By middle school you hadn’t learned how to smile right; your mouth creased
in a way that didn’t seem natural, as if you were trying to frown at the same time.
You still had the bowl cut your mother gave you and even worse sweatshirts she picked out.
We shared a class, and a desk, and too many conversations. We shared daddy issues,
though I didn’t know it yet. We shared late night phone calls—me you and someone
who was too young to be doing drugs but did them anyway. Would you ever try them?
I admitted I would, eventually. But would you? Never. And the third boy sat silently
on the line in his own daze while the minutes piled up.
 

By high school we were best friends. I was popular; you were “Why are you friends with him?”

The conversations died out. I pulled away from you and from everyone, because I loved
a boy that loved the idea of me. He loved the freshman girl that was “sexy.” The freshman girl that his foreign parents found foreign. And I loved him, too, for a while. You checked in,
and I checked out. By sophomore year, so had he.

You were still there, and you remembered everything. You remembered my daddy issues;
you consoled me with alcohol, with parties under your clueless mother’s nose. You became
my best friend again. I reentered a social life. I found fluidity in drunk laughs and photos.
I was popular again; you were “When’s your next party?” We drank a handle of vodka
with the Canna twins and your father walked in.

We were rebels, but you became more rebellious. I tried drugs, and I got anxiety. You tried drugs, and you got high. Soon, I was the one with a grip, and you were the one with a dime.
The drive I had once seen in you disappeared like those friends did when your mom caught on.
You were more than a flashy red car and a party house to me.

And then we got to college. You were only an hour away, but I never saw you. I see pictures
of parties—neon lights and a beautiful girl, your femme fatal. Your drive was down to a drop
at the bottom of a red solo cup and tossed onto the lawn of a frat house. I tried to intervene,
tried to reach out. But I was a mother to you, and you never listened to your mom. You’d lie
to her over the phone, tell her you were at the library instead of hotboxing a car.

I wanted to be able to save you, like I could back when our biggest problem
was how to get alcohol. But you didn’t listen to me like you used to. 

And it gets to the summer night and a little too much. After throwing up on the bathroom floor, our friend carries me downstairs onto the futon. I wake up clothes torn to the side. I wake up with your hands on/in me. I wake up with all of you too close to me. You whisper in my ear
that I’ve always wanted this. I’m finally yours. I lie frozen and watch the sunrise
through a basement window. From down there, it looked like the sun was breaking through
the dirt. You’re finished. The rays are in my face, and I can’t keep my eyes open.
I fall back asleep.

In the aftermath you’re confused at first. I’m shocked. You feel terrible. You’re so sorry. You beg for forgiveness. When shock dispels, we “hooked up” and I’m “trying to save my relationship.”
I spend summer avoiding your street, the restaurant you work at, our friends.
And you go back to school, an hour away. I never see you; I cringe when I see a red car.