How They Met

Olive couldn’t say how they met, afterwards. A consequence of the night’s debaucheries; loud music and frantic bodies and another drink, another line, always another—! And then waking up back home in her own bed, left to sort out what happened from the barest suggestions. Rumpled sheets, torn stockings, fresh bruises, all normal enough. And that new voice trickling into her DMs, so strangely familiar. She couldn’t help trusting it, even when it was so cagey about how they’d met and what happened and who it really was, and that should have been a warning sign, shouldn’t it?

Certainly her friends thought it was one.

She raised the topic over lunch a few days later, a regularly scheduled meetup slotted into their calendars between a dozen other obligations, work and school and chores and tasks all butting up against it until finding half and hour for all of them to sit down and chat seemed almost like a miracle.

“I was sooo out of it this weekend, I barely remember anything after getting to the club! Did any of you see what I got up to …?”

Confused glances. Shrugs.

“You were at the bar with us, but I didn’t see you after that. I thought you left early!”

“Yeah, I assumed you had too!”

“Do you think you got roofied?”

All of them were so concerned, so sympathetic, teasing the details out of her. Except—there’s something voyeuristic about that sort of attention, isn’t there? She wasn’t trying to vent or gossip or, or … she just wanted to know. That’s all.

“I did see you talking to someone, Olive,” one of them finally offered, when it became clear that she has nothing more to chum the waters with. The group’s focus shifted, thank god. “I didn’t recognize them, but they were so pretty! I assumed—I’m sorry! I should have done something!”

A chorus of reassurance, “you-couldn’t-have-known"s and promises to do better next time, to keep a closer eye on each other, and then lunch was winding down and they were all going their own ways, and Olive had never felt so apart from these strangers she’s known for decades.

She was on the bus when she finally checked her phone and found that her messages were full of poetry, and after that she couldn’t remember anything at all.

Her phone woke her up.

She was in bed again—her own bed, after a moment when it wasn’t—and her phone was ringing, the shrill, unrelenting ringtone she’d assigned to her boss. A sign of alarm, because that’s the only reason he ever called her.

“Y-yeah?” Dry mouth, scratchy throat. A strange taste on her lips.

“Olive! I’ve been trying to reach you for days, are you okay?! Did something happen?”

“Days? No, I,” she checked her phone. It was Tuesday, she’s sure it was, but it wasn’t any more. “… what?”

“Are you sick? You sound sick. This many no-shows, I don’t know, but, look, bring in a note from your doctor and I’ll see what I can do, okay?”

“I,” she struggled, “Steve, I don’t know what,” but he just barreled over her. He’s not a bad boss, really, just … forceful. Accustomed to being heard. But he’s a feminist, really, she always reminds people. Never pushes boundaries. Drives himself just as hard as he does everyone under him.

“Anyway, I really don’t have time to chat, just be in as soon as you’re well, okay? See if you can’t get some stuff done at home, ask Clementine what needs to be done,” and with that the line went dead and she was left staring in confusion at a date that her eyes wouldn’t let her read.

It took her three tries to find the bathroom. There is nothing unfamiliar about her apartment, it’s just—it’s always been this big. Like it was made for more people than just her, but she got a good deal on the rent, didn’t she? And it came full decorated, without the slightest bit of space for her to assert her own personality, and all the artwork she put up and the plants she carefully tended and the spice rack she never really used just dissolved into the weight of what was already there, until the entire space was as unfamiliar as if she’d never moved in at all. Until she belonged to it instead of it belonging to her.

Throwing up helped.

It usually does.

And she knew better than to look too hard at exactly what she was throwing up, because down that path lies madness and it’s just gross anyway, you know? Just rinse and spit and flush the toilet and everything’s fine again. Everything’s fine.

She didn’t remember how long the commute into town was, which was silly, because it had always been that long. She’d wanted a place where she could just stumble out of bed and be in the thick of things, wander down to a club or the park or … and that was why she’d ended up settling on the place she lived. Nice and quiet. Not really out in the sticks but still a bit of a trip to get to.

That was why, wasn’t it?

And there was a dissonance there. She could feel it waiting to swallow her up, so she did what prey do and fled, which was hard to do on the subway but that’s why phones are stuffed so full of distracting colors and exciting animations and jingly bells. Existing is hard. Everyone needs a break sometimes, and Olive certainly did, but when her phone finally finished booting it was anything but relaxing.

99+ messages waiting to be read. Missed phone calls. Unread emails. Every app eventually adds a way to send direct messages, a sort of questionably-benign cancer shoveling ill-fitting features into its gradually carcinizing row of navigation icons, and every single one is full of notifications. People were worried about her, or angry at her, or trying to find her—and there, at the top of her DMs, a screen’s worth of poetry. Just where her fingers would find it and her eyes would drink it up and she’d remember.

Olive’s girlfriend is waiting for her when she gets out of the subway. She stumbles coming down the stairs from the elevated platform, as she always does when she finally sees them, and they catch her, and she takes a deep breath of their perfume and remembers how much she loves feeling their strong arms around her. She forgets, sometimes, because her brain likes to play tricks on her, and there’s a scary medical reason for that which she doesn’t like being able to remember, but their smell always brings the memories back to her. Preserved flowers and old books and a whiff of cigars and their own musk lurking beneath it all, rich and golden and as familiar now as it was the first time they met, all those years ago.

They say something to her and she laughs; they’re always so funny! And so understanding—not everyone would be okay with someone who’s mind wanders so much, you know? Not that they’d ever say that to her, they’re too sweet for that, but she knows how lucky she is to belong to them. It could have been so much worse.

There is an unfamiliar weight in her pocket as they walk home. An angry little rectangle full of things she won’t let herself understand and people she can’t remember knowing. Her fingers dance over the screen for just a moment, a message forming beneath them—but what’s the point? She’s happy, and everything is fine, and she can’t imagine why she’d need anyone’s help except her girlfriend’s, so she throws the phone away just before her traitorous thumb hits “send”.