Chapter 7
Today marks day seven in Boston, and I think the universe is sending me a sign that I shouldn’t be here. Specifically, the voices floating in through my open window. It’s a beautiful, cool evening, so evidently everyone in the building has their windows open.
Emma: I stg something is going on in Harrison’s apartment
Emma: Stephanie is mad about something. I can hear raised voices through the window
Jo responds immediately, in typical Jo fashion.
Jo: i know i cant hear it but i’m 99% sure theyre just having sex
Emma: I know I’m a virgin but I promise I can tell the difference between yells of anger and yells of ecstasy
Emma: Do you and Macy have raised-voice existential conversations about life choices while you’re hooking up
Jo: i cannot believe you just referred to me making love to my partner as “hooking up”
“Oh, please,” Stephanie says. They must’ve moved closer to the open window. “Grow up. Or better yet, grow a pair.”
“That’s immature.” Harrison’s voice isn’t as loud as his girlfriend’s, but it’s plenty clear.
Emma: Stephanie just told him he needs to grow up
Jo: great. so do you. smh
Emma: Girl I’m being so serious right now this sounds like a serious argument
Emma: I think I should close my windows
Jo: DO NOT DO THAT
Jo: if you argue near an open window you lose your right to privacy.
“And you know what else?” Stephanie says. I can hear stomping above my head. “It isn’t healthy for you—” The words become garbled for a few moments before she stomps back toward the window. “—entirely your responsibility.”
“I don’t have any siblings.”
“Even still. Your mom can’t be your only priority.”
Emma: she’s complaining about Harrison’s mom being his only priority
Jo: tea
Two sets of footsteps make their way farther into the apartment, and the argument becomes difficult to hear. I only catch a few words: Priority. Thoughtless. Emotionally unavailable.
Then:
Emma.
I jump up and run to the window, shamelessly pressing my ear to the screen. A cool breeze blows dust directly into my eyeball.
Harrison’s voice is softer, but a few words sneak through. Something something “friends” something something “college” something something “it’s complicated.”
Emma: THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT ME
Jo: ?????-?????-
“You have to make a choice!” Stephanie half shouts. I can hear heated emotion in her voice.
“I want you to be happy!” Harrison says. “I just want everyone to be happy.”
“Harrison,” she says, quieter now. “You’re being insane.”
More footsteps, and the voices become muffled again.
Emma: she says he’s insane
Jo: !!!!????
Emma: I know. Idk what she means though
Emma: I can’t hear all of the conversation
Something something “choice” something something (my face is pressed so hard against the screen I can feel the indents of tiny gridlines forming on my face) something something “Is this really the decision you want to make?”
“I have made my choice, Stephanie. Really.”
Her laugh floats all the way down to my ear. “Yeah, apparently.”
Emma: He made a decision that she’s pissed about
Jo: girlllll
There are footsteps, and then I can’t hear anything else except mumbles through my ceiling.
That goes on for another five minutes, and I think the conversation may have calmed down or switched directions, but then a door slams. Stephanie exits our building, and I lurch back into the shadows as she gets into her car and drives away.
I swear she makes eye contact with me as she pulls out of her parking spot, but I must be imagining it.
Emma: Update she left
Emma: What do I do
Jo: nothing dumbass
I don’t respond.
Jo: i stg
Jo: you’re about to do something dumb arent you
Do better. Do better. Do better.
I open my text thread with Harrison and type out a message.
Emma: Do you need wine
Emma: Because I have TWO bottles of $6 wine in my kitchen right now and I would be happy to donate them to the cause
I may not be responsible for whatever just happened upstairs, but if my goal is to generally Do Better and make him feel less upset or angry or depressed or whatever he is, then that should be applicable in all situations, right?
Because the thought of him sitting upstairs alone and probably sad makes me want to—
Well, it makes me want to send poorly thought-out text messages about a situation I have absolutely no business being involved in.
Harrison: bring both please
To avoid screaming, I instead channel my energy into jumping up and down on my air mattress, which is a rather lackluster experience because it immediately starts losing air, and I’m essentially just jumping up and down on solid linoleum flooring, and then I get embarrassed about how strongly I’m reacting to a three-word text, and so I take a deep breath and slowly walk toward the kitchen with a bland expression on my face, acting cool, calm, and collected like the mature adult I am.
I am upstairs with two bottles of wine within sixty seconds.
One of my most endearing (annoying? No, endearing) traits in college was that I always used to knock on Harrison’s door with the classic little jingle: buh buh buhbuh buh. I only give it a second of thought before raising my hand to the door. Buh buh buhbuh buh.
Harrison opens within a few seconds. There’s a tight look on his face, his jaw tense, and his eyes covered in spectacles he didn’t wear in college, which makes me feel a little bit ill because you should know things about your friends like whether they wear glasses, except we’re not friends anymore because I didn’t speak to him for five years, so I didn’t know he had any vision problems.
“Hey,” he says, his voice raspy in a way that is undeniably sexy, in a totally objective sense—
No. You’re here to be a good friend. Your mind is impenetrable. Just like your vagina.
Ha, Cobalt says in the back of my mind.
At the same moment, I hold out both wine bottles and say “Enjoy!” while Harrison opens the door to let me inside. We both freeze, and his ears immediately turn pink.[*1]
“Oh,” I say. “Oh.”
“Oh, I thought—” he says, blinking rapidly. “Yes, thank you for dropping off the wine.”
Mr. Silent Treatment wanted to drink with me? Is my attempt to Do Better actually working?
He holds out his hands for the wine, and I jerk the bottles out of his reach. “Absolutely not. You’re not getting drunk alone.”
“I certainly can if I want to,” he says. “I’m thrilled about the prospect of drinking alone.”
He was the one who opened the door to me first, and we both know it, so I chuckle, and the tiniest hint of a dimple appears in response. I raise the bottles above my head, and he raises an eyebrow, as if to say, You know I’m taller than you, right?
“Fine,” he says, turning around and walking through the door. He doesn’t look back, but I follow him inside anyway, closing the door behind me.
I reinforce my impenetrable mental blockade as I take in his Extremely Adult Apartment.
It’s filled with dark wood furniture—a small dining table, a matching coffee table and TV stand, and oh, the bookshelves!
—and there’s a small sectional with startlingly plush-looking cushions covered in a deep navy fabric.
There are tasteful pops of color—a maroon rug covers a good chunk of the living room, and he has off-white throw pillows with thin decorative stripes stitched in forest green.
And, as if everything else weren’t already adult enough, there’s framed artwork (yes, frames—not posters) hanging on every wall.
I make a mental note to never invite Harrison into my apartment. Certainly not until I get a real bed.
Or, like, a sofa. Or whatever.
“So, uh…,” I say, stumbling through my mental Rolodex of words, “is everything okay?”
It takes him a moment to answer, because he gets distracted as he tries to use a corkscrew on a screw-off top. Apparently, we are in different wine-purchasing brackets.
“Did she look mad when she left?” he asks.
I debate lying, but if he’s asking, he must already assume that I saw her. “Yeah, she did. Maybe I was just projecting because of all the arguing, but she looked tense.”
Harrison’s brows furrow. “Arguing?”
“Were you two not arguing about something?”
His brows furrow even more. “You gathered that just from her speed walking to her car?”
“Oh—uh…” I nod down toward the window. “Open windows. Plus, the floors aren’t super soundproof. Can’t hear individual words but can definitely tell a muffled angry tone from a muffled normal tone.”
“Oh,” he says, considering. After a few moments of thought, he shakes it off and opens a cabinet door.
When he turns back around, he’s holding two mugs, and my heart breaks a little bit.
Back when we were in college, we exclusively drank out of mugs.
Wine, water, coffee, tea, juice, cocktails.
Everything. Once we moved off campus, Jo and I had a tiny kitchen with extremely limited shelf space, and wineglasses weren’t a priority item.
Harrison’s kitchen was larger than ours, and I’m sure he could’ve afforded wineglasses, but when I was over, it was always mugs, for all liquids, for all hours of the day.
His designated mug was navy blue, and when you put a hot liquid in it, ocean waves appeared.
My designated mug at his apartment said Someone in Jamaica Plain loves you!
, which we found at a thrift store. We didn’t know anyone who lived in Jamaica Plain at the time, since that was on the other side of Boston, but coincidentally, that’s where we both now live.
He puts the mugs down on the counter. One is a brand-new-looking piece that almost certainly matches the rest of his dinnerware. The other is a beat-up piece of junk that, in faded letters, reads Someone in Jamaica Plain loves you!
He pours wine into both mugs as if by habit. As if he isn’t even aware of what he’s doing, because it’s so ingrained. That, maybe, is the most painful part of this moment.
He’s just finished pouring the second glass when a shrill, squeaking noise comes from the bedroom.
I huff a laugh. “That sounds like a guinea pig.”