STOP MAKING SENSE

I COULDN’T STOP MIXING UP NATALIA AND CLAUDIA. They don’t look anything alike, besides both having dark hair, nor do they act anything like each other. Really the only reason why I was having such a difficult time keeping them straight was because I only ever talked to them far out of the realm of sobriety and because they were always together. 

Natalia. I called her name while she stood near me; half-engaged with a conversation I did not want to join. I was standing outside of my roommate’s best friend’s house smoking while I tried to recognize the song playing back inside. By the end of the night, I needed to find someone to go home with. It was life or death. 

She turned. Claudia, she corrected. My name is Claudia. Goddamnit, I thought. 

Oh, is it? I pretended I couldn’t see her at first and that I had mixed up the back of her and Natalia’s heads. Truthfully, I did like Natalia more. I presumed they both liked me. Maybe they had conversations about it. Want a cigarette? I offered. 

Instead of saying yes or no or smiling she just expectantly stuck out her fingers. I fumbled with the package and tipped one out for her. Mind if we share? I asked her. She didn’t really seem to care either way. Sharing a cigarette just seems like a good gateway opportunity for subsequent intimacy. When I was fifteen I learned this after sharing with a friend of mine and learning I also liked men, but now I didn’t really dwell on that fact or think about it too much. It made me think about owning an apartment and being happy, which made me uncomfortable, so I tried to think about things that made me feel slightly okay instead. Like sex with objectively attractive women.

Did you do the reading? She asked. We had a theoretical politics class together. I had not done the reading even though we had class first thing in the morning. Yes, I told her. How’d you like it?

I think John Rawls is stupid. That’s what she replied. Hm. Okay. We talked around each other for a few moments. I really don’t think John Rawls is stupid. Actually, I think he’s quite brilliant. But I didn’t say that. Instead, I let her talk as I watched people flow in and out of the door and spill on and off the porch. Halfway through her complaints that I didn’t really understand anyway because I hadn’t done the reading yet, I realized that if I went home with her, I would have to wake up and make it back to my room just to shower and get ready for the day all before ten am, and it was already one forty something last time I’d checked, and I was actually quite hungry and watching my best friend talk by the side of the house and now Natalia was touching my coat but I had just scrubbed it with warm, soapy water that previous weekend and let it dry on a hanger in the breeze outside so I was feeling quite possessive of it and I side-stepped a little so she could no longer touch it. 

Oh, well, I see Luis so I’m gonna head out. When I said that, she looked offended. I didn’t stick around to hear about it and instead went to find Luis. He was sober enough to drive us to the twenty-four-hour bakery downtown and I got a piece of cake and slept right through Theoretical Politics and American Socialism Theory at ten and got a coffee two towns over in the afternoon and cried in my car on the way back.