Honey Drip // Danny Wagner

Part II // Chapter V

This was originally two separate chapters but I wanted to be merciful. Thank you to those of you who read, vote & comment!! <3 

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I could hear Sam's voice in my head saying, "Why don't you delete that shit?" as I opened up the Facebook messenger app. Sam was right, except it felt like Facebook was the only slight tether I had left to the outside world, in a very arbitrary sense. It may have been people long lost, though they were still floating and roaming about the same place I was, and, while it really was all so artificial and surface-level but, with the boys constantly coming and going, it was a somewhat useful sneak-peek into other people's lives. People who weren't them. Distractions.

I was really trying to test and ultimately break some of the codependency I'd created for myself so, when Ryan said that Tyler was having a bonfire, I really thought about it. I imagined half-empty bottles of liquor people brought from home, a cooler full of beer, a bowl being passed around with, knowing Tyler even a little bit, really bad indie music in the background, sparks flying and smoke rising into the black sky. It would not be a Kiszka-Wagner backyard bonfire and it probably wouldn't be great, but it would only be awful if I allowed it to be.

I came prepared with a 12-pack of Miller Lite to add to the predicted cooler. It seemed like a safe choice, though I knew Josh and Sam especially would have berated me for choosing it. If anything, it acted as a sort of security blanket when I exited my car and headed to Tyler's backyard, wondering who else I vaguely knew would be back there in the shadows, who else I needed a jumpstart to remember.

Around the flames, there was Tyler, his girlfriend who was still nameless to me; Ryan; Marissa, whom I'd also graduated with and whom I distinctly remembered having biology with sophomore year because she was very vocal about not wanting to partake in the fetal pig dissection; Matt from sophomore year English and junior year gym and, lastly, Melissa. Melissa I only remembered so distinctly because she would go right to the edge of school grounds to smoke cigarettes with the other "latchkey kids."

It was strange to be remembered. It was strange to be remembering them so easily. We all were so much evidently older--different clothes, different hair, different ways of speaking, even--but there was something about the way Marissa specifically sat that took me back to that biology class. It was like being at the table next to hers, watching her slowly cross one leg over the other and fiddle with an invisible skirt hem--she did it in front of the fire, and I realized I must have had a similar sort of tell. Something to reveal that, while things had indeed changed, things hadn't changed all that much.

Danny was even younger than us, still in the throes of so many changes that had yet to come to fruition. Even younger and out in the world, making it all his own.

I got a beer in hand and attempted to soothe those thoughts away. I was at a bonfire and, while the people there were people I already knew, I had known them long ago. Perhaps spending time around those flames would help me rescind my previous thought about things not changing. Anyway, I learned that Tyler's girlfriend was named Stephanie and she went to school out of state but was visiting for the summer. I actually found that fascinating--a true long-distance relationship--and leaned forward in my chair to listen to them talk about it a bit, letting the beer dangle in my fingers above the patio, heating up against my skin.

They did it, they made it work, and the way they talked about it made it seem so simple--you visit, you talk on the phone more, make real time for communication, send texts, understand when things don't go as planned, love each other. I mentally added "more phone sex" to their list of to-dos, if Danny and I were to continue doing whatever it is we were doing. If Tyler and Stephanie could do it, why couldn't we?