Never Always Sometimes - Adi Alsaid Page 0,7

a couple.

“This is kind of weird, isn’t it?”

Julia nodded. “I can’t believe this has been happening the whole

time we were in high school.”

“I was just thinking that,” Dave said. He finished off his beer and

took a few steps to place it atop one of the many beer can pyramids

that had started popping up around the house. “I’m gonna try to find

the bathroom. Don’t get swallowed up by this madness.”

30 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES

“Wait, Dave, before you go.”

“Yeah?”

God, she was beautiful. Her cheeks were slightly flushed from

the alcohol and the warmth of so many people inside the house.

She stepped out of her high heels, suddenly the height he’d always

known her to be. Relief visibly washed over her. She closed her eyes

for a second, her toes curling and uncurling against the sticky kitchen

floor. “That felt so good I might start wearing high heels just for the

pleasure of removing them.” She sighed with a smile. “Okay, I just

wanted you to witness that. You can go pee now.”

He smiled at her, then made his way through the groups of

increasingly drunken classmates to find the bathroom.

DAVE 31

EMPTY COLORING BOOKS

DAVE FLUSHED AND washed his hands, drying them off on his

jeans since the single hand towel was clearly soaked through. He

glanced briefly at himself in the mirror, wondering what he would

look like in a polo shirt and then shaking off the thought, or more like shuddering it away the way he did with nightmares. This had been an

interesting experiment, but now it was time to find Julia and go back

to their little world of two.

Except that the party had rearranged itself while Dave was in the

bathroom. The number of people in the kitchen had doubled. Beer

pong was over and now there was a new game being played, one he’d

seen Brett and his friends play, though he’d never really cared enough

to try to understand it. Julia wasn’t where they’d been standing for

most of the night.

He surveyed the room but couldn’t spot her, which surprised him.

He was so used to looking for her that he felt unreasonably skillful at

it, as if no matter how many people were around his eyes would easily

land on her. Her presence called out to him like a beacon.

“Dave!” Vince Staffert shouted on his approach, clearly drunk.

“Yo!”

“Hey, Vince.”

“Come play flip cup with us. We need one more.” He put his arm

around Dave’s shoulders and started pulling him away from the wall.

“Uh, I don’t really know how to play,” Dave said, trying to hold his

ground.

“Dave, you got into UCLA. I’m sure you can figure out a drinking

game.”

Caught off guard by Vince knowing that about him, Dave

stammered, “I—I shouldn’t. Julia and I were just about to go.”

Vince sometimes asked Dave for help in math class, and from

those few interactions, Dave had always thought of him as a nice

guy. He knew there was another side to Vince, football player that

he was, but all he’d ever seen was someone big and quiet and not so

good at math.

“This house is not that big. She’ll find you.” Vince pulled him to

the kitchen table. Cups were scattered and stacked across the surface,

little puddles of beer pooling together. The other team consisted of

two guys and two girls, none of whom Dave knew on a first-name

basis, though he’d seen them around school.

“Guys, I’m not sure you want me on your team.”

“Yeah, I agree,” one of the other football players said to Vince.

“AJ, don’t be a dick. Here,” Vince said, pouring some beer in a

cup, which by the looks of it had been used many a time throughout

the night. “The game’s easy,” he declared and explained the rules in

a few seconds. “Got it?” Once, Dave and Julia had misread a flyer

DAVE 33

and, thinking they were about to see an author they loved, had

accidentally attended a reading at the library by the West Coast’s

leading researcher on menopause. So it’d be hard to say that this was

the most out of place Dave had ever felt. But it was close enough.

Dave sighed. He and Julia had avoided all of this because they’d

wanted their high school years to be a little more unique than everyone

else’s. And yeah, they were here to see what they’d successfully

avoided, but Dave had meant to just be an observer.

Dave surveyed the room one last time for Julia. The blue of her

eyes, those three freckles on her neck. But she was nowhere around,

and so he checked his phone. A text from her was waiting on his

screen. Went off to explore the craziness on my own. Best story at the end of the night wins. Godspeed.

He smiled