4
Blair heard I came here for a month three days ago on the third week of my visit. She agreed to meet up at a burger joint to "reminisce", as she put it. We sit in one of the booths, not eating anything, but drinking a couple of Cokes.
"So what have you been doing at Camden?" she asks.
"Oh, you know, Dressed to Get Screwed parties and there's this nice place for drinks all the students know about called End of the World."
"Meet anyone?"
"Not really. No one really likes me there."
She shrugs. "No one really likes you here, either."
"That's the problem, Blair," I tell her softly. "I don't know where I belong."
She sips from her drink, rolling her eyes, and says nothing.
"I mean wherever I go I long for the other. I go to Camden and all I can think about is the beach. All I think about is the beach and the... the lifestyle. It's all I know."
Still nothing out of her.
"And when I'm here I feel the same for there. It's so simple there, and I don't see half the things I see here. It's so... ordinary."
"Define ordinary."
I change the subject. "So who told you about me coming back?"
"A friend," she says simply.
"What friend?"
"Julian."
"Why didn't you just say Julian?" I mutter.
"Julian told me a few days ago and said he hadn't seen you yet."
Why would he say that? I think, but instead I just say, "Oh."
She changes the topic. "So what were you saying about not seeing half the things you see here?"
"Oh, nothing." A flash. The dead body in the alleyway, the coyote dying, my father, Julian that one night in the bathroom with Finn, the young girl with Trent on top of her with his dick in her mouth inquiring about the dead body. I shut my eyes for a second. "You know."
"Clay, I don't understand you. I never could."
"Neither could I," I take a sip of my drink and neither of us talk for the rest of the time we're there. I never ask how Blair's doing and she never brings anything up. We leave with the same silence.