A Love Triangle Most Unusual (Season 1)

Drinking Wine with A Roommate At 3AM

"Aw, geez," Leo said, shuffling in his seat. "What a sad story. So you drove home in the snow afterwards? All by yourself?"

"Yeah, I know," I sighed, nursing the glass of wine in my hands. "Sorry if it bored you."

"No, you don't have to apologize for that," Leo said. "Geez. So...is that why you've been moody for the past week? Because you can't stop thinking about, about what happened?"

"Yeah," I sighed. "It's dumb, I know."

"No, it's not dumb."

We sat together in silence for a few moments.

"Well, that's sad. But I don't see why you're still hung up on it. I mean, it's been at least a year," he whistled. "Don't you think it's time for you to move on from this?"

"I know," I groaned. "But it's not like I can go out and date other people now."

"Yeahh, I know," Leo replied, looking out the window. Outside, the snow was still falling slowly. "Although hey, we might be getting the vaccine in a few months, who knows."

"Fat chance," I replied.

"So, what are you going to do about it, then?"

I groaned. "Well, usually whenever I'm sad, I would just text or call Marie-"

Leo made a face.

"...But I can't, because she's dating Dean and I'm not her boyfriend."

"Oh, shut up!" Leo rolled his eyes, and I noticed how red his cheeks looked in the dim kitchen light. "Nobody does that. That's hella weird."

Some people say it takes seven years for a crush to die. Who knows how long this might take. Either way, it had been a year since I last saw Marie - or anyone besides Leo, really, now that we were on lockdown and doing our best to remain isolated - and I still didn't have the courage to drive back to Tumwater and face her after that awful Lunar New Year party. If anything, I would sooner jump into a vat of acid.

"Didn't she ever tell you something like, 'Hey, shut up and stop calling me'? Maybe that's why she didn't decide to date you," Leo pointed out. "Nobody wants to date a guy who treats them like an unpaid therapist. How long have you been doing this, exactly?"

"I don't know," I said, gripping my wine glass as steadily as possible without spilling anything on me while he refilled the cup. "I guess, I started doing it in high school? But we've been together since middle school. There was a time when we stopped talking to each other because of church, but ended up making up again and after that I started texting her almost everyday."

Leo shook his head. "That's weird, bro," he slurred. "If anyone did that to me, I would never consider dating them."

"Wait, really?" I asked, confused. Leo reached over and wiped off some wine that was spilling out of my mouth with a dinner napkin. "All this time, I thought, the reason why she listened to me talk to her..."

Leo rolled his eyes. "There's no way she got accepted to Cornell and had the time to talk to you every day. Come on, tell the truth. What really happened?"

I sighed, and struggled to remember.

Normally, I wouldn't be divulging these kind of secrets. If Dad was here, he'd probably scold me and then make me sit outside in the snow for showing my weakness like this. But under the influence of the wine that Leo had convinced me to drink with him, everything was spilling freely from my mouth, like a river that was finally unfrozen after a long winter.

"Well, I guess it's not really that she listened to me...more like, I'd send her several long texts, and then she'd try to respond to me later," I replied.

Leo frowned. "This woman must have the patience of a saint. I would've blocked you if you did that to me," he said.

"Oh, really?" I asked, and started feeling as if I might cry. Normally Leo was usually pretty nice to me, but Drunk Leo was merciless. "Should I not have texted her that one time?" I asked weakly.

"What time?"

"Well, sometime last year...I got really anxious because of quarantine, so I started texting her asking her a bunch of stuff because I was feeling suicidal," I told him. The alcohol had truly turned me shameless. If I were sober, I would most likely have stopped talking and jumped out the window by now. But Drunk Me craved validation and reassurance and wanted to wallow in my own woes.

"Well, it's good that you reached out," Leo mumbled. "But all the other times, I think, that was probably too much. She's your friend, but you were probably stressing her out. So, when she found a guy who didn't do that and didn't stress her out, she probably decided he would make a better partner."

"Oh, okay," I said, and let a few tears loose. Leo wiped them off with the dinner napkin as well. "I guess maybe...I shouldn't have done that."

"Yeah," Leo shrugged. "Rejection is hard to handle. Anyways, I have to meet with my girlfriend tomorrow. I need to go to sleep," he said, and stood up shakily, trying to keep his balance.

"Okay," I sighed, standing up as well. "See you in the morning."

The two of us did our best to clean up after ourselves and slowly walked back to our rooms. I sat on my bed, staring across from me, looking at the gift that Marie's grandmother had given me. Ever since that New Year Party, I had been too depressed to even look at it, let alone open it.

Well, what do you have to lose now? The voice inside me asked.

I shrugged. "Nothing, I guess," I sighed, and reached for it. "Might as well open it now."

I untied the ribbon on the lid and picked it up. Inside was a small velvet pouch, like the sort that women use to hold expensive jewelry.

Did Marie's grandmother give me a Rolex?

I carefully loosened the pouch and reached inside, feeling something cold and hard and round, but not the watch that I was expecting. As I pulled it out, I foud myself holding a small, thin green jade bracelet. I blinked, confused.

"These are for girls," I slurred drunkenly, to nobody in particular. "Why did she give me a girl's bracelet?"

I stared at it, completely puzzled.

Marie's grandmother was old, yes, but she wasn't senile, at least the last time I saw her. Perplexed, I reached for the jade at held it up to the light, admiring its translucent green quality.

"It's pretty, though..."

Sighing, I placed the bracelet on my wrist and stared at it as if I was waiting for it to work some sort of magic on me. Like the glass slippers that Cinderella put on her ashy, dirty feet that transformed her into a princess.

"That's nonsense, though," I sighed. "There is nothing magical about real life. You're a sad, pathetic, suicidal twenty year old guy, and there is nobody in this world who loves you. Dad was right."

I suddenly was overcome by a wave of exhaustion. Normally, whenever I get drunk, I prefer to sleep it off, and this time was no exception.

I yawned, still staring at the bracelet. "I'll keep it on this once," I said wistfully, "And if I don't like it, I'll just put in back in the box and never think about it again."

With that, I turned off the bedside lamp, rolled over, rubbed my eyes, and fell asleep.