Than to Have Never Loved at All

Nat

Finn and I woke up, completely sober, somewhere around midnight with a flashlight shining in our eyes.

It was not a good look, and the police officer who walked us back to my house (because no one answered the phone at Finn's) explained exactly what was going on to my parents.

"Drinking with a boy, in a cemetery, at midnight."

There was a lecture and the beginnings of a conversation about punishment. We were in trouble, but not enough that Finn couldn't pass out on my bed, or Nat couldn't call us the next day. I think somewhere deep down my parents got it.

"So they caught you?" Nat snorted, fell out of the facetime screen then crawled back up into the muted yellow light of her new desk lamp, in her new apartment, in her new bedroom, in her new country. "Wie hesslich."

I leaned my head down onto the table. I was tired, not hungover (even if one beer had made us drunk, Finn had forced water on us as soon as my mom had finished her disappointed-in-us-lecture). Two days of not enough sleep did make me a zombie though. I did not need Nat's new language, or her tinkling bell-like laughter at my expense.

She had Shadenfreude, I realized humorlessly. Joy at the suffering of others. How could she be jet lagged and so maliciously happy at the same time?

"Listen, babe," Nat said, catching her breath, "Sounds like a perfect evening, and I couldn't be more disappointed that I missed out on drunk Finn."

I looked over. She really hadn't missed much. We fell asleep on a rock. I'm not even sure either of us finished our beers.

It was Saturday afternoon, Finn was out so hard on my bed that he hadn't even gotten up for pancakes and bacon, dished out with a side of "you don't deserve this," from my dad.

I was pretty sure he was just avoiding going home for lecture number two.

On the screen Nat flipped her pitch black hair over her shoulder. Her skin glowed, her lips were bent in a constant manic glee. Adventure suited her.

"It's perfect though, because now you can tick alcohol in a cemetery off of your list."

"Your list," I mumbled.

"huh?"

Finn snorted in his sleep and rolled over. I looked at him, waiting to see if he would rise from the dead. His breathing leveled out and he was unconscious again. I turned back to the screen.

"Listen Nat, it was tasteless urine water, and I'm checking it off the list, but I think that's the last one we're going to pull off. You were always the mastermind behind this stuff. You heard how it went. Finn and I are in massive trouble."

"How much trouble?"

"Aunt Penny trouble," I said.

Nat hissed in sympathy.

"That bad?"

"I'm going to be making glitter-banners for months."

When my parents didn't know what to do with me they sent me to my aunt. She was a hippy whose many projects were meant to keep me out of trouble, and keep my mind on doing the right thing. They had landed on that solution after an incident with Nat and a hair-spray-bottle-turned-flame-thrower. When they couldn't ground me (I liked being stuck inside with only books and TV to entertain me) they needed a different solution.

"I played the my 'best friend moved to Germany' sympathy card to full effect," I added.

"Ah well," Nat said. "I like to think it was worth it." She smirked at me and I tried to look away and act like maybe the thrill hadn't been nice for a second. I guess it was. But what I liked most was Nat's approval. A flicker of a smile crossed my face, against my will.