Karma (March 26, 2009. New Moon. Issue 2)

As my junior year of college wound down, we both knew there were changes to be made.  We’d become enmeshed in a web of drama suffocating both of us.  Maybe it was karma, too many bad things done with barely any side effects.  Maybe it was some higher power’s way of saying it was time to move on, realize what the others had years before, that you can’t hold onto eighteen forever.

I tended to think it had a lot to do with the girls we ran with, but that could be a biased point of view.  Still, most of the bad shit was somehow linked to them.  Caddy’s girl ruined our couch one night.  He had gone to pick her up when she passed out in some guy’s room, carried her all the way to our place, and dropped her on the couch.  We were shaking our heads and laughing at her when we heard a beer spill.  Since there were a couple dozen cans in the room, we were looking everywhere: behind the couch, on top of tables, under beds, until I spotted the problem.  She was sitting straight up, her piss tunneling down her pant leg onto the floor.  When she finally quit, we lifted her and found the entire cushion drenched.  The only good part about the whole thing came two weeks later when we let my girl sleep with her face on the same cushion.

By the end of that year we had gone through two phones, a couch, and numerous glasses and plates, not to mention two inflated egos.  We were changed, probably for the better, but it didn’t feel like it. 

I decided to run. 

  “Where?” he asked.

            “Ozarks first, I guess.  See if I can get a job.  If not, hell, who knows?”   Took a swig of Jack and Coke.  “Who cares?”

            He eyed me quietly.  “Gonna call her first?”

            “Fuck her.”  Swig.

            “You mean it?” he asked.

The next day I loaded my car with everything I owned.  Only filled the backseat.  I looked back at our house and wondered where all the faces were, where everyone who should’ve missed me was. 

            “Well, I got your number.”

He smiled, nodded, and then, silently, his bottom lip began to tremble.  I jumped in and rolled down the window.  We couldn’t speak, so I reached out my hand and we held each other there.  Finally I slipped into first and started to pull off.

            “Milo,” he called, like a little boy being dropped off at school for the first time.  He forced a smile.  “Don’t forget about me.”

            “Promise,” I said, and turned back to the road, waving in my rearview as I left.