The Story, continued.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Marie and I hung back a little, wary of actually going inside. We said to each other that we couldn’t stay late, that we needed to be up early in the morning. Neither of us was happy with the circumstances and we gladly offered preemptive excuses.

I followed Marie down the carpeted stairs, stepping slowly, reluctantly, wondering why this was so awkward, wishing I was in the home of someone else. I consciously molded my face and eyes into a friendly shape, inviting and open. We turned the corner and walked into the main room. Jeff was laying on the couch, nearly falling off, inadvertently showing off most of his candy cane striped boxers. Kevin and Sarah were in the other corner of the basement, playing ping pong. Neither one of them looked up when Marie and I said hi. Jeff rolled over and promptly flopped onto the floor. Mike was in the opposite corner of the room, sitting at a computer and playing a game.

“Hey, what’s goin’ on?” I asked, tentatively, chipping at the ice.

Marie sat on Jeff’s back while he tried to get off the floor. I stood behind Mike and watched the graphics.

“What game is that?” I had to repeat myself three times before being answered.

“Mcfrycpt” He mumbled, engrossed in his game.

“Oh. I see. Is it good?” I didn’t think he heard me, but his head almost inperceptively moved up and down. I took that as a yes. Bored with the gore on the eighteen inch monitor, I walked to the shelf with board games and looked at them as I did every other time I was at his house. I remembered the laughter and intense competition that some of them inspired. Of the fifteen to twenty games in his collection, we only played two or three. I pulled down a game never played by our little group before, Parcheesi.

“So, you guys want to play a game or something?” I wanted to keep the basketball and hockey games off the T.V. for at least one evening. I wanted to do something new. Fingering the ring on the middle finger of my right hand, I held the board game out to Jeff with my other hand. He and Marie immediately sat down, opening the box, taking out the board, the dice, and the pawns.

“This game needs another person. Who’s gonna join this Purchasey game?” Jeff comically peered around the room, oblivious to his mispronunciation of the game. He peeked his face above the back of the couch and was almost hit by a stray ping-pong ball. Purposefully overreacting, he chucked the ball back at Kevin’s face.

“Come on, we’re gonna play a game. Get over here.”

Sarah looked at Kevin, unspeaking but through her darkly lined eyes. Kevin looked back at Sarah and dropped his shoulders and straightening his neck, his gesture of ‘it’s up to what you want.’

Silence.

“Nah, we’ll just play ping-pong. You guys go ahead.”

"Well we still need another person anyway. Why don’t you guys play with us.” The frustration barely surfaced from Jeff’s voice.

“I’ll play.” Mike stood up from his computer, saving and ending his game. The sound track still played. Occasionally, we heard the howl of a solitary wolf through the uncharacteristic silences.

“I haven’t played this game for so long…here, can I see the rules again?” I was attempting to explain the simplicity of the game, but was interrupted by the “experts” who knew how to play because they looked at the picture of the game.

“So if you stand on the same place as your own pawn, you can block everyone from getting past you? How about bumping off another?” Jeff asked me as he shook his dice.

“Ummm, lemme check.” I skimmed the rules on the underside of the box top. “Here, ‘if one pawn lands on the same square as another pawn of a different color, that pawn will be sent back to home. The pawn overtaking the other will then advance twelve additional spaces, free to capture other pawns. If…”

The box lid was snatched from my hands.

“That’s enough rules. We know enough rules; we can play now.” Jeff grinned back at me, ready to skip the preliminaries, and tossed the box to the side.

Marie looked down at her pants and socks, suddenly remembering she was wearing my clothes. “I feel like Rachel.” she said.

“I know.” Jeff wiggled his eyebrows and caressed her arm.

I raised my eyebrow, wondering how Marie would react. She gave him her “look” and playfully shoved his hand away. I couldn’t hear what she told him in response.

The ping-pong ball bounced on the board, scattering several pieces. I threw it back to Kevin, trying not to meet his eyes. I missed and nearly hit Sarah in the back.

“So who’s this Patrick fellow?” Jeff inquired of the ceiling. He laughed at his use of the word “fellow” and played the word until no one else even pretended to laugh.

“Oh, he’s from work. He’s like my best friend.” Those were the most words Sarah said the entire night.

Kevin and Sarah soon ceased their game and walked into Kevin’s room, emerging with a deck of cards. They asked if we would stop our game and play Hearts or Euchre with them.

“No way. I’m winning.” exclaimed Mike, who never cared who won unless he was the winner.

“Fine, then. We’ll play by ourselves.” Kevin said, pretending to be hurt. Looking back, I wonder how much he was pretending. I wonder what else he has pretended, what else has merely been said to incite a certain response.

At least a half hour passed. Kevin played war until he was certain he would win. Marie and I casually glanced at the two card-battlers each time Kevin interjected his comments, each time Marie beat him in anything.

“Sore loser” Marie mouthed to me.

I grinned and nodded. I wonder how many levels she meant that on. If she only knew what happened when he lost….

Patrick finally showed up, ensuring the end of our game. I was finally moving my pawn across the board. All of our pawns had been stuck behind Mike’s twin yellow pawns. If it hadn’t been for the game’s rigid rules, I would have done much better. I would have overtaken each of the others playing.

Kevin went back into his room when Patrick walked down the stairs. Sarah followed him again. She didn’t see Patrick and nearly collided with him as she walked into Kevin’s room. They greeted each other, and Patrick stood back from the rest of us, looking at all the unfamiliar faces laying on the floor around the multi-colored board game. No one said anything until Kevin walked back out from his room, this time holding a different card game. He finally introduced us to Patrick.

Kevin decided we should play Phase 10, a take-off of a rummy card game. Even though over half of us had already played the game, he read aloud each phrase in the rules, clarifying in his serious voice and hand motions the intricate details and strategies of the game. I noticed that Jeff didn’t attempt to grab the rule book from Kevin’s hands. It’s probably good he didn’t, Kevin might have been offended that we didn’t all want to hear his voice as much as he did.

One of my favorite rules in this game is that one can discard a Skip card and choose which player’s turn will be skipped. I skipped Kevin once. I didn’t think that decision through. I skipped his turn because he said a cutting remark and also because he was winning. The game turned somewhat vindictive after that, though filled with much laughter. I almost forgot the circumstances leading to the game at his house until I felt one of the “death glares” shooting my way. I must have made Kevin laugh at something I said. We looked at each other, actually maintaining eye contact. I felt an icy glare at my ear and turned my head slightly to the right. Sarah was looking at me. I promptly erased my smile, lowering my head to look at the cards fanned out in my hand.

Marie and I were unable to draw helpful cards and we were left behind in old phases while the rest of the players moved onto drawing for new runs and threes-of-a-kind.

Mike asked what Marie, Jeff, and I had been doing earlier. Jeff remarked that he had taken two women to a restaurant and then back to their apartment. This elicited another smack on the arm from Marie. The rest of the guys laughed and Mike slapped Jeff on the back as if he had done something worthy of congratulations. These were the very actions that bothered me the most about Kevin and his friends. They continually spoke of women as trophies or conquests. In a way, I have become used to hearing similar statements, but when preceeded or followed in other conversations by empty words professing their respect for women as people, their words merely become kindling in the fire I would like to start at their feet.

Another hour passed. Marie and I were still losing terribly. She looked at Jeff, then at her watch, and whispered into his ear. They began explaining that they needed to be up early in the morning for work. I looked at them. I looked back at Kevin. I stood up.

“Yeah, I should be going, too. I have to get up early in the morning. There’s an event on campus that I need attend, and it’s starting before nine o’clock tomorrow morning.” Marie extended her hand to me, helping me stand. I brushed off the seat of my pants because I couldn’t think of anything else to do with my hands and I sensed people watching me. I hoped I looked as though I was leaving in the same car with Kevin and Marie, not that I was only choosing to leave because they were.

I pulled my shoes from under the table and carried them in my arms. Turning around as I got to the staircase, I looked for a person to whom I could say goodbye. No one looked at us as we left. No one said goodbye. I said to Patrick, “Nice meeting you,” but he must not have heard. I didn’t want to leave like that, I felt rude. But there was nothing else I could have done. I followed Jeff as he walked up the stairs. We stood in the entry way and put our shoes back on. Marie looked at me with relief, glad to be leaving.

“Hey, we should do something this week. Give me a call, ok.”

“Alright. I’ll do that.”

“I’ll give you your pants back then. Here’s your shoes. Thanks so much for letting me borrow your stuff.”

“Oh it’s no problem, really. You’re welcome. I’ll see you later. See ya Jeff.”

“Yep. See ya.” Jeff walked around to the driver’s side of Marie’s car and got in. He peeled out of the driveway while I walked across the street to my car. It was only one o’clock in the morning, too early to go home and go to bed.

I inserted my keys, turned them, pulled the knob for the headlights, pushed the on button of my radio, and backed into the driveway to turn myself around and go home.

The music washed over my body, showering it, cleansing my thoughts from the rejection of his house. I drove the speed limit, surprising myself by dropping below it at times. I didn’t want to return home so early.

Then I remembered I had better friends at home and pushed my foot lower to the floor, gaining on and finally overtaking Jeff and Marie. I parked my car and walked the two blocks back to my house, holding my arms around myself, shivering in the uncommonly cold night air. Three guys in an old car honked and yelled words I quickly forgot as I stood at the corner of the street, waiting for an opening to walk across. Suddenly, I felt very tired. I shuffled my feet, I watched the sidewalk, and only raised my head when I heard a laughing crowd of at least ten who were heading in the direction of the bars. I stepped off the sidewalk, onto the grass, to allow them to pass. None of them so much as glanced at me. I decided I was invisible. Again.

Turning the key in the doorknob and struggling with the stubborn door that would rather remain closed than ever open and allow the inhabitants of the apartment inside, I walked past the Coke machine, down the hall. The yellowing lights flickered above my head and I shuffled my feet to the door. The door. The door of my real friend. I stopped at his door and wrote on his message board before opening the next door, the door that led to the stairs leading my room.

Finally home, finally safe, I kicked off my shoes, took off my overalls, and sat on my couch. I reclined, my head on the soft pillow, my feet on the opposite arm of the couch, and read. I read myself to sleep. Three hours later, at five o’clock that morning, I awoke, removed my shirt, and crawled into bed. I didn’t turn on my alarm clock. Sleep was more important than anything else at the moment. I rationalized that while I was asleep, I wouldn’t make any bad decisions, I wouldn’t ruin anymore friendships. So I slept. I wanted to wake up to a fresh world, a world that existed five months ago in my imagination.