I was standing alone in my backyard, having just come back from school with three more hours before my parents got home. My head felt an intense pressure of pain as it throbbed to the beat of my heart, and it didn’t help that my anger only made my heart beat faster. I knew I would never look at Leslie the same after she tried to thank me for completing the entire group project the day before the due date as she attributed senioritis for the reason she partied all night instead of helping me. But I wasn’t hurt because she acted grateful to me, but because I knew that moments before this, she had started a text group conversation with mutual friends to complain about me. “Tried so hard to get out of meeting up with the ppl from my tok group but X.S. forced us to and now I’m miserable,” followed with “my presentation is going to be trash tomorrow honestly.” I saw how the friend I always helped with Chemistry and the other friend I helped in Spanish and the friend I ate lunch with all chimed in agreement. I couldn’t help but think that the times I’d enjoyed my friends’ company were just a ruse for me to do their work. I almost wonder if I would prefer that the person hoping to stir up trouble never sent me the screenshot.
I took one of my dad’s cigarettes that my mom told me to hide to help him quit smoking, and I lit a cigarette for the first time. The smoke scratched my throat as I watched it glide out in front of me, and along with it, the events of the day. Unable to suppress the inevitable cough, the last bit of my worries propelled out through my lips. It was brief. I ran back inside to the sink and started scrubbing the inside between my index and middle finger, stripped off my carcinogen ridden clothes, and rinsed my mouth with Listerine (Cool Mint). I puckered my lips towards my nose, but the smell was still there. This was four years ago after I realized that friend was a loose term. It was unfortunate that it happened towards the end of senior year of high school, because I never spoke to any of them again.
—
I’m not sure if it was from the split beer or from the cool night air, but the frat house lawn was wet as I lay on it while a cacophony of voices surrounded me. My body reverberated to the bass of the music. I had to get out of the frat house where strangers (or maybe it was the same person over and over again) took advantage of the cramped space and my inebriated state to snake their arms around my body and firmly grasp my breasts from behind as they pulled me towards them. The night sky was clear and beautiful that day; the blur of my vision had multiplied the number of stars. I laughed at myself for thinking friendship would look different once I got to college, and also for thinking that seven shots in the last few minutes would help me forget how Crystal, who I thought could be that life-long friend, smiled as she asked me what was wrong. She had been that friend whom I struggled with in Multivariable Calculus, but would spend the next few minutes laughing in the bathroom with me because if I laughed any more, my pants would suffer the consequences of a filled bladder. But that night wasn’t one to add to the collection of fond memories as she spent the entire night with her hands all over my date, unconcerned with the strangers’ hands on me.
“Are you ok?” said a voice that managed to pierce through the rest. Not quite sure if this was directed towards me, I simply spoke to myself, “Yeah I’m fine.” I don’t remember much, but pieces still remain with me. I remember my arm around someone as they supported me and my attempt to walk. I remember being handed a water bottle. I remember being carried on someone’s back. I remember lying in bed where someone had propped me on my side with my back against the wall so I wouldn’t choke on my own vomit if I were to hurl. This was three years ago, my freshman year of college, after I thought I would be able to redefine what a friend was, but was proven wrong yet again.
—
I’m happy with my new friend group, I thought, as I sat in the back of the car on the way to Canada for Spring Break. I’d met Penny from ECE 2300 Digital Logic and Computer Organization, and it got to the point where she’d invite me frequently to do work with her in Rose Dining Hall of sophomore housing which, unbeknownst to many students, was kept unlocked. I think we were both happy that we found a fellow night owl to keep each other company, especially the time we hiked to Phillips Hall at 6:00 AM just to slip her completed homework into a box. And with those work sessions, I met more and more of her friends until we eventually found ourselves having the time of our lives in Canada.
We went to the Graffiti Alley of downtown Toronto where the ice coated the floors, and we had our laughs as we struggled to walk without slipping from one wall to another. It was cold that day, especially with the sting of the wind as it jabbed at my face, or maybe it was because I traded my parka for my friend’s thinner jacket after I convinced her I wasn’t as cold as she was. Nearby was a weed shop, and of course being in Canada where it’s legal, we paid it a visit. Our more experienced and knowledgeable friend struck a conversation with the shop owner while I explored the shop on my own. It was a cramped space with different shapes and sizes of glass vessels. Some were tall with a bulbous shape at the bottom, and others only a few inches long that looked like flatter glass version of those old-fashioned tobacco pipes. I chuckled to myself because I recognized the smaller glass vessels from sellers in New York City when I asked my mom for one simply because I thought it looked pretty. We walked out of the shop with edible weed gummies. We continued our fun by going to Izumi in Ottawa where we went on their sake distillery tour. I had to ask for a half shot of our fourth sake sample because my friends, and more embarrassingly strangers touring with us, were starting to notice how obviously drunk I was. My favorite sake was the one that tasted like peaches because the temperature the day they made the sake made the sake-fermenting mold a little sweeter. For dinner, we went to Rio 40 where I learned what a Caipirinha was, and that it was delicious.
When we all got back to Cornell, we were exhausted from our big trip where we were wasted one moment and high the next. Some of us took longer than others to recuperate from the fun we had, but as everyone else in the friend group lived together having been friends since freshman year of college, they one by one started to join each other in their common area to study together. They never reached out to me again and I never reached out to them. I never reached out because I figured one day, they’d invite me over, or that I’d finally break the silence and ask to join. But by then I’d felt too out of place with the group, like an extra on the show Friends who reached their episode count limit. This was two years ago when I hung out with the group for the last time, and I learned how complacency killed friendships.
—
The blue couch on Sheldon Court Fifth Floor was stiff and hardly clean, but it had the perfect view of the whole lounge. I decided to escape out here where people come and go rather than in my room where I’m paranoid that my roommate is conscious of every movement and sound I make. Sometimes I can’t even be hungry without being embarrassed, but thankfully she usually had Nura headphones to block out the sound of my stomach grumbling. But out in the lounge, on one end of the communal table, a group of Computer Science majors huddled to complete their Embedded Systems project, which was an air guitar that could sense your hand stroke and “strum” the guitar. At the other end were a few Premed students studying for their Organic Chemistry prelim that was fast approaching and using their molecular modeling kits to help visualize how steric hindrance affected the kind of reaction that took place. Inside the kitchen, people were making small talk as they waited for their salted pasta water to come to a boil. I enjoyed being out in the lounge, but not because there’s a lot of people to interact with, but because there’s a lot of people interacting with each other so it feels more peaceful and private than being alone with one person.
Amanda came and sat next to me. “What are you going to have for dinner?” I hadn’t thought about it but I was too lazy to really make anything, and I’d already gone out too many times for Little Thai House for their spicy basil chicken.
“I think I still have 2 eggs that I’ll microwave and Spam to go with it.”
She was obviously not very impressed with my dinner plans as she replied with, “That’s not dinner.”
She got up and left, presumably to make her own dinner that was not 2 microwaved eggs topped with slices of Spam. Sometimes I didn’t even heat the Spam and just hoped that if I sliced it thin enough and placed them soon enough on the microwaved eggs that they’ll become soft and warm as if I’d heated them. I continued to stay on the stiff blue couch of Sheldon Court Fifth Floor for some time to wait for the kitchen to clear out so less people will have to be horrified with my dinner. I was being mildly entertained by the Facebook video of a groundhog that stole vegetables from a garden and proceeded to chomp on them in front of the surveillance camera set up to catch the thief. A plate was placed on the table that stood in front of the blue couch… and then another. I looked at the two plates, each with a golden-brown curry blanketing the steaming rice and topped with a fried pork cutlet.
I looked up at Amanda who had her hand stretched out to hand me a fork. She wasn’t even looking at me as she was focused on moving the table closer to the blue couch with her other hand. She wasn’t even looking at me to see my reaction. She wasn’t even looking so she couldn’t even feel that gratification you feel when you see how grateful and surprised the other person is when you do something nice for them. She wasn’t even looking. “Wait, is this for me?” I asked.
She finally looked at me, but with a blank face. “Yeah, I made this for you.”
That was the first dinner a friend ever made for me; but it’s not those dinners that a family friend makes you when they’re babysitting you, or those dinners that a friend’s parent makes when you go over to their house, or those dinners that you cook with your friend together as a planned activity. It was a dinner that showed she cared, and it was a dinner that started our friendship.
It’s been almost two years now, and I still remember that Japanese curry dinner. I still remember the time someone gave me a bag of rainbow Goldfish with a post-it stuck on which read “Just Keep Swimming” in return for answering a few questions about her assignment, which I wouldn’t have appreciated as much if it weren’t for four years ago when I realized I only had “friends” and not friends. I still remember the time two friends gave me a new journaling notebook, around Easter time, with a letter of how thankful they were of our friendship, which I wouldn’t have appreciated as much if it weren’t for three years ago when I realized friendship didn’t mean as much to some people. I still remember that time when someone I was becoming distant to reached out and brought me a London Fog tea with lavender extract and a double chocolate chip cookie from College Town Bagels, which I wouldn’t have appreciated as much if it weren’t for two years ago when I realized how simple gestures like these can save friendships.
—
I’m now in my senior year of college, living three townhouses down from Amanda. “Amanda, do you remember the time you made me Japanese curry in sophomore year in Sheldon Court Fifth Floor?” She answers, but it’s not her actual answer that matters, but rather that she answers me as a friend whom I share many memories with. Memories that I will continue to treasure in the years to come.
