Chapter 24
It’s almost the end of the world.
I didn’t buy into the end-of-the-world nonsense the first time around, and I don’t buy into it now, but I am in college, and in college, the possible end of the world means one thing: an excuse to party.
Despite my efforts, I’m unable to dissuade an eager Helen from going to the End of the World party being thrown by one of the frats, so Helen, Kimiko, Alex, and I gather in Alex’s dorm at eleven and head over.
Kimiko’s dress is more mesh than anything, so all eyes turn to her the moment we walk through the door of the frat house. I look at Helen, who actually, visibly, gulps and says, “So many people—why did I think this was a good idea?”
I can’t blame her. Between the loud music, the students yelling to be heard over it, the combined smells of weed and perfume and sweat, and the disaster movie—The Day After Tomorrow—projected on the far wall, this party is an onslaught of overstimulation similar to—but also far worse than—the party I arrived at all those months ago.
Suddenly, I remember this party.
I came with Madison, Ellie, Helen, and Cat, and I ranted about how much I hated Jake as he and Madison reconciled under a glowing projection of Shaun of the Dead.
“We can always leave,” I tell Helen.
“I think I need a drink,” Helen mutters.
“Let’s go get you a drink,” Kimiko says, pulling Helen farther into the party with her.
“Kimiko—” I start to protest but cut myself off when I see how serious her face is.
“Trust me,” she implores, and, weirdly, I do.
And then it’s just me and Alex standing a few feet from the doorway. A group of kids come in and shove past us, pushing us farther into the room.
Things have been weird between us all week. Tense, but it’s an under-the-surface tension that makes me wonder if it’s all in my head—because surely things can’t still be weird between us because of mini-golf and my lie about the book club, of all things.
Adding to the confusion is the fact that we’ve been having even more sex than before, and it’s been strangely intense.
Not in a bad way—no complaints from my end—but there definitely seems to have been a shift.
The thought flits through my mind that it feels like he’s trying to prove something. But what, I don’t know.
“You want a drink?” he asks, but the idea of being drunk right now, when I’m on edge because of both Alex and Helen, sounds kind of terrible.
So I tell him no, I’m fine, and then there’s more silence, and just when I begin to feel like I might explode from the awkwardness of it all, another group walks in and crowds the area around us, pushing him into me.
“This isn’t really my scene,” he says against the backdrop of a group of frat guys across the room yelling, “Chug! Chug! Chug!”
“That’s too bad. I was just thinking that this is exactly my scene,” I remark dryly.
“Is that so?”
“Yep. Thinking I might do a keg stand just to get the party going.”
“Now, that, I’d like to see.” He laughs, and it almost feels as if the tension between us never existed.
I’m about to say I’ve changed my mind, that actually I’d love a drink, when all of a sudden Alex’s gaze shutters. I’m about to ask what’s wrong when I feel a tap on my shoulder.
“Joey? Can we talk for a second?”
I turn to find Ellie standing there.
I haven’t spoken with him since the altercation in the doorway of his dorm room.
I purposely—cowardly—skipped the class after Thanksgiving where his story was workshopped.
Helen gave me a full rundown, though, and assured me that it did not get a good response.
If I’m to believe her version of things, and I think I do, her own scathing critiques led the charge.
I did attend the next couple of classes, doing my best to pay Ellie no attention, and from what I could tell, he was doing the same. So it’s surprising to have him come up to me at a party, of all places.
I realize I’ve been silent just a touch too long. Ellie’s hopeful smile fades, replaced by a look of shame-filled awkwardness. I decide to take pity on him.
“Sure. You wanna go outside?”
He nods, and I tell him to go ahead. I turn to Alex and say, “I’m going to go talk to him for a few minutes. I’ll be back, okay?”
He stares at me, silent. Finally, he asks, “You’re leaving me for him?”
I open my mouth to object to the wording, but I don’t even know where it’s coming from, so I can’t begin to formulate a response.
“He’s just a guy from class,” I say carefully—not technically a lie, but also not not a lie. “I’ll be back,” I repeat.
I don’t wait long for an answer, though it’s long enough that I get the sense that one isn’t coming, before I follow Ellie through the crowded room and out the back door.
I glance over my shoulder at Alex once and see him looking after me, his expression unreadable. I resolve to have a serious conversation with him after the party’s over, because I really have no clue what has been going through his head for the past several days.
But first, I need to get some closure with Ellie.
When we’re finally alone together—as alone as one can be in the backyard of a frat house during a party—I wordlessly wait for him to explain himself.
“I know I’m probably the last person you want to talk to on what might be the last night of the world—I mean, it won’t be, I know that. I don’t want you to think I’m someone who believes the world is going to end tonight.”
“I’m surprised you care what I think about you,” I interject, a little meanly.
“Honestly, I’m starting to think maybe my problem is that I care too much what everyone thinks of me,” he says with an awkward, flat laugh as he rakes his fingers through his hair.
This self-deprecating confession, this nervous gesture, would probably be endearing if I weren’t still upset with him.
Because I am, I realize. I’m still so upset with him, and that might be a feeling I never quite escape. Because he’s not just some one-night stand who disappointed me. He’s my best friend of over a decade who unknowingly shattered every perception I had of him.
“So you care what people think of you—join the club. Is that all you wanted to say?”
I wait for an answer, and when one doesn’t come quickly, I turn to leave.
“I’m sorry,” he says finally, and when I turn back to him, he continues. “I shouldn’t have written about you. If it’s any consolation, I didn’t realize that would be the story she’d send.”
“So you admit it was about me.”
“Of course it was about you. I—I’ve never told anybody this, but I’ve always wanted to be a writer.
But I’m not particularly creative—I can’t do what you do and invent a new world layered with meaning and subtext.
” It takes me a moment to realize what he’s talking about.
The Shape of Water. A hysterical laugh nearly bubbles to the surface.
“So I mostly write from my own experiences. Problem is, I haven’t experienced much. ”
Now I actually do laugh, and his eyes light up.
He continues, “I always imagined I’d live this exciting life, or at least have…
I don’t know. Exciting thoughts, if that makes any sense and doesn’t make me sound like a pretentious loser.
That night was just—it was the most exciting thing to happen to me in a long time.
It was, like, straight out of a movie or a book or something.
Like it had to be written down. Written down, but probably kept to myself. ”
I smile at that last comment and nod. “I forgive you.”
He doesn’t bother to hide his surprise. “Really?”
“Sure.”
I’m not lying—I do forgive him for what he wrote.
It’s the bigger picture that I’m still struggling with, but that’s not his problem to deal with.
There’s nothing I can say or do that will pull a full, honest apology out of him.
He’ll never know what he once was to me, so he’ll never know the extent of his betrayal.
The truth is mine alone to process.
He holds his hand out for me to shake and says, “Friends?”
That’s when I realize it’s truly over for us.
In a perfect world, we could form a real friendship.
A friendship on an even footing, where one of us isn’t secretly pining after the other and hoping the relationship will change.
But the truth of it is, I think our relationship might have always relied on my feelings for Ellie for it to work.
Without them—I’m not sure what’s there. Especially now, when the history we share exists only in my memory.
But I put my hand in his anyway.
“Friends,” I say even as I accept that I will probably never talk to Ellie again.
“Can I ask you a favor?” he asks when I pull my hand back.
“A favor?” I repeat, surprised that he has the gall to follow an apology with a request for a favor. I clock his sheepish expression. Did he apologize just to cushion the blow of whatever he’s about to ask?
He must see how taken aback I am because he rushes to add, “I want to be clear that I meant every word I just said. I really am sorry, and I really do want to be friends.”
“Okay,” I say, and then I wait.
“I just… when you get the chance—n-no rush, but—” he stutters. I patiently wait for him to get it out. He takes a deep breath, then much more clearly says, “When you get a chance, could you maybe tell Madison I apologized?”
“Why would Madison care if you apologized to me?” I say, my words slow as I struggle to process his request.
“She hasn’t told you?” he asks with a frown.
“Things have been busy. Finals and—I haven’t seen her much,” I say lamely.
No need for him to know that I’ve been actively avoiding both Madison and our shared room ever since I saw them together.
His frown deepens.
“Madison insisted on reading my story, and when she did, she pumped the brakes on us. She isn’t speaking to me and said she won’t until I realize what I did wrong and apologize.”
“Why the hell would she—” I stop speaking even as my mind continues to spin.
I’m thrown by this revelation. Why does Madison care if Ellie apologizes?
She said herself that we’re not friends.
But his story was enough for her to dump him?
I mean, sure, Madison was always a girl’s girl—and it’s only now that I realize I probably wasn’t, not really, which, ouch—but calling it quits with a guy she likes in defense of a roommate she barely knows is going above and beyond.
And after that revelation, there’s a new one—
“You really like her, huh?”
“I really do,” he confirms. “She’s just so—well. You know Madison.”
I do. And yet I’m curious what he was about to say. She’s so… what? Because now I’m suddenly, for the first time, looking at Ellie not as my best friend and not as someone I’m in love with but as a potential partner for my once best friend.
Is he good enough for her?
I frown, because I’m honestly not sure—which is ridiculous. Why do my standards feel so much higher when I’m evaluating a person for someone who isn’t me? Why would he be good enough for me to pine after for years but not good enough for Madison to be with?
I shrug off my concerns. Madison can make that choice for herself, and by now, I realize that if I try to make her choices for her, I might accidentally steer her in the wrong direction.
“Okay. I’ll tell her that you apologized and I forgave you, but if you hurt her, I’ll—”
I have no clue what I’m going to say. I’ve never been very good at coming up with threats that feel genuine and not cartoonishly trite, but I don’t even get the chance to fumble through a pathetic attempt at a threat because Ellie’s face breaks into a smile and he cuts me off.
“Thank you so much. I promise you won’t regret this.” The words rush out of him as he swoops me up into a tight, enthusiastic hug.
Maybe this is the moment I realize it’s truly over, because wrapped in his arms, laughing at his boyish enthusiasm, I feel nothing for him.
No sparks, no butterflies.
And also none of the darker shades of my former feelings. No jealousy, no bitter resentment.
He’s just an old friend hugging me for the first time in months.
I can’t tell if it feels like a goodbye hug or a hello.
“Calm down, I said I’d tell her—I can’t promise she’ll actually take you back.”
He assures me that’s fine, he just appreciates anything I can say to get her to at least text him. I pull away, but when I do, I happen to glance past Ellie to where Alex is standing in the doorway of the house. I smile, but then I register the expression on his face.
He looks absolutely devastated.