Equilateral Love

Chapter 1 - Making New Friends; Part 3

Abby

Dude, I'm not going to talk any shit on the rest of that semester – it was lit, okay – but I was hyped for the next year. Brianna and Michael and I hung out all the time, and it was awesome, and every single time I just kept thinking these guys are my soul mates, I cannot wait to live with them. And we rocked. We went to movies, Michael cooked for us in the basement, and we spent hours just shooting the shit in the lounge. I even got them both rolling on some philosophical, like, religion thing at one point, and I swear to God I fell asleep, and when I woke back up they were still talking! I was so proud of them! They never kissed or whatever, but . . . you know, that was fine. They were both shy, and kinda nerdy or whatever, and it was cute . . . and to be honest, I was fine with the kinda, like, holding pattern we settled into, right? It worked. We were all, like, buds or whatever. And that was good.

And then we all went home for the summer, and we said goodbye, and we had this cute little group hug, and Brianna totally teared up – and I didn't, okay! I was cool as a cucumber, but I was going to miss them. Seriously. Okay, I bawled. Heheh. And summer was so fucking boooring dude, I thought I was going to die – every lame ass from high school was either back in town or still in town, and they were all like "Oh my God, Abby, I work at Costco now! Oh my God! My dad's on metformin!" Like – who the fuck could possibly give a shit? I mean, I'm sorry, not to be mean, I just . . . uuuggghhh, you know? And it went forever. But we had a lease, dude. Our secret weapon. I was so hyped. We had all signed, all the way back in May, ready to rock – this cute little three-bedroom apartment, two bathrooms, everything, whatever – we all went to see it, and it was so perfect. And we signed, and then it was just a waiting game, dude. August 19th. Game. On.

When the date finally rolled around, I was beyond ready – and we were back, baby – back in town, and back together. When I finally laid eyes on them again, just . . . the emotion, and I was crying again, and I ran up and hugged them both – and Christ, you know I had to fucking jump, my tall-ass babies.

And we hugged, and we laughed, and then I helped them haul furniture inside, except that I didn't, really, because I'm me, so I was just there lifting 0.2% of the weight of any given thing while the two with actual, like, mass did the real work. And I was late to the party anyway, so before too long the handful of boxes were sorted into the proper rooms, and we had a couch, and we had a table, and the three of us were sitting around it, rewarding ourselves with some well-earned relaxation. And it was our place. And it was amazing.

Michael swept his hand across the surface of the table – the smooth wood – felt the seam in the middle where he had slotted in the leaf not long ago.

"This is a nice table," he said. "Your parents gave you this?"

Brianna shrugged. "It was my grandma's. She died a few years ago, and my parents have had it sitting in the garage ever since. They always said one of us should take it, but Stephanie never seemed interested."

Michael nodded thoughtfully. "It's very nice."

I grinned. "So are you going to serve us dinner on this thing, big boy?"

Michael's eyes lit up, and he returned my smile.

"Oh, you have no idea," Brianna said. "He was talking about it before you got here. Apparently he's planning something big."

He shrugged. "It's a special occasion, right? Our first night together in the new place, our very own apartment – I dunno, I wanted to make something nice."