Tesselate

A Story by Megan

A group of friends tries to reconnect after being apart during college.

You can't imagine characters that are interesting; they must be described to you. The writer, should he or she be adequate at doing so, is only capable because they have had these same characters described to them. In this sense, we are constantly retelling the stories of some of the very first people who ever lived; in another sense, the times make them significant in different ways each time they are resurrected. This is a form of reincarnation. But Eastern philosophies do not matter to us now, because our story is about the West. And in the West, everything incarnate is carnal, and nothing ever comes around twice.

“Drek, I'm afraid we're evil.”

“F**k yeah you are.”

“I said 'we.'”

“It's 2:30 in the morning, can we not do this right now? Just take your damn skirt off. I'm way too buzzed.”

“Do you think I want to have sex right now?”

“It's been like two weeks, I figured you'd be okay with it.”

“You're too drunk for it to be an intimate experience.”

“Who says f*****g has to be an intimate experience?”

“It isn't always. It's supposed to be, though.”

“Alright. I must have missed that part of health class. I'm going to take a shower.”

“You mean jerk off.”

“Jesus Christ, so you want sex now?”

“I guess.”

“Jesus.”

~*~

Emily struggled to lift the old window pane a few inches, to let in a light breeze. The black sky of morning was full of new air that tasted good when breathed in. It had been a fine night; she and Drek had reunited with several high school friends they hadn't seen in ages, after running into two of them at a local production of Rent. Those two had made some phone calls, and the group of old friends all filed into a large booth at a quiet diner to catch up. It was interesting, Emily supposed, to hear of all the different directions they had gone in; it felt like a mixture of funny and sad to learn what dreams had not panned out.

One girl, Rachel, had been a particularly ambitious teenager. Emily remembered her work on the school newspaper, and all the awards her editorials had won. She had gone to the University of Chicago on a scholarship for journalism, to the excitement and envy of her peers. Last night she had sat across from Emily nursing a cup of coffee, politely talking about her new daughter and her job as communications manager at a local bank.

Emily lit a cigarette to try and clear away the strange feeling in her head. The narrative of the night was simple enough; the barebones facts of what had happened were straightforward and exact, and all the conversations could be relayed without confusion. Except that there was confusion in the minds of everyone in the diner that night, and nobody would look at it, so they decided to go to a bar.

The walk to the bar was full of chatter similar to the diner-talk. Owen, the tallest in the group, was talking lightheartedly with Drek, and this made Emily feel strange because she had at one time been in love with him. It had of course been an immature love; one that had erupted from an easy friendship colliding with the heightened sensations of high school and society and the largeness of everything. These experiences had made Owen reclusive while Emily became reckless. She remembered �" vaguely �" agonizing fights and the long, drawn-out realization that he was going to let her pull away and that it would not bother him in the long run. The details were hazy, but she remembered this particular realization because it now seemed formative to the person she had become. She looked back at him and Drek and they both waved and Drek blew her a kiss. It made her feel cheap.

Emily's cigarette had gone out from the cold air and her lack of commitment to smoking it. She relit it against her better judgment which reminded her of Drek's hatred of the smell of cigarettes. It would be intensified if he woke up with a hangover. Still, she wanted it to keep glowing. It helped clear her head from the haze of alcohol; the haze they had all sought out, earlier.

At the bar they ordered drinks and kept talking; the talk inevitably became freer and louder as more spirit were imbibed. Drek in particular was exhibiting significantly lowered inhibitions, which uncovered a roughness his everyday persona only alluded to. Though they had gone to high school together, they did not date until halfway through college. In high school they had belonged to the same peer group, but were never close. Drek had been an athlete, while Emily considered herself too cranial for those activities. They enjoyed each other's company, but did not form any bonds between themselves. It was awkward after learning that they were the only two in their group of friends who would be attending the same university. Emily was to study history, and Drek �" on his track scholarship �" would study engineering. Though they still had few similarities to connect them, they were to each other a familiar face in a wide and heavy environment. After a year of casual interaction and a few months of fooling around it seemed silly to not be dating.

After last call they had decided to walk the half-mile to the beach with the remainder of their drinks. All felt light-hearted and nostalgic as the clear moon lent a sensibility to the night and their travels. The beach was small, and though most had expected a sense of familiarity, many of its old characteristics had been renovated, or changed by time and weather. Still, they settled in comfortably, and Scott (the musician of the group) ran to the gas station across the street to buy a few more six-packs. He pulled a small napkin from his pocket with short, white, hand-rolled sticks and offered them around. Owen was the only one to take up his offer. The smell was distinctive.

“Nobody rat me out to my mom,okay?”

Laughter.

“So how long have you guys been going out?” This was asked by Rachel. Emily smiled.

“Almost three years.”

“Oh my god, you guys. Drek, where's the ring?”

“God, Rachel, not everybody wants to become the f*****g Cleavers like you and Tim.”

“Shut up, Owen.” More laughter, from Rachel. “You're high and lonely.” She kicked sand into his can of beer and he smiled lazily in response. “Anyway, we're not the 'f*****g Cleavers.' I haven't even spoken a word to him all day.” She held her phone up for the group to see. Her fingers caressed its edges, smooth and dappled from the caresses of many hours of non-communication. Owen pointed an unsteady finger at Scott.

“Scotty, bro. How's the band doing? I haven't seen their name show up on any of the bar show listings. You guys hit it big?”

“F**k no. Elliot got married, had a kid, and not in that order. Haven't had much of a band for a couple years, now.”

“S**t, man. I'm sorry. Where did you say you were working?”

“With my dad over at Brando's, painting cars. Some weekends I work the press grill at Outback. Nothing fancy.”

“Sounds like a good deal, man.”

“It's alright.”

For several seconds all five of them were silent. Drek gripped his beer too tightly and the can made a cracking sound that barely registered over the rush of waves and traffic filling the air. Rachel's phone lay in her lap, the screen lighting up each time her finger brushed over the middle button. She turned it over and covered it with both hands like a shield. Owen stood up and walked toward the shore. They all wondered to themselves if they should follow him, but only Rachel did. Emily sat next to Drek and placed a hand on his knee, which he took in his own.

“I have to work at eight, so I don't know how much longer we should stay.”

“Whenever you're ready, babe.”

She was restless from the feeling of nagging discomfort she could not pinpoint. It was a strange thing to look up and see your childhood sitting beside you; walking in front of you along the shore. But it wasn't anything like her youth. She thought that maybe this was the problem, and when she looked up again the beach was crowded with the ghosts of their past selves walking alongside their older bodies, desperate to be seen. She was realizing that they were worse off than they had been back then. They were less successful, had less potential, than they did in high school. At least, this is how it felt, and being all together in one place made the feeling bigger. It was a stark juxtaposition; a sense that they had expired in their skins, and their own faces were costumes drugged up from a production long past. They had let each other down, because they were not happy, and they were not important. Scott's words from earlier became particularly appropriate. Nobody rat me out to my mom, okay? Nobody would. Their parents' ideas of them were all they had. During phone calls back home they could revert to a state of innocence and hope. The largeness of the world felt like opportunity instead of desolation. Their parents were keepers of their old selves, long buried but momentarily resurrectable. It was a reprieve; what they had wanted this night to be. If only just one of them hadn't failed.

“I'm ready.”

So they left.

~*~

In bed, partially clothed and apathetic about it, Drek tucked an arm under Emily's head and curled up against her side.

“Sorry I'm mean when I'm drunk, babe.”

“You aren't mean.”

“I should talk nicer.”

“It's alright.”

They dozed for a few minutes, despite the humidity that made it uncomfortable to be skin to skin. She guess that he would sleep restlessly tonight. It made her feel sad.

“Hey, did you set alarm?” She nodded, then realized his eyes were shut.

“Mmhmm.”

“Thanks.”

There was no mention of love between the two as they settled in for the few hours before sunrise. And though thoughts eventually propelled Emily back out of bed to the windowsill, this topic was not among them. It was, for them, and unnecessary expression. Every night for three years she set their alarm for seven, even though she didn't have to be up until eight. For three years, every time Emily reached for his hand he held hers. It was the willingness to be automatic that gave their relationship the characteristic of self-sacrifice. They were unquestioning partners; two souls who could neither see nor hear the other, so they clung to each touch and would not let go. As different as two people could be, still they had made the decision to never change, to always stay. It was a sort of love, a sort of sacrifice, and they managed to communicate it sometimes in the mundane things. Neither of them was everything the other person was looking for. They were an assurance; a way of making sure that they did not end up with nothing; a way of creating something which required their existence. They did not take one another to family functions, but allowed their parents to boast that their children had “found someone.” It meant a bed, and a reason for making one decision over another. It was solid, but it did not shine. All this felt like a failure to them most of the time, but neither of them knew that to most of the world, this was actually a success.