hi. I’m finally headed home.
She replies instantly, as I knew she would: her phone is attached to her hand. Yes! I missed you. Can we hang tonight? I’m off.
It’s a fair question. She’s my best friend and roommate, but a bartender who works Wednesday through Sunday. I see the hot part-timer at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf more often than I see Eden. I might pass out midsentence but you have me until I’m comatose.
I hit send and then stare at my phone. I want to talk this out in person; no one else would understand how great last night was in the context of Georgia’s Really Shitty Year. But Alec getting onto the plane in such a covert way and the fawning attention of the flight attendants leave a weird feeling of disbelief coating my memories. He’s next-level hot, yes, but who is he? Did I miss something really important? I can’t help reeling back through every moment we spent in the bar, catching up.
So, I type to Eden, and hit send to keep her attention on our text box and away from her Viki app. I’m sure she’s lying in bed, watching kissing scenes from her favorite dramas, and it’s almost impossible to snag her focus once it’s gone that route. I had a one-night stand.
Because I am absolutely the last person she would ever expect to do such a thing, she sends back is a string of exclamation points followed by a W H A T
It was so wild, and I will tell you everything when I get home, but he bought me a first-class ticket home and got on the plane last this morning and the flight attendants went over to greet him and now I’m sitting on the plane going WHO IS THIS GUY
Yes who is the guy???
Do you remember my friend Sunny who moved when we were twelve? It’s her brother. I recognized him. Teenage me is dead on the floor.
Omg I bet
He must have a million airline miles though lol because they love him
Was it good? she asks.
I stare at my phone. Saying only yes feels like a lie, because it wasn’t just good. I can still feel him.
It changed me—God, so cheesy—but not in a way that means I’m desperate to see him again or need to have more of this. I mean that I think it changed me and my shitty post-Spencer thought pattern. It reminded me that real, genuine human connection isn’t a fluke. I wish I had elaborated more on that this morning when I said last night was what I needed, because I like the idea that Alec might take that with him into whatever he finds next. After all, who cares if I made a fool of myself by being so bare and forthcoming? I’m never seeing him again, and at least he would know that his ability to show himself to me like that meant something.
I type one letter at a time—it was really amazing, E—and then delete it all, because it feels like I’m sharing something sacred. I try again, It was exactly what I needed, and then delete that, too. Too cliché.
I close my eyes, leaning my head back. I want to turn around and see if he’s looking at me right now. It feels like he is. I just need one beat of eye contact to know that my memory isn’t shit. But I can’t look, not without feeling weird or making it weird. It was one night.
So I just type, Yeah, hit send, and then turn off my phone.
* * *
Alec bought me the ticket so I’d sleep, and it seems like the best way to thank him is to at least try. As soon as I close my eyes, I feel immediately woozy. It’s the same feeling I’ve had the few times I’ve been drunk enough to be sick. The seat spins beneath me; blackness seems to bleed in from the edges of my lids.
But also, I think I’m still drunk on Alexander Kim.
I try to remember what it was like visiting Sunny’s house as a kid. While my thoughts spin down into deeper and deeper drowsiness, I imagine her porch, her living room, the scent of her kitchen, the dark stairway. I tumble into a dream about it, and when the wheels of the plane touch down, my eyes jolt open and I have the sense of just having been there. I can taste the bright tang of Mrs. Kim’s spicy tteokbokki on the very tip of my tongue, can feel the gentle spray of the lawn sprinkler on the soles of my feet; I can hear Alec yelling down the street to his friend.
The Kim family was very close, but not overt in their expressions of affection. Whatever life Alec lived after I knew him taught him to communicate with the emotional intuition he had in the hotel, and after the trip I had, it means something.
I didn’t want you getting on a plane with nothing underneath.
How many have you had?
You haven’t slept, he’d said. Even before last night you were exhausted.
In my experience, an asshole doesn’t usually say these things. I would know. Or at least I hope I would. I’ve had so many terrible interviews in the past two weeks. Interviews about men I now believe drugged women, raped them, and recorded the act on video to share with friends. I talked to the friends who’d viewed the videos without thinking anything of it. I’ve met with club bouncers, employees, and guests who saw it all happen and never thought to say anything at all.