Chapter Two

two

It’s only five minutes after 9:00 p.m., but the line for the women’s bathroom is already amusement park level long, stretching to the back of the bar and rounding a corner toward the emergency exit. If morale weren’t already low, it’d be in the shitter by now. Or at the very least, waiting in line for the shitter.

For a full verse and chorus of a song I haven’t heard since senior prom, I consider the men’s bathroom, which has no line. I could be in and out and back to the table before Kat even pays for our drinks, but not without risking the possibility of seeing a former lab partner pissing at the urinal. I opt to play it safe, stepping into line behind a chatty group of girls who are trying to do the math on the number of shots they’ve had so far. Young women in STEM, hard at work.

I look down at my phone, trying to seem busy in case anyone mistakes me for someone they want to talk to. I’ve had that annoying low storage notification for a week, and now seems like as good a time as any to clear out my camera roll. Somewhere between screenshots of takeout menus and duplicate pictures of lattes for the Sip social accounts, a new text pops up from my mom: a picture of my parents smiling on the beach with the text took this one earlier! wish you were here.

My breath sticks to the inside of my lungs as I zoom in on the sunset behind them. This is the first year I’ve opted out of our annual Thanksgiving Florida trip, and for what? A weekend of third wheeling? I’d be better off on the beach, letting Mom use up a full real estate commission to pay for my drinks.

By the time the line shifts up enough for me to enter the bathroom, I’ve cleared out nearly five hundred photos, most of my email inbox, and a handful of unrecognizable contacts. Even if the rest of the night is a wash, at least I did something productive. I pocket my phone as I pass through the swinging door, trying not to stare at Imani Reynolds from freshman biology, who is doubled over the sink crying, probably over the same guy she cried over in high school. Another medium-hot girl caught up in the drama of some crusty guy she grew up with. Now that’s a story I’ve heard a hundred times. I keep my head down until the last stall opens up, and I’ve hardly crouched over the toilet when a knock shakes the stall wall.

“Uh, occupied?” I say.

“No, over here.” A set of blue-painted fingernails wiggles beneath the side wall. “I’m out of toilet paper. Do you have any?”

I rip off more squares than anyone could possibly need and place them in the offending hand, then carry on with what I came here to do. When I go to wash my hands, crying Imani Reynolds is long gone, replaced with a short blonde in a black halter top and a pair of red corduroys stacked over Doc Martens. She’s scrubbing between her fingers, humming “Happy Birthday” under her breath. When she reaches for the soap, our eyes lock in the mirror, a spark of recognition dancing in her pale blue eyes.

“Murphy?”

My throat closes up. Am I allergic to forgetting people’s names? “I’m so sorry, you’re…?”

“Ellie?” There’s a quiet hope in her voice. I study her smile, her pale cheeks dotted with a spray of freckles. My brain starts to whir, placing her face in memories of art and gym class. Right. Ellie. I think she was a year or two older. She was ultra-quiet, usually rocking heavy eyeliner and brown hair down to her butt. Now, her white-blonde bangs barely skim her forehead, and her silver septum ring looks like it belonged there all along.

“Ellie. From art.” My eyes slip down to her blue fingernails. “And from the stall over.”

“Oh yeah, thanks for the toilet paper.” She laughs softly, and I hang on to the hint of a dimple on her left cheek. I don’t remember her having a dimple, but I guess I don’t remember her much at all. She was always a friend of convenience, someone I talked to if we had a class together but never saw outside of school.

“So where’d you end up after high school?” She asks, slouching out of the way of the sink so I can step up and wash my hands.

“Uh, here. I go to community college.” I aim my words toward the drain, praying they’ll rinse away. “But hopefully transferring to U of I next semester.”

“That’s where I go! Great school for softball.” She hesitates, then adds. “I mean, do you still play softball?”

“Not since I got injured junior year.”

“Oh.” Ellie winces. “My bad.”

“You’re fine,” I say. “College sports are tough anyway. It’s like, you dedicate your whole schedule to it and then you graduate and then what?” I look up from the sink, and Ellie blinks back at me, smiling politely, but without much recognition in her eyes. Wrong audience for this conversation, I guess. I try something else. “Do you still do art?”

“Yeah, I’ll graduate with an art degree this spring. What about you? What’s your major?”

“I’m just doing gen eds right now, but I do social media stuff for work, so I’m thinking maybe marketing.”

“Cool,” she says. “U of I is perfect for you, then.”

“Anything would be an upgrade from where I’m at.”

Ellie pulls a fistful of those scratchy brown paper towels from the dispenser and hands them off to me, her eyes flashing from my lips to my hips and back up again. It’s over so quickly that I nearly miss it. “I don’t know, community college seems to be treating you all right.”

“Not as well as U of I seems to be treating you.” A smile pulls at the corner of my lips, and when she meets my eyes again, she winks, sending me into a minor spiral. Is this flirting or just an overly friendly drunk bathroom moment? Either way, I don’t have much interest in loitering in here any longer than I already have. It smells like someone puked and rallied a little too early.

“Well, I should get back to my friend,” I say, tipping my head toward the door. “Kat Fleming? Do you know her? She was in my grade.”

Ellie’s laugh is louder this time, bouncier. “Yeah, we used to walk the mile together! Do you mind if I say hi?”

I shrug. “Sure. Our table is up near the front.”

“Daaaamn, you got a table?” Ellie crumples her paper towel and sets it on top of the overflowing trash can. “You’re lucky.”

“Do you want to tell your friends where you’re going?”

“Nah.” Her nose scrunches as she shakes her head, whipping her bangs back and forth. “I just came here with some AP art kids, but we’re not really close. Half of them never even showed up.” She picks a chip of blue nail polish off her thumb and flicks it onto the black-and-white tile floor. “They won’t miss me. Let’s go.”

With Ellie following close behind, I cut through the crowd shoulder first, avoiding a run-in with a former student teacher and my freshman year homecoming date. Memory lane is too crowded. It’d be better off as a one-way street.

Back at the table, Kat and Daniel are practically licking each other, so they don’t notice my return. “Hellooooooo.” My voice carries over whatever forgotten radio hit is currently shaking the walls, but it’s still not enough to pry them apart, so I wave my hands like I’m trying to startle off a wild animal. “Hey! Lovebirds! We have company!”

Daniel jolts back, nearly toppling off his barstool. “H-hey, welcome back,” he sputters, turning a pale shade of pink. Kat, on the other hand, looks a little proud of herself.

“Murph, I got you another…” She gestures toward what looks to be another vodka soda waiting at my seat, but her hand freezes in midair when she spots my new plus-one. “Wait.” Kat chews her cheek. “I’m so sorry. You look familiar.”

Ellie introduces herself the same way she did to me—wide-eyed and hoping to be remembered. Kat’s memory jogs quicker than mine did.

“Oh my god! Ellie from GYM!” Kat leaps off her stool and straight to Ellie’s side, grabbing her new-old friend’s forearm in a way that has me betting she finished her second round a little fast. “I looooooove your hair! And wait, don’t you go to U of I too? I just transferred there.”

“Yeah, I’m in the art school. You?”

“Hospitality management, music minor,” Kat rattles off. “Do you know Daniel? Honey, let Ellie have your seat.”

“I’m fine to stand,” Ellie insists. “You look familiar, Daniel. Are you an art major?”

He shakes his head. “Music ed. My roommate is, though. Josh Segal?”

“I love Josh!” Ellie presses her hand to her heart. “Wait. Didn’t he host that Halloween party where they had to call an ambulance?”

Kat howls with laughter. “Twice! We had to call an ambulance twice!” She holds up two fingers on one hand and smacks the table with the other, dislodging my cardboard wedge again. Dammit.

“Oh my God.” Ellie fans herself with her hand as she catches her breath. “That’s practically U of I lore now. Josh and I had a nine a.m. together the Monday after Halloweekend, and even Professor Howell was asking for details.”

“No way. You have Howell?” Kat draws a line through the air between herself and Daniel. “We met in Howell’s psych lecture.”

“I thought you met in Music History,” I interject. My one and only contribution, but Kat barely acknowledges it.

“I mean sure,” she says, “but technically we had psych together first. Hey Ellie, don’t you think Howell’s mole is, like, so distracting? I literally just want to….” Reaching over the table, Kat mimes plucking something off Daniel’s face, and the three of them launch right back into their laughing fit.

“I, uh. I’ll go look for another seat,” I say, but I don’t think anyone hears me over the U of I pep rally. I slink away with a huff, ducking between crowded tables and half-familiar faces in search of an empty barstool. How the hell did Daniel find one so quickly earlier? The place is packed. After a thorough search, I return with fractures of gossip from former classmates and some early predictions on who’s hooking up tonight, but no leads on additional seating. Which sucks for me, it turns out, because Daniel has taken my seat, Ellie has taken Daniel’s seat, and none of them seem the least bit bothered with where I went.

“I-L-L!” Kat shouts.

“I-N-I!” Ellie and Daniel echo back, and I rejoin the group just in time to see Kat hand my vodka soda off to Ellie before clunking her own drink against it.

“Hey, that’s mine.” I’m horrified to realize that the source of that whiny, childish voice is me . I close my mouth, but I can’t take back the words, and Kat’s eyes are already drilling through me, fully mortified.

“My fault,” Ellie says, holding the cup out to me with an apologetic smile. I can’t make myself accept it.

“I’ll just get you another one, Murph,” Daniel volunteers. He jumps to his feet, but he doesn’t take so much as a step before I lose it entirely.

“Murphy,” I snap. “My name is Murphy.” Apparently my filter is entirely off tonight. I want to say I regret it, but I don’t. He can’t call me Murph. He doesn’t know me like that.

Kat’s shooting daggers at me. “Murph. Don’t.” She sounds more like she’s scolding a dog than speaking to her best friend.

“And I want that one,” I continue, pointing to the sweaty drink that should’ve been mine, the one I’m still not taking from Ellie because it’s not really the point. “I want the one I was supposed to have.” I aim a pointed look toward Kat. “Like we planned.” I wish I’d stop talking. We could’ve had a seminormal night if I could’ve kept my dumb mouth shut. But there’s only so much sitting back and listening to your friends gush about the campus you should be living on, the parties you could’ve gone to, the things you might’ve known if you were smart enough to pass accounting on the first try.

Kat forces a soft, airy laugh, her eyes darting between Ellie and Daniel. “Murph, do you wanna maybe go to the bathroom with me?”

“No, Kat. I don’t.” I ball my hands into fists to try to stop them from trembling. “And I really don’t want to fight with you, so—”

“So maybe we should call it,” she finishes, her voice a shaky sigh as she slides off her barstool. “For tonight, you think? So we have time to cool off? I don’t wanna ruin things for tomorrow.”

I want to tell her that she’s already ruined tomorrow, and our belated twenty-first birthday celebration, and probably my chances of ever getting along with Daniel. But I know I’m to blame too. “Yeah,” I choke out, “you’re probably right.”

As Kat shoves an arm into her puffer coat, the tiniest smirk twitches at the corner of her lips. “I’m always right,” she says, tugging her zipper up to her chin. “Can’t remember a time I’ve been wrong.” While Kat makes the rest of her vodka soda disappear, Daniel and Ellie make small talk about some campus bar, and I make prolonged eye contact with the laces of my shoes. Guilt curdles with the vodka in my stomach. Even if I’m not the only one to blame for this bullshit night, I’d still rewind and try again if I could. I’d find a way to have a better attitude about all this. But it’s too late now.

“You want a ride home?” Kat offers, tipping her head toward Daniel.

“Nah,” I say, “I can walk.”

“You sure?” She doesn’t bother leaving a beat for me to answer before moving past it. “Get home safe then.” Kat squeezes my forearm, then wrangles me into a hug, once again smothering me in her red puffer coat. If anything, she squeezes me a little tighter than she did when she first arrived.

“You get home safe too,” I grumble into her shoulder. “Text me when you make it.”

Ellie and Kat make some vague plans to reconnect on campus, and I say goodbye to Daniel with an awkward and definitely forced side hug. He gives me some last-minute niceties that I certainly don’t deserve, and then, as quickly as they rolled in, they’re out the door. Kat Fleming, the center of my social life and my primary reason for staying in Geneva this weekend, is gone, leaving me to brave a bar full of our classmates who wouldn’t have known the difference if I never showed up tonight. Except for Ellie, of course, who is sitting across the table, fluffing her microbangs with a small, sorry smile. “You okay?” She asks.

“Yeah,” I say on instinct, but we both know it’s a lie. I feel rotten and rejected, like roadkill or the weird lumpy pumpkin no one brings home from the patch. “I guess I should probably head out too.”

Ellie dips her chin in a quick double nod. “I get it.” She bites her lip, and her gaze wanders away from mine and toward the bartender. “Or.”

“Or?” I repeat.

She paints her tongue over her lower lip, bites it again, then tips her head toward the bar. “We could grab one more drink. Maybe try to save a shitty night?”

My laugh is more of a grunt. “It might be past saving.”

There’s a flicker in Ellie’s eyes, a spark of a challenge. “Well,” she says, “only one way to find out.”