Minnesota Goodbyes

Entry #33

Clair smiling and laughing and saying "Nothing," to me over a mug of coffee. That's what my life has become. Stifling memory and crippling present. When did things stop being simple?

Because it had to have started before she died, right? Did it start when you met? Or when you fell asleep on her futon? Or when Lacy bursts into the room on a blustery Friday, dumping her backpack and coat onto the futon?

"C'mon, we're going out tonight. Nick got into Carlson!"

You blink, looking up from your computer screen. "What happened to CSE?"

"Where have you been, M.? He hates all of his engineering classes. He's been complaining about them all semester." Lacy tugs open the closet, thumbing through hangers of sparkly tops. "You like?"

Except for the cheetah print bandeau she's holding underneath, the shirt is completely sheer. "Yeah, but—"

Lacy rolls her eyes. "Clair's coming, so no moping."

"I wasn't moping. I was going to go either way."

Lacy's pause is just a beat too long. "Oh-kay." She draws out the word.

Your cheeks heat up, and you bite back a retort. (It'll be fine, you think. Still, irritation licks at your ribs, sloshes in your stomach. Burns hot and bright.)

"Why Carlson?" No one outside the business school likes the business school. It's known for spectacularly easy classes that are populated by, as Sam puts it, "douchebags and assholes."

Lacy shrugs. "Likes finance, apparently. Or marketing. Is financial marketing a thing?"

You join her at the closet, searching for the right dress. "I don't think so."

"Ah, well." She shrugs again, and pries a pair of jeans from pile of unwashed laundry, and that is how the night begins. Music and makeup and waiting. Always, always waiting.

But the waiting is a pleasure. It's full and sharpens everything. It brings a kind of animal awareness, a focus on your hands drawing a thin line across your eyelid, on the clink of your earrings. On your hummingbird heartbeat.

And then you are not waiting, and there is pleasure in that too.

You and Lacy race down the hallway, skidding in front of Sam and Jay's room, lungs heaving. They grin at the pair of you and together your group strolls over to Pio. (You still don't like that dorm and never will. There are no direct staircases anywhere, and there are rumors that it used to be an insane asylum, back when those were in vogue.)

But Nick has the biggest dorm room between the lot of you, so it's the best for pre-gaming. Besides, this is his celebration. A knock on the door (from childhood: Skunk in the barnyard. P.U.), the click of the lock, and you are given entrance.

The door locks behind you with a snick. Bottles of cheap liquor and cheap shot glasses and beer cans litter Nick's coffee table. Everyone lounges around it, and you imagine it as some perverse altar for just a second. The thought makes your lips quirk into a smile, which broadens as all of you are greeted with shouts (followed quickly by shushing, as though that could keep the CAs at bay.)

"Welcome to my humble abode!" Nick's eyes wander, unfocused enough that you can tell he's already drunk. "Hey." He points at a guy on the couch. "Get my buddies a shot, wouldya?"

Rising to the occasion, Sam lifts his voice and glass and toasts the room, "To the Dark Side." Nick grins and Lacy mutters under her breath ("Tell us how you really feel." She's too excited for Nick to be amused by jests at his expense), and the liquor burns deliciously.