Are we sharing your childhood bed for the weekend? ;)
No, we have a hotel. Hopefully, it has two beds, but Allie booked it, so you might need to sleep on the floor.
Again, make me.
When can we hang out?
Why would we hang out?
You gotta make it convincing. We gotta talk logistics, make a plan, do our hard launch, tell me how to handle the ex and shit. You really haven’t thought through this plan at all, have you?
I still haven’t decided if it’s happening. WTF is a hard launch…?
Are your friends gonna believe that it’s serious enough for me to attend your ex’s wedding if we literally have no pictures together on social media? Hell no, so we gotta announce our relationship now, so they believe your lies!
Dream takes pictures of us at brunch.
You’re so hardheaded, Bambi. Those are group pictures. It’s not the same.
Is this what you’re like with people you’re actually dating? Coercing them into hanging out with you?
No, I never have to try this hard. They’re usually begging for alone time with me. ;)
I’m not really sure how to react to that, so I stick to Eris’s original question.
I have finals this week, so anytime after Friday morning.
Come by the dispensary at 2. We’ll celebrate with ice cream.
Fine.
It’s a date!
It’s not a date. It’s merely logistics planning.
You’re killing me, Bambi.
Good.
lmaooooooo
Four
Bud
TheLsquealsoverheadwhile I walk as self-assuredly as my knee allows, checking my phone to make sure I went the right direction from the platform.
I didn’t.
With an audible groan, I pretend I forgot something and head in the opposite direction, even though I’m sure no one is looking at me. Two years in this city, and I still get lost everywhere I go. Chicago feels surreal for someone who grew up in a town of two thousand people. Well four, counting the college students.
A mere hour ago, I completed the last of my exams. For all intents and purposes, I now have a law degree. It hasn’t quite sunk in yet, and I’m not sure I’ll notice when it does.
There’s something odd about a phase of life that’s over, but hasn’t yet ended. There’s not a Before and After. It’s like on a hike, when one biome changes to another. Sometimes, it’s sudden and noticeable, like when a body of water disrupts the gradation. That was the end of my time in Solberg. I graduated, questioning my decision to move away for law school. A fewdays later, Matt broke up with me, and I fled, moving here three months ahead of schedule. It was a clean cut. No liminal blend between phases. I blinked and found myself staring out across Lake Michigan instead of farm fields.
Other times, the transition is slow. The patches of sunlight that filter through the forest canopy grow bigger and more frequent, until only a few oak trees dot the prairie. That’s how I feel right now.
For the last two years of my life, I’ve been focused solely on passing tests and writing papers, much like all of my schooling before. But now, there’s no next degree to work towards. I’m in that in-between space, where clusters of trees ease into prairie, because I still have to study full-time until I take the bar in six weeks. Part of me wants to go back to the forest; the dense canopy makes me feel safe. But the whole point of going on the hike was to see the prairie. So of course I’ll keep on the path, even if I feel more exposed and vulnerable with every sun-dappled step towards that vast openness of the Rest of My Life.
