I've Done This Before

You see I remember this tour. I remember little details about it. I remember actually listening, actually paying attention, and against reason and logic and my very best attempts otherwise, I actually retained a portion of it.

Not a lot, but still more than nothing which I think was probably better than anyone else in the group could say.

And that's because the first time around I chose not option one or two but in fact option three. Me and Eddie both chose that, because go figure the two loners who spent all their time together and who had a hate on for everyone around them and a disdain for school spirit in general, viewing college as a means to an end rather than anything else and even that a means to an uncertain end in the end, were drawn to each other now. And go figure we both thought we were better than we actually were in reality. More entertaining. More witty. More insightful. More meaningful.

And go figure we used our snark to bemuse ourselves, because it's not like we hadn't been doing that all along.

I remember the first few days of college quite well, and it's really all down to Eddie. I remember being overwhelmed and terrified at the beginning but trying to hide behind surliness to excuse it away. I remember looking around at everyone around me and seeing people who looked far more like adults than I did, with even the people in the group looking like they were years older than me and far more comfortable in their own skin.

Eddie was no different to me, at first. But the little trust fall situation drew us together and then being among the only people out of the splash zone when the prank hit gave us a heightened ego that served to only isolate us even more, in retrospect.

Instead of participating in the dance together we drank together in secret that night and he slipped off to the quiet little dorm room he had, I presumed, only to find out that he didn't have one at all down the line.

Eddie came from money and money was the one thing his parents didn't feel bad parting with when it came to him. Their disappointing son probably didn't get as much as the rest of the golden children, but he still got more than most.

Enough for an apartment downtown. Enough for him to be on his own. Enough for him to buy anything he wanted though he never flashed that money around, seeing it as just another isolating thing and just another barrier.

Even from me he kept that secret for a long time, trying to make sure that I wanted to be friends with him for him. For who he was and what he liked, rather than what he could offer me.

God, I didn't envy him trying to find someone to date with that sword hanging over his head. I imagine it wouldn't have gone well for him.

Not that he was really looking. Not on the first night and not on the day afterwards. Not unless it was me that he was interested in and hey that might make a bit of sense if, beneath the hatred and vitriol of his talk about women there was true anger.

But I think it was bitterness instead.

Day two we'd spent together, signing up to the obligatory number of clubs without going one number over and then definitely not intending to follow through with them. We rushed through and then as soon as we were done Eddie produced another bottle from somewhere and we polished it off long before the movie started on night two, the two of us barely able to keep from stumbling as we walked in and sat off to the back, literally in the trees, and polished off another bottle he'd procured.

Though if I'm being honest, Eddie had mostly made short work of that one all on his own.

Then day three? Then today? Then when we were stuck on this tour snarking to each other and bonding by virtue of the fact that we were alone but still had company at least.

Then when that was done?

Then when that didn't happen?

What happened instead?

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