Club 31

It was late, and we had both already agreed that we weren’t for each other. I had decided for my own good but also to maintain my own sanity that I wouldn’t pursue something just because the idea had been put into my head. You said it was no guarantee that you would be there for me to have in the first place. We lived in the same building, and yet it had been a few months already and I barely knew you at all.

I remember feeling alive but not scared when I walked across the street and set off on my own, half expecting you to follow me and half expecting that I would eventually have to turn around, like always. You weren’t even the first to follow. I chalked it up to you being too nice of a guy, and I half-decided in that moment to keep walking, to keep pursuing the desire I had to be fully independent and fully selfish. I eventually gave up. Followed you into a bar and let you kiss me. Sat next to you in a cab and tried to sort out my feelings.

I honestly don’t think I had brought any money out with me at all. I certainly didn’t have enough for the cover charge. But I was still in the frame of mind that I wanted desperately to get upstairs in this strange, dark, fancy hotel-like building, and so I let someone else pay a hundred rand for me and I walked upstairs and giggled quietly as I saw my reflection in the shiny doors of the elevator. I can’t remember if it was on the trip up or the trip back down that someone told me I needed to be quieter.

We stepped out of the elevator, and I was surprised at first by how I felt that I had seen this place before. I walked in a little further, and saw Gianna, drunk and laughing and with Darrien, making me scoff, but still lean in for a picture. It wasn’t her fault she had fallen into a spell, I was about to fall under one myself anyway. I walked away after a few moments, tried to force the feeling of wanting to follow you down beneath my shoes so I could step on it. It didn’t work.

The next day I would hear that my friend told everyone I had been following you around like a dog, but I remember feeling only stealthy—kissing you behind some supporting beam thing and wondering why they would put cushy benches back here anyway. It felt like we were supposed to be there, even though every time we pulled apart I felt the familiar dreading feeling that I was suggesting to you that we go home together.

Although I do distinctly remember the interior of that place, I can only remember one time that I actually turned my head to look out the window and see what the city looked like from the 31^st floor of the tallest building I had seen since living there. It was magic. I could almost tell from the way the blue lights hit the windows and the orange lights of the city stood next to them as if affronted that it was really late in the evening. I wasn’t as drunk as I had been, and so I realized in that moment that I was in the midst of doing something that I would probably never do again. It hurt a little, but leaving was far enough away that I allowed myself only a moment of sadness before I remembered the present.

I think the best part of you that I noticed that night is that you made everyone feel like they were important. It wasn’t the first time you had said something nice to me or made it known that you and I felt attracted, but somehow I trusted you more as we sat together on one of those cushy benches, our backs against the window, and my legs on top of yours. I was wearing a skirt, but it didn’t matter that much because I was also wearing heels and felt like you needed to see them. I didn’t think anyone was watching us anyway; didn’t think anyone could see us where we were sitting—kind of next to a wall and kind of in an alcove. I wanted to have you sitting next to me forever in a place like that, I just didn’t know it yet because it wasn’t over.

Someone drove us to McDonald’s, and paid for me to get McNuggets (I didn’t have money, remember?) We acted like we still needed to hide, but I imagine at this point it wasn’t the same as before. Things were probably blatantly obvious, although I think we both liked the secretive way I would lean against you as you sat on some cement pot with a big dark plant in it, and how I stepped away but quietly held one of your fingers when our friends came back. We got in the back row of the Uber together and I leaned against one of the cool windows and allowed my legs to stretch out over your lap. I hope they weren’t too heavy.

I really wasn’t hungry for McDonald’s, and I don’t think you were either. I remember setting the food down and leaving my heels in a pile next to my desk. God, my feet hurt; I could barely walk to the closet and unzip my skirt. Who even knows what underwear I was wearing. I don’t think any of that mattered anyway.

I woke up the next morning and the comforter was on the floor, and I was back to thinking that we shouldn’t have been in my room—after all, you had hooked up with my roommate before you had hooked up with me. You snuck out quietly when I made it known that I wanted you to leave. But before you opened my bedroom door and disturbed the quiet peace of it all, I asked you “That’s it?” You thought that was funny and came back over and kissed me one last time. I think that’s one of my best achievements.

I don’t think we’ll ever have what we had back then. It isn’t the place for it here. But I hope that sometimes you remember me with fondness, and remember that I will always be more than just you and Seth and Kyle, and remember that before I knew you looked at me that way I decided to bungee jump at the last minute and learned how to surf by going to the beach in ubers I ordered and rode in independently. I went to Cape Town and I found solstice in the way I could immerse my body in the ocean, observing the way the clouds hit the mountains and how everything seemed to let me be alone.