Make Believe

I woke up and didn't know where I was. Sunlight peeked in through a window I didn't recognize. The roof was drop tiles. The house smelled awful. I sat up and looked around, my head swollen and heavy. I had been sleeping on a couch. Green, coarse. I was hungry and couldn't focus my eyes. There were pots and pans and messed paper towels lining the floor. I was dressed.

I remembered.

I was at Michael's.

A wave of guilt rushed over me that I was yet to understand. I had done something? Said something? My head pounded. Deductive reasoning was beyond me then.

They had brought me here. Michael. His roommates. I was in the road. In the car. Talking. Something about stairs. Couch.

I looked at my phone. The screen was achingly bright. It was seven-fifteen. Five missed calls from Marie. Four voice mails. Two texts. I read the texts. The first read:

"Hey. You aren't answering your phone. Everything okay?"

That was a little after midnight.

The second, about two hours later read:

"Please call me. I'm worried."

I rubbed my throbbing forehead and looked at the floor. There was puke in two of the pots and some on the paper towels on the floor. Mine, I imagined.

I ignored the voice mails. I couldn't hear her voice then. It would have been too much and have to wait until later when I was a little more cleared up. I needed some fucking orange juice and a cheeseburger.

I leaned back on the couch and closed my eyes to the increasing light in the room. What the fuck did she care if everything was all right?

I tried to lie back down and go to sleep, but after a few minutes of trying to ignore my throbbing head, dizziness, and screaming hunger, gave up. I sat up and looked at Michael's bedroom door. No sound came from his room. Everyone was asleep. My car was parked three or four towns over from here and I just wanted to go. I tried to think of what restaurants might be close by and open serving cheeseburgers and orange juice at seven-thirty in the fucking morning.

None, I imagined.

I stood up and my legs disagreed. My knees gave out and I fell, crashing into the pots and pans and paper towels.

"Fucking asshole!" I jumped back, kicking a pot across the room and crashing into the kitchen and rolled onto my ass. I pushed myself against the wall and sat. There was puke on my sleeve and pant leg now. My wrist hurt from the fall and I had to succumb to a brief bout of dizziness before I was able to see the room clearly again and the goddamn pot had hurt my toe. "Fucking asshole."

I gave up trying to do anything and sat against the wall, staring.

Michael's door opened. I didn't look. I was too dizzy.

"You all right?" he asked. I must have woken him up.

"I want to go home. Can you get me to my fucking car?"

"I think you should relax man. Just for an hour or so. Let me get some pants on. I'll make coffee and toast or something."

"Whatever." I rolled onto my side and laid my head on the floor.

"All right man." Michael closed his door and I could hear him getting dressed.

I just wanted to go home. I was angry. More angry than the morning warranted. I didn't understand. Whatever it was must have happened between Albany and here. I'd figure it out eventually, but just seeing Michael pissed me off.

Michael came out and his face pissed me off.

He reached a hand out to me. "Stand up man."

I took his hand and pulled myself up. I swayed.

"Easy, man," Michael said. "Come out to the kitchen and sit at the table."

I followed him out and the kitchen was small. The table was wooden and not new. The chairs were mismatched and I imagined that maybe when they all moved in the requirements were that they each paid a portion of the bills each month and brought one dining chair. I sat in a wooden one with a red velvet looking cushion. It was a straight back and I immediately regretted not choosing the soft plastic one next to me, but I was too lazy and dizzy to change seats.

"So," Michael said, "how much do you remember?"

"I don't know man. I feel awful."

"You remember the ride home?"

"No, why?"

Michael poured water into the coffee machine. "No reason."

My head was inflating and deflating and I wished he'd just get to the fucking point and tell me what I did so I could at least understand why I felt so fucking guilty.

"Are we all right?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"He leaned against the counter and looked at me. "Why wouldn't we be?"

"Look man, stop fucking with me. I feel awful." I put my head on the table. I heard Michael pull a chair out and sit down.

"So, you don't remember anything?" he asked.

"Not much, anyway."

"Don't worry about it then."

"Well, I'm going to. I... I don't know." I had my eyes closed.

"You were drunk. Letting off steam. It's fine. Nothing happened. Okay?"

I sighed. "Okay, but we're good right?"

"We're good."

The coffee pot was gurgling and filling and Michael got up again to make English muffins and I didn't know if I felt guiltier now, making my friends forgive me for things I didn't remember doing. I had been here before. The guilt would last a week or so, then echo with every stray reminder of this moment for years to come. I felt bad for the poor misguided sons of bitches in the "Anonymous" programs, having to make amends to every one they had ever wronged. It must seem fucking impossible.

"Marie called and texted me a bunch last night," I said.

"I know. She called me too."

"Why'd she call you?"

"She was worried about you. Said you had been ignoring her. I told her you were fine and you were just working through it all."

"I don't understand this," I said.

"What?"

"This whole thing. Why does she even give a shit?"

Michael drank from his cup. "Why wouldn't she? She still loves you, you know. It's not like that just stopped."

"Bullshit."

"It's not bullshit. I mean, you still love her, don't you?"

"That's a little different."

"It's not," he said. "You guys were together for years. Like, a fucking decade. Love doesn't just disappear the moment someone shuts the door."

"I never said it did."

"Then why are you so surprised that she would worry about you? Why is it so strange to think that she still loves you? So she left. Sure. But that doesn't mean that she just threw you out in the trash."

"It doesn't matter."

"It does. You should call her back."

"No. I can't... I can't hear her right now."

"Okay man, but before it actually is too late, you should call her back. You need to be a man, here. You need to be tough."

"Yeah," I said.

"Yeah. Drink your coffee."

We drank coffee and ate English muffins and sat quietly at the table before the rest of the roommates woke up. At noon Michael brought me to my car on his way in to work. I drove home with the radio off and didn't know if I missed her or hated her. I drove home with the radio off and I wished it was all make believe.