Really Good, Actually(71)
“Yes,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about that right now.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, congratulations,” I said. Then, in case it sounded sarcastic: “I really am happy for you.”
“Thank you.”
Something beeped, and she took out and examined an actual pager. My friend the hero, taking a quick break from saving babies’ lives to scrape me off the emergency room floor. I straightened my posture and adjusted the front of my whorishly diaphanous dress. I felt light-headed and wondered if it was panic or the first glimpses of my impending hangover. My jaw hurt.
“I think maybe it was too soon to go to a wedding,” I said. “I think they make everyone go a bit nuts, just in general.”
Amirah sat down beside me but didn’t say anything.
“Especially our generation, you know? Like we were promised these great lives, and they aren’t materializing—”
“Oh my god, sorry, no,” Amirah said. “You’re not doing your weird rant about capitalism and fucking millennial ennui. I’m not sitting through it again. It’s such bullshit. And you’re, like, smart, right, so you must know, somewhere, that it’s bullshit. I don’t know what you think you’re doing. I don’t even know if you are thinking about it, which makes me feel, like, completely crazy.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been a bad friend.”
“Yeah, you have.”
Although I knew it was true, I hadn’t expected her to agree with me. It struck me that I was possibly still a little high, because I had an abrupt and surprising urge to slap her in the face. I settled for shaking my head in disbelief.
“I’m grieving,” I said. “I’m having a hard year.”
“Yeah, well, so is Amy,” she said. “And she’s not treating me like shit, or going ballistic on the internet, or talking about her breakup like it’s some large-scale societal problem. You and Jon didn’t break up because the concept of marriage is broken. You broke up because you couldn’t make it work, a normal thing that happens to millions of people. It doesn’t have to be some big conspiracy. It doesn’t have to be special. It can just be bad.”
“But—”
“No, no. That’s all.”
Amirah got to her feet. I figured I should probably look her in the eye before she left and scrambled up to mine as well.
“Lauren suggested we do an Asshole Intervention weeks ago,” she said. “Can you believe I said no?”
I smiled a little. The idea of my friends gathering for a specific conversation about what to do with their messy, pathetic pal was mostly horrible and a little bit nice. I took a risk and pulled her in for a hug. This time she allowed it. Her stethoscope was freezing against my bare skin. She patted my back, and I could smell her expensive hair oil beneath the stronger scent of antibacterial soap.
“I really am sorry,” I said into her shoulder.
“I know,” she said, calmly extracting herself from my clutches. “Hey, did you do cocaine off someone’s dick?”
I told her the coke had not been on the dick as such, but someone’s dick had definitely been out in cocaine’s vicinity. She said both scenarios were equally gross and that I was objectively terrible at being alone. In fact, she suggested, I had never done it before, ever, in my adult life, and she and the rest of my friends felt that I was clumsily running from solitude, rather than facing it with bravery or grace.
“I’m trying,” I said. “I know I’m doing a bad job, but I am actually trying.” One perk of being in the hospital was that everyone looked like they were going through it, so it wasn’t weird that I was crying like this. Amirah handed me another tissue.
“Try harder,” she said. “So much stuff is happening and you’re missing it. I have to go. Drink water, okay? And text me. Not soon, but text me.”
Amirah walked away, and I slid back to the floor.
I sat alone with myself for either three minutes or nine hours, ruminating on the ways I’d disappointed my friends and what kind of stuff I was missing. Maybe they’d break up with me too. Certainly Amy would be within her rights to never speak to me again. I wondered if I should send an apology email to Emily, or even to Jesse and Darragh. I seemed to spend half my time doing things and the other half apologizing for having done them; it was not a dream ratio.
My phone vibrated under the bench, indicating it had a charge. I took the athlete’s now vacant seat and opened Twitter, where I deleted (thirty-seven?!) tweets I could not bring myself to read. I opened my photos folder and flipped through pictures from the wedding I’d just been to. Emily looked gorgeous and happy, dancing with her husband while he stared at her with genuine awe. My phone had compiled the images into a slideshow it called a “New Memory,” lumping some pictures of the three-year-old flower girl sticking out her tongue with a series Jesse had taken of me and Darragh flashing our tits, setting the whole thing to jazzy music.
The other Memories were a mixed bag: a collection of every picture I’d ever taken of food; a slideshow of photos from a cottage trip a few years ago, where a terry cloth leisure suit changed Lauren’s personality for the weekend; last Christmas with Ed, Hannah, my mom, and sweet, weird Jeff; my own wedding.