Page 2 of Lessons in Falling
We’d walk back slightly buzzed, sun burning, the breeze never breezy enough to feel relieving.Anni would be slightly sunburnt by then.Alfie as red as a lobster.And despite the inevitable nausea, I’d be the happiest I’d been in a long time.Sundays—Mom used to say,like God intended—we’d rest.Readbooks, swim in the pool or ocean or take long, cold showers to cool down, depending on how warm the respective bodies of water would be.
It was eight thirty-one when we rolled into the parking lot of Blitz now.If we miss even a note ofDancing Queen, I’m blaming Valentina!Iris yelled, already half-way to the bar’s entrance.
Alfie was, apparently, less worried about missing something.No urgency in either of our strides, we strolled up to the wooden door, its blue paint chipped by the salty sea.You know,he snickered.You could’ve taken that pedestrian ferry, if you’d stop insisting on driving all the way down here with a vehicle that’s not guaranteed to make the two-hundred mile trip.Rent a car here thatdoesn’tbreak down twice a month.
I would’ve also made it if I’d just stop insisting on cleaning messes that, technically, weren’t mine to begin with.Though minding your own business became a lot harder when it was your mother’s mess, and you’d been growing up doing nothing but trying to please her.
I snorted, something between a laugh and a cackle as I shook my head.Instead of eating when I get back to Hall Beck for grad school, right?
I’d take care of it.
The eating part?Or the car renting part?
Either.Alfie shrugged.Both.
But he always did.It was half the issue.Feeling like I was inconveniencing my friends when they got me gifts or paid for stuff or went out of their way to do something nice for me, without expecting anything in return.It kind of just felt likethey’d get tired of… providing eventually, and I’d lose them.Which was something I couldn’t afford, ever.
You know I don’t want you to.It’s enough you’ve been bringing us here for the past four years.Free of charge, by the way.I leveled the ginger with a look, pushing the creaky door to Blitz open.
The chatter was loud inside.Someone shouting orders at the pretty woman behind the bar, every kind of alcohol imaginable illuminated on the wall behind her.The stools were all filled, and she gracefully maneuvered from one paying customer to the other.The booths were strung along the walls, some of the red leather seats torn—but never enough to justify replacing them.Most of them were full, but I spotted Anni and Iris in the one closest to the stage, set up on the left, opposite the large French doors leading to the patio and beach.
My gaze snapped back to my friends, their full attention on Chester, taking up the entire stage with his presence.A maximum of ten grey hairs on his head, big nose, small glasses, wearing a flannel and shorts and birkenstocks, he spotted us in the door, and at eight thirty-three, his firstOoh!barrelled through the bar’s speakers.The crowd went wild.
I was on my second margarita (frozen, watermelon) when I noticed Anni’s boyfriend was missing.He’d been a pleasant addition to our trips since last year, which meant he’d experienced a summer, winter and spring on Oakport and had become an official part of the group in March.Where’s Mike?
For a dreadful second, I feared they might’ve broken up.Then thought,there’s no way Annika Schmidt would go through a crisis like that without altering the group chat.The way she carelessly shook her head—a tipsy, endearing smile on her face—confirmed that, and threw the rest of my worries out the window.Her lips pursed, she was probably about to say something likeLateorWaiting at the house(becoming an official part of the group also meant knowing where the spare keys were hidden).
Instead, Iris leaned across the booth.Her arms sprawled over the table, fingers curling around the opposite side.Mike!she drawled, then sipped on her fourth margarita.It took her five tries to get that straw into her mouth before she distractedly went on:Even if we’d all been friends with him before, I might’ve still been fine with you two, you know?
Alfie, beside Iris on the other side, gasped.Despite the No-Fraternization-Rule?he whisper-shouted, and on the other side of Blitz someone howled the high-notes ofMy Heart Will Go Oninto the microphone.
Despite the No-Fraternization-Rule,she agreed.And despite the fact I’m not particularly fond of men right now.
The No-Fraternization-Rule.
Something that had started as somewhat of an inside joke four years ago and had turned into a solid ground-rule between all of us since.We’d met through a happy coincidence calledfree boozeat a freshers party and no one to share it with.Around an illegal bonfire in somebody’s backyard, for the sake of keeping our conversation going, Iris talked—and cried and shouted to us—about the ugly breakup she’d been going through.
That she’d lost her entire friend group because it’d been hisfriends, too, and he must’ve been cooler, apparently, because they’d allstayedhis friends and quite quickly—and unanimously—agreed not to give Iris the same courtesy.She’d lost her boyfriend, her friends and her entire support system in the blink of an eye, and we’d been the strangers she could let it all out to.
We’d all grasped quite quickly that we wouldn’t stay strangers, though, and Iris had made it official thirty minutes later.She’d looked all of us in the eyes—Anni first, then Alfie, and I’d been last before she said:
No dating within this friend group.
We’ll only adopt new people into it if none of us want to sleep with them.
Four years later, it was still just us: something that would make it seem like we were a bunch of horny twenty-somethings, unable to find people we wanted to be our friends, without the desire to sleep with them coming up.
Not the case.
I’d had a handful of hookups since—something I had my physics major to thank for, among other things (I was much more likely to fuck up my sleep schedule with revisions than another person)—and exactly one of them had been memorable.So the problem wasn’t having too much sex to find other friends.The problem—and it wasn’t really one—was, simply put: we didn’t need anyone else.
Probably didn’twantanyone else.
So the No-Fraternization-Rule (NFR, for short) had never been a problem.Anni started dating Mike—HBU’s soccer captain, very far removed from our social circle—and he started coming to Oakport as Anni’s plus-one a year later.Heseamlessly became a part of ourUsbecause we really, truly loved him for her.He also got us into great parties, invited us for pizza after games, snuck us alcohol when we’d still been underage, and was incredibly fun to be around (when the soccer team was doing well and none of his guys were getting into trouble).
The latter was rare, the former much less so.
Then there was the fact that my one memorable hook-up had been thanks to him—some guy on his team—which awarded Mike some more brownie points.
