Morning Pages March 07, 2018
Walt and I sat there as three girls came up to us and dropped their coats down on the table we were sitting on. I knew all of them. Olive, Patricia, and Lucy were pretty inseparable. I think they were all a thing.
“God these dances are the worst,” Lucy said. “I’m gonna get high as fuck. Hey Walt. Hall.”
Olive and Patricia gave polite nods and followed Lucy to the smokers’ exit.
“I want to get high with Lucy,” Walt said.
“He wants something,” I said. “That’s new.”
“What do you want?” Walt asked.
“My whole life is tied up with her,” I said to Walt.
“But what do you want?”
He shifted on the table. A song began to play I knew Fourth would like. I wanted to dance. I wanted everything to be okay. This night was beginning awkwardly, if predictably. Banks would usually split for a bit and dance with her other friends. We’d hook back up a few songs later.
“I want tonight to go so well she’ll love me forever,” I said.
Walt paused. “I think you’re being a bit dramatic, but I’m not actually sure if you ever haven’t been, so maybe this is all normal.”
“I should give her a promise ring,” I said.
“You should not,” Walt said. “Promise rings are for Christian dorks when they’re 14. You’re 18, and an Atheist. Your people just live together, write “common law” on your taxes, and then die quietly.”
Two hundred late adolescents in one small room with minimal ventilation, all wondering and worrying that this is the last day of everything they’ve known. Cliques and friendships and loyalties and teammates, all set loose. Some of us would stay close, but most wouldn’t. Most people move away. Most people go to different colleges, if they go at all. Today was the last day we’d exist like this.
“Take it down a notch,” Walt snapped me out of it. “I can see you over dramatizing in your head.”