Alternative

March 18, 2009 at 5:12PM

I got an acceptance letter from my first-choice university in the mail today. I was kind of surprised when I read it. My first thought was that they'd mixed me up with someone else; or that they'd take back their offer when they realized that I wasn't actually that smart. I even asked the principal at Harvest if it was possible that they'd confused me up with someone else, that they hadn't meant to accept me into the university. He reassured me it was unlikely that they'd mistaken my identity, and said that my grades were actually good enough to get in.

The reinvention attempt hadn't really worked at Harvest but maybe it could work now. I'd be moving to a different city, meeting a ton of new people, starting over for real.

At school, I tell Alex about getting into university and he gives me one of his classic high fives, although he also seems a little weird about it.

"Did you get any letters back yet?" I ask him.

"I didn't apply anywhere, dude."

I didn't know that. It was possible his grades had dropped. He and Chris and Terry had been skipping lots of classes, smoking weed in the alley behind the school, playing lots of online poker.

"I'm going to do another semester here," he says. "Get my grades up."

"That sounds cool," I say.

"Yeah. University sounds pretty dope, but I don't even know what I want to do with my life yet, you know?"

I had no idea what I was going to do with my life, either.

"What about you, what are you planning on doing career wise?" he says.

"I'm not sure. When did you decide to take another year?"

"Terry and I have been talking about it for a while. We want to stay together. She's still got another year and if I went away to university that would probably be it for us, you know?"

Mentioning Terry begged the question about Beth, what was going on with me and her. Alex and I hadn't really talked about her at all. I haven't even told him that we'd broken up.

"Hey, how's Beth doing by the way?" he asks. "Been meaning to ask."

"We're not seeing each other anymore."

I don't like saying her name or hearing it. Don't want to bring her up.

"Sorry to hear that, buddy," he says.

"Yeah, it's all good. We're each on our own path, you know."

(Dumb, new-agey response.)

"Yeah, that's good," he says.

Going away to university also meant that I wasn't going to be around Alex much anymore. Maybe we both understood this because it didn't really feel the same with us. We used to have fun, laugh about things, have some kind of rhythm with each other. Maybe I was just too much of a downer for anyone to enjoy being around anymore. Or maybe we'd just reached the natural conclusion of our friendship.

"Hey man," I started. "Feel free to come visit me at my dorm. You know if you ever feel like checking out what university's like."

Something changes in Alex's eyes.

"Thanks, man. That's cool of you to offer."