We Were Never Here(6)
An ironic thought, I supposed, after what happened in Cambodia. Blood on the floor in a widening pool.
In college, the high of prancing around with Kristen threw into stark relief just how small and tense I felt around Ben. Kristen had been the first to question it—to ask the just-right questions, until slowly, slowly, I came to recognize the manipulation, the criticism, the subtle gaslighting. I began to hold my ground with Ben and call him out on things. Question why our postgraduation plans were really his, with me as set dressing, a prop. Hers was the apartment I rushed to at two a.m. when, senior year, Ben and I got into the Argument of the Century, yelling and flailing.
He and I almost never fought, our resentment building instead, and so it was one of those moments when a part of you splits off and hovers over you like a drone: Will you get a load of this? Can you believe this is really happening? He whirled away and I reached for his shoulder, look at me when I’m talking to you, and he turned so suddenly that the back of my skull connected with the wall behind me before I could figure out why or how.
“I wasn’t trying to hit you,” he said, glowering, in lieu of an apology. I pushed past him and ran to the door. After a multiday standoff, Kristen went over to Ben’s and my apartment and filled a suitcase while he looked on, jaw set. We never had an official breakup.
I’d wanted to see him again, pathetically; I wanted to scream and cry as he held me, because his arms were almost as familiar as my own. But Kristen knew better. “Screw ‘closure,’?” she said at the time. “You’re not wasting another second on this loser. Now he can find someone new to try to cram into a tiny, suffocating box, and you can be the badass you are.”
Now Kristen strolled over to a waiter and held up two fingers. “Una mesa para dos,” she said. She always was a quick study. He let her choose a table and she gave me the nicer seat, facing the interior; her view was of me against the wall.
“This has been such a fun week.” She reached out and squeezed my forearm. “So laid-back and magical.”
“Exactly what we needed,” I agreed, unfolding a napkin.
“I haven’t been this relaxed in a long time.”
Stop. Stop. Stop. Blood trickling like paint down the metal pole. Kristen’s eyes wide, amazed. Blood mottling her hands, her wrists, her shoes.
“It’s like no time has passed,” she said. She snapped open a menu. “We can pick up right where we left off, like nothing has changed. And that’s how you can tell we’re true friends.”
CHAPTER 3
What happened was this: A man attacked me in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and we killed him in self-defense.
He was a backpacker, a South African dude with a big blond beard and huge hairy arms, freckled and tanned. He’d turned to us in a dank bar—to Kristen, casually gorgeous in her elephant pants and tank top sans bra—and asked how we were liking Cambodia. He was what we called a “duder,” fratty and loud, but cute. After a few minutes, he stuck out his hand (“I’m Sebastian, by the way,”) and Kristen told him her name was Nicole. It was something we’d done in college: tossing out a fake name to indicate how little the interaction mattered, how sure we were we’d never see this guy again. After Ben, it’d kept me from jumping back into anything too quickly—something Kristen warned me about. And during our trips, using aliases gave nights a thrilling, what-happens-in-Vegas undertone.
I played along, introducing myself as Joan. But Sebastian the South African was actually funny. And in the way it sometimes does when I feel like the less-desirable friend, my wit flipped on like a light, zapping and sparking with impeccable speed and timing. Kristen didn’t seem to mind; he was more my type anyway, and she did the appropriate wingwoman things: fluttering around, chatting with strangers.
The hours dwindled; the air cooled. First the bar died down, then the streets outside followed suit. The roar of passing motorbikes softened to a purr, punctuated by occasional shouts from drunk tourists. I touched Sebastian’s rough bicep when he made me laugh, and he pressed a palm on my waist when we moved to let a waiter pass. “Nicole” bought us another round of Angkor beer and, as we toasted, shot me a knowing grin.
Talk, inevitably, turned to “getting out of here.” He was staying in a hostel even crummier than ours, renting a bed in a room packed with bunks—so Kristen, the saint, insisted she wanted to hang around this dead bar for one last solo beer. “I’m sure I’ll be back at the hotel by…midnight?” she proposed, and Sebastian and I nodded gratefully, and it was all very clear to everyone.
Kristen grabbed my elbow on the way out and asked it one more time: “You’re good?” And I hesitated. I didn’t know this guy, after all. My one-night stands and third-date hookups back in the Midwest (ranging from fun to regrettable to maaaybe not really what I wanted but I went along with it because I’d stupidly found myself in bed) had had a pall of familiarity around them—neighborhoods I knew, a cellphone and three digits I knew by heart. This was different. Neither Kristen nor I had had a vacation fling. But then I beat back the unease, the kind that so often creeps up when you’re a woman moving through space, because this guy was funny, and hot, and he wanted me.
I think about that moment a lot, when I patted Kristen’s arm and turned away. How it changed the course of our lives, Kristen’s and mine. How our path forked off and veered, leaving behind so many untouched threads funneling out of the center like a lace doily. One where I gave into the wariness and changed my mind, and Sebastian huffed off into the night. Or I rerouted on the spot and we made out in the bar or on a jungly street corner instead.