylan is quick to reject the idea, saying we’re already having such a good time at Medium Jake’s. But they have frozen margs at the other one, she says, and suddenly we’re all torn between squatting in the best table setup at Medium Jake’s and making a mass exodus in the name of alcoholic slushies.

Dylan holds up a finger, and everyone watches as that same hand reaches into his pocket and fishes out a quarter. “Let The Coin determine our destiny,” he says and the group laughs.

“Heads: We stay. Tails: We go.”

He flings the quarter in the air but misses it on its way down. As he reaches to grab it off the ground, he covers his eyes with his other hand, as if to join us in not knowing which side it landed on yet. He slaps it on the table.

“Heads!”

“I swear, that coin is only ever in your favor,” the girls huff.

As half of the group groans, I stare at the coin on the table. George Washington’s silver bald head with a slash of metallic blue nail polish over top. I glance at Michelle’s fingers, cross-referencing the colors, but everything is too blurry and chaotic to zero in on her tiny ass fingernails right now.

I need to go to the restroom. I stand up and that’s when I realize how drunk I really am. I head inside and hit a wall of body heat and obscure indie-techno music — is that Animal Collective? The line for the bathroom wraps around the corner, and I get in behind a 10-foot-something girl wearing a halter top and a rainbow snakeskin miniskirt. I miss New York.

Honestly, I don’t actually have to pee. Just wanted to get away for a moment before I vomit out my drunk insecurities. She smells like fucking Victoria’s Secret PINK body spray. Like that kind with the curlicue A Moment in Paris frou-frou label and silver glitter flecks that would 100% trigger contact dermatitis. Fuck!

I want to show her my best self, but I am my drunk self, and my drunk self is not my best self. So I’m trying to sober up in a restroom line the length of California.

Fuck California. The sun is too bright, the people are too vegan, and the bars are too performative. Give me a simple dive bar with the sticky bar top and questionable restrooms. Hell, gimme a sign out front that just lights up the word “BAR.” People would get the hint. None of this speakeasy, ‘70s porno-themed nonsense. Medium Jake’s, who the fuck is Jake and why is he only medium?

“Oh my god, the line is that long?” Michelle comes into view, skinny chicken bones and all. “I think it’s a one-stall situation,” I say, standing up straight from the wall. “Get in line with me.” And oh my god, why did I just invite her?

“There’s so many people here.”

“Yeah, is it normally this crowded?”

“Oh, I mean this city in general. There’s so many people in LA.”

I snort, “You should see New York.”

“I’ve never been!”

“You should go. It’s fun.” Why do I just keep saying things I don’t mean?

She looks ahead at the other women in line — their tight dresses and long hair and mini purses and platform shoes and smartphone screens as they try to pass the time with their Instagram newsfeeds. “Everyone here is so preoccupied with how they look, sometimes I get tricked into believing that I need to get lip fillers and start using hashtags, too.”

“Again, you should try New York. It’s fun.” Not really!

She pulls out her phone and it lights up with a text:

Having fun?

Then my eyes zero in on the sender: Dylan. I feel the panic rise up behind my ears. I check the phone in my hand, and no text from him. Why the fuck is he texting her?

She quickly puts the phone away and crosses her arms. “Sorry, I’m just kind of having a weird night.”

I lean in a little. “Yeah? Why? Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just —“ she stops herself short and looks up. Glassy eyes. Then, “Do you ever get insecure?” What kind of fucking question is that?

I want to lie and say no, but it has to sound believable, so I say, “Sometimes,” and then I stand up a little straighter, even if the mixed liquor in my system challenges me to. “I used to be really insecure when I was, like, 22, working my first job,” I know what I’m doing here. “I used to go out in, like, a skirt and heels, no matter what the weather was like, and flirt with any guy who’d talk to me, and then wake up the next morning, and just feel like absolute shit because I didn’t know where I was going in life.” I want her to feel like shit. “I had no drive, no ambition, really, except for some unrealistic, far off dream that I had claimed as mine just because I thought it sounded cool and I was a relentless people-pleaser.” I’m rambling, but hopefully it’s working.

“Did you ever get out of that phase?”

Fuck you, of course I did. “Yeah, that phase didn’t last long. I grew up and realized that my actions actually have consequences that affect other people.”

She nods and looks into her drink that’s just ice water and maybe a drop of tequila now. I look off, out at the bar, and add softly, “LA isn’t everything. New York’s not everything.”

She interrupts me, “What is, then?”

I pause and give it a moment. And then I squint my eyes and sneer at her so that she knows whatever I’m about to say next is really fucking profound and important and wise. “Authenticity.”

She blinks slowly, the whiskey shots drying out her contacts. “Yeah, you don’t get much of that here.”

“Yep.”

“But thank god for Dylan, though,” she says, and I swear, I felt my ears pop. She goes, “He’s like my only friend friend, and I’ve been here for over a month now. It’s hard making friends in a new city.” What the fuck is a friend friend?

I take a deep breath. “You just have to really branch out, and not put all your eggs in one basket.”

“Yeah, it’s just hard. I’m, like,” she shifts her weight to her other leg, “really shy.”

Fuck you!!!

It’s my turn for the restroom, but I still don’t really have to pee, so I offer up my turn to her instead.

She gladly accepts but then turns into me and asks over the blaring music, “Actually, will you go with me?” What’s this with women and communal peeing?

“Okay,” I head in and it’s like we’re suddenly Mother and Daughter now, which is better than Girlfriend and Other Woman, I guess. She trusts me. Feels a womanly bond with me (“Fuck capitalism!”) and wants my actual presence for her pee.

Inside the restroom is a shit-ton of graffiti and one neon red light overhead to see it all with. I start fixing my hair in the mirror as @mimichelle97 hover-pees.

“I’m really glad I met you tonight,” she says with the sound of her piss just searing through the air.

“Yeah, girl, me, too,” I beam, and I hate myself.

“We should do another shot.”

“Yeah, definitely.”

Black out.

—

Regaining consciousness, we’re standing outside the bar now. Apparently they close at 2 a.m. here, which is fine, because for me it’s really 5 a.m and I’m ready to call it a night. The Bodysuits have mostly gone home now while the rest of us are out here on the curb, watching people call Ubers and generally waste time being drunk and outside. I find Dylan’s arm and lace my fingers with his while he chats with the bouncer. I want to cut to the moment when we’re back home, just me and him, sobering up underneath the covers.

“I have to pee.” I look over my shoulder and there’s Michelle, shivering in the early morning chill.

“Again?” I ask.

“I broke the seal.”

“I think the seal is just a mental thing.”

“Well, I still have to pee and they won’t let me back in,” she whines. I feel my eyes dart around. Is this the price I pay for having supervised her last pee? Am I her urine guardian now?

“I’m gonna go find somewhere to pee,” she says and starts walking away, as if Downtown LA is a safe haven for young women to drunkenly stumble around in at two in the morning.

I go after her. “Maybe there’s a CVS open.”

“Or a bush.”

“Okay, that’s our last resort.”

We’re half a block down when Dylan calls us back. “After party across the street!” he shouts at us, and my first thought is yes, a toilet.

Getting into the building feels like going on a school field trip. A group of maybe 20 of us have followed the bouncer across the street into one of those luxury apartment buildings with the mirrored lobby and gold leaf curlicue. Tacky, but you know they pay good money to live here. And I say they loosely, because I don’t even know whose apartment we’re going into. We take turns stepping into the elevator, packing ourselves in tight like sardines, and ride it a couple dozen floors up.

Inside the apartment, it’s all white everything with big, colorful art on the walls and fragile glass furniture that sends my anxiety into a spiral. Way too many people here for there not to be an accident — but I guess that’s just how rich they are. They don’t care.

Immediately, Michelle finds the bathroom and pulls me in by the wrist. Never thought I’d become her go-to pee buddy. While she’s finishing up and ripping off yards of toilet paper, she says, “I haven’t been this drunk in a long time.”

“Yeah? When was the last time you got drunk?”

“Last weekend, maybe? There weren't as many people here either.”

“Wait, this is a regular thing?”

“Sometimes. I didn’t think we were gonna go here tonight though. This is Jake’s apartment.”

“Like, Medium Jake Jake?”

“Yeah, Dylan’s tight with him." She’s washing her hands now. “You didn’t know?”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” I lie. “So wait, how often do you guys go to this apartment?”

She shrugs, “Whenever he’s hosting after Medium Jake’s closes, I guess?”

“Is that often?”

“Define often,” she says with a smirk. I want to smack her.

Someone pounds on the door and Michelle opens it just a crack. A hand sticks in with a little film canister, jostling it. Her face lights up and she opens the door to let Dylan and the bouncer in. Immediately she’s given the film canister and a little paper roll to snort with. When she’s done, the bouncer offers it to me with his eyebrows raised. I’ve never met the guy, I’m still not even meeting him, but here he is, offering me a bump. I decline. My reality is already distorted enough.

“Do you want a drink?” Dylan asks and I follow him out into the kitchen for a sweating can of some IPA I’d never heard of. He takes me to the living room to see the view. We’re not that far up but I can still see miles out. Black buildings with the hills in the back and twinkling lights, like I’m watching B-roll from The Hills or some shit. This is what he gets to see every night. Or almost every weekend, according to Michelle. This exact view, from behind the floor-to-ceiling windows with the white couches behind us and expensive beer in our hands and blow in our systems. “Isn’t this a sick view?” he says, but now my eyes have adjusted to looking at our reflection in the glass. Now it just looks like a poorly superimposed image of LA and two people who don’t belong. Or at least I don’t.

Michelle comes skipping in, feeling better now that her bladder is empty. High on coke. She spins around in her red floral dress and I watch as the colors blur and blend together. Delicate and special like hand-blown glass. I try not to admit that she makes me want to start dressing like this or even dieting to get frail-thin like her. I whip out my phone and start typing up a message to my group chat.

Guys, i feel like such a bad femininst for even tHINKING this but shes kinda ugly if u keep lookign at her

I think doing that was supposed to make me feel better, but it didn’t. I try downing my beer.

From the couch, I have a great view of Dylan and the bouncer chatting with some other dudes in the kitchen. I don’t really get to see this anymore, him from across the room. I only ever see him from the waist up, just a bunch of pixels on the screen. He looks over and gives me a knowing nod and wink. I hold onto that memory, hoping I can remember it this vividly when I leave tomorrow.

Michelle plops down next to me on the couch. I realize that it’s just the three of us here amongst these randos. No Bodysuits, none of the other guys from the office either. “Where did everyone else go?” I ask.

“What? Oh, they don’t usually come to the after party.”

I feel a pang in my stomach. “Oh, so it’s just you and Dylan that do.”

She pauses. “Well, yeah, and also Axel.” She motions to the bouncer. Right. Also Axel.

I check my phone, wondering why I haven’t gotten a reply yet, even though it is nearly 7 a.m. over there. Then I realize I never sent that message to my friends. I sent it to Dylan instead. Instinctively, I jerk my head over to her, alert and staccato-like like a city pigeon. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Michelle catches on, "What’s wrong?”

“I, uh, I sent a message to Dylan that was supposed to go to my friends.”

“Is it a bad message?”

“Well, it’s a message I don’t want him to see.” She looks concerned, so I continue with, “I would just be, like, showing him all my cards if he read it.”

“Ohh, gotcha. You want me to try to get his phone?”

“What, how?”

“Well, you see, I can do it, but you can’t because you’re his girlfriend. It would just be too obvious and suspicious.”

“Okay.”

“But if I did it, it would just be like whatever.”

“I guess?”

“Let me try,” she says and I watch her sail across the room and exchange some words with him. He glances at me, then back at her, then reaches into his pocket to fish it out. She comes back very proud and triumphant. “I told him our phones were dead and I needed to text my roommate to let her know I’m still out.”

“Genius.” Then she shields me as I try to unlock his phone. “Fuck, passcode.”

“It’s 1-3-3-7.”

“How the fuck do you know that?”

“I’m telling you! Non-girlfriend perks.” What other fucking perks does she have? As I go in to delete it, I try forgiving him for sharing with her his passcode while also trying to sneak a glance at their message thread, but then she says, “Hurry!”

I hand it back so she can text her roommate, just to go with the story, and she says, ‘Oh, and pro tip: Make sure you delete it from his laptop, too.”

“Thanks. Secret agent shit.”

“I know a thing or two. I used to help my brother cheat.”

I guess I audibly gasp, because then she says “Relax! His girlfriend was a slut anyway and deserved to get cheated on.”

“I don’t know if anyone deserves to get cheated on.”

“Well, she definitely did.” And then she’s off to hand his phone back.

I’m too drunk to process this all right now. I’m too exhausted to get into it. I just want to go home — home home. Not his bed, not his apartment. Not him. I want to be back in New York and, for the first time, far away from him and all of this.

I know it doesn’t do me any favors to say this, but I don’t think he would give an honest-to-god fuck if I did leave anyway. Somehow, it feels good to admit that, like exhaling for the first time in a while. And then I feel my throat clench.

I go to the bathroom. Figure that’s the only place I can really be by myself. I could call myself an Uber, but I don’t have his apartment keys — plus, I’d have to explain to him why I’m leaving early. Again, not like he would really care anyway.

In the bathroom, I lean back against the sink, careful not to catch my reflection in the mirror. I hate how I look when I’m sad — the tight eyes, the pale lips, the empty stare that not even I can take seriously. Like I can never believe my own emotions, even though I’m the one feeling them. Am I overreacting? Am I just perceiving this all wrong? I can’t seem to trust my own reality anymore.

Friends who don’t know enough of my situation tell me that “open and honest communication is key,” as if I’ve never heard that before. I don’t remember the last time I openly told him how I was feeling, as if to shield him from my emotions. From the gravity of it, from pressuring him to step up. Actually more like shielding my emotions from his judgment, denial, dismissal — all of which peck at my heart like rabid crows.

There’s a knock on the door. I say, “Just a second!” and turn to the mirror, checking if I’m presentable enough to leave the bathroom. And when I do, for just a second, I hope that it’s Dylan waiting on the other side.

It’s not.

I’m sobering up quickly as I round the corner into the little kitchen, scanning the room for him. He’s pressed up against the counter, chatting with a guy I hadn’t noticed until just now. His eyes follow me as I go up to stand beside him, and for a second, I don’t feel like me, but rather some random girl at the party.

Then he faces me. I ask, “What time is it?” He checks his watch, but can’t hold his arm still enough to focus. I hold onto it and see.

“It’s 4:15,” I tell him. “I leave for San Diego tomorrow at noon.”

“Okay, just give me a minute,” he holds his hand up to my face, as if I’m nagging him, and I nearly swat it away.

“I just did a line,” he says.

“What?”

“I want to enjoy my high,” he says, a tinge of frustration escaping through his teeth.

“When did you do that?” I know this is a dumb question, but I can’t help but feel hurt somehow. Betrayal isn’t quite the word. But I do feel knocked off balance, knowing that we’re on two entirely different planes of reality right now. And like a kindergartener, I find myself upset because I wanted to be included. Not for the blow, but to have just been beside my long-distance boyfriend, at least.

“I’m gonna go tell Michelle we’re leaving.”

I find her smoking with some people out on the balcony. When I tell her we’re leaving, she immediately snuffs out her cigarette and follows me inside with a, “Oh, okay.” I’m sorry, was this an invite?

Immediately upon seeing her, Dylan opens the door for us to leave. Maybe she’s just gonna call an Uber and ask us to wait with her for it. Makes sense. Gotta make sure she gets home safely. In the lobby, she calls the car. It says it’s only five minutes away, so I hold off on calling ours, we can certainly wait five minutes.

Dylan plops down on one of the cushioned benches. “I have the spins,” he says. I offer him a water bottle that I took from the apartment. He shoos my hand away like it’s a fly.

I huff. “Alright.”

“What?” he hisses.

“You’re being attitudinal.”

Fucking Michelle juts in with, “He’s just not feeling good,” and I swear I could burn this place to the ground.

We sit in silence until the car arrives. I’m prepared to say goodbye, but then Dylan climbs into the car after her and gestures for me to follow.

“Wait, where is this going?” I ask, my voice drenched in confusion.

“His apartment,” she states, as if that was the plan all along.

“Michelle’s staying at the apartment?”

“Yeah, she always does,” Dylan says, then leans his head back and passes out in the middle seat.

She always does.

—

Dylan has sobered up enough to grab a pillow and a decorative throw from his bed for Michelle to sleep with on the couch. I watch and wrestle with myself over what it means that Michelle frequently sleeps over after a wild night out. Best case: My boyfriend is a kind, good man who offers up his couch to a friend in need. Worst case: He’s a cheating piece of shit.

He jumps into bed before I can even get changed. And with his back turned towards me, he says, “Do you mind if we just go to sleep? I’m dead.”

Yeah, I wasn’t really planning on fucking you tonight.

I wake up around 9. I’m not really rested, but I can’t stay asleep much longer. Dylan is a log next to me. I only know he’s alive from his laggy breathing.

I sit up in bed and list out my options. I can’t do anything in this room while he’s sleeping. And I certainly can’t do anything in the living room where Michelle is. I guess the only room I can really be alone in is the bathroom.

Everything that I had been feeling rushes to my face then and I turn away from him in case I wake him up. How many times have I escaped to the bathroom in the last 12 hours?

Even if nothing is happening between them, I have to call it for what it is. Rigid. And broken. How many times have I ignored my hurt and quieted my concerns just to cradle his ego? Love can bend over backwards a million times before you realize it’s been bent one too many times. I am so very tired and wrangled. Rung out so far beyond dry, you could start a fire with me.

I close the bathroom door and cry with the shower on.

—

He’s in the living room with Michelle when I get out. At this point, that doesn’t surprise me. She’s lying on the couch while he’s on the ottoman, shirtless and in his boxers. Sure. They’re talking about something that I don’t even have the curiosity to listen in on anymore.

When Michelle sees me, she asks if I want pancakes or breakfast burritos. To be honest, neither. I don’t really feel like third-wheeling my boyfriend and his sleepover buddy over a delightful spot of hangover brunch.

“Dylan is adamant about the breakfast burritos, but doesn’t a stack of gooey pancakes sound sooo good right now?” she squeaks.

I shrug.

Dylan says, “Wait. Let my lucky coin decide,” and runs past me to get his wallet.

“Is this the only way you make decisions anymore?” I ask when he gets back. Michelle laughs. I didn’t mean it as a joke.

“Heads: breakfast burritos. Tails: pancakes,” he declares, kneeling down at the coffee table. He flips it in the air and again, misses, letting it drop to the floor. He covers his eyes like he did at the bar and searches blindly for the coin before slapping it on the table. “Heads.”

I go back into his room and immediately start packing my things. It’s fine if I get to San Diego early. I’ll find a coffee shop, or a park, or something. Anything. Really. Anything is better than here. And if I want to, if I really need to, I can find another restroom to be alone in. Starbucks, Panera, wherever the fuck has a public restroom. I can book a hotel. I can be by myself. It’s better than here. Better than tiptoeing around in his space. Better than working overtime to soothe my anxieties over a relationship that has gotten me nowhere. Anywhere is better than here.

I push past them with my suitcase, their confused stares weighing heavy on my back.

Before I shut the door, I tell him, to both of their ugly faces, “It landed on tails. You rub your thumb to find the nail polish so that it’s always heads up. I saw. You’re a fucking liar.”