Never Always Sometimes

EMPTY COLORING BOOKS

 

DAVE FLUSHED AND washed his hands, drying them off on his jeans since the single hand towel was clearly soaked through. He glanced briefly at himself in the mirror, wondering what he would look like in a polo shirt and then shaking off the thought, or more like shuddering it away the way he did with nightmares. This had been an interesting experiment, but now it was time to find Julia and go back to their little world of two.

 

Except that the party had rearranged itself while Dave was in the bathroom. The number of people in the kitchen had doubled. Beer pong was over and now there was a new game being played, one he’d seen Brett and his friends play, though he’d never really cared enough to try to understand it. Julia wasn’t where they’d been standing for most of the night.

 

He surveyed the room but couldn’t spot her, which surprised him. He was so used to looking for her that he felt unreasonably skillful at it, as if no matter how many people were around his eyes would easily land on her. Her presence called out to him like a beacon.

 

“Dave!” Vince Staffert shouted on his approach, clearly drunk. “Yo!”

 

“Hey, Vince.”

 

“Come play flip cup with us. We need one more.” He put his arm around Dave’s shoulders and started pulling him away from the wall.

 

“Uh, I don’t really know how to play,” Dave said, trying to hold his ground.

 

“Dave, you got into UCLA. I’m sure you can figure out a drinking game.”

 

Caught off guard by Vince knowing that about him, Dave stammered, “I—I shouldn’t. Julia and I were just about to go.”

 

Vince sometimes asked Dave for help in math class, and from those few interactions, Dave had always thought of him as a nice guy. He knew there was another side to Vince, football player that he was, but all he’d ever seen was someone big and quiet and not so good at math.

 

“This house is not that big. She’ll find you.” Vince pulled him to the kitchen table. Cups were scattered and stacked across the surface, little puddles of beer pooling together. The other team consisted of two guys and two girls, none of whom Dave knew on a first-name basis, though he’d seen them around school.

 

“Guys, I’m not sure you want me on your team.”

 

“Yeah, I agree,” one of the other football players said to Vince.

 

“AJ, don’t be a dick. Here,” Vince said, pouring some beer in a cup, which by the looks of it had been used many a time throughout the night. “The game’s easy,” he declared and explained the rules in a few seconds. “Got it?” Once, Dave and Julia had misread a flyer and, thinking they were about to see an author they loved, had accidentally attended a reading at the library by the West Coast’s leading researcher on menopause. So it’d be hard to say that this was the most out of place Dave had ever felt. But it was close enough.

 

Dave sighed. He and Julia had avoided all of this because they’d wanted their high school years to be a little more unique than everyone else’s. And yeah, they were here to see what they’d successfully avoided, but Dave had meant to just be an observer.

 

Dave surveyed the room one last time for Julia. The blue of her eyes, those three freckles on her neck. But she was nowhere around, and so he checked his phone. A text from her was waiting on his screen. Went off to explore the craziness on my own. Best story at the end of the night wins. Godspeed.

 

He smiled at the words, at what a great idea it was. Julia could turn any situation into something inherently more interesting. You’re on, he wrote back, already looking forward to reuniting with her, though he had no doubts she would have the better story.

 

Then he gave Vince a nod and turned his attention to the game.

 

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