I love Detroit Airport. Whether it’s the actual design, or it being associated with the beginning of adventures, I don’t know. In October 2013, I didn’t love it yet; it had not yet established itself as my life’s getaway driver. I took one trip away, out of reality’s orbit, and touchdown brought me ‘round again to find I wasn’t the man they thought I was at home, oh no, no, no.

I didn’t know how to explain it to my roommates — where I went and what I was doing there. At that time, before the explosion of online communities into the mainstream, the idea of “internet friends” was effectively synonymous with “child molesters”. Sketchy, untrustworthy people lurking in the glow of a computer screen, broken or deranged. Not knowing even where to begin, and entirely embarrassed at the prospect of having to explain a huge part of my life that they probably wouldn’t even fully be able to grasp — “Wait, a bunch of guys who played a video game made a podcast, and then almost four years later went to Vegas without ever even seeing each other’s faces?”

I lied and said I had gone with my dad and some of his friends and had had a good time. Why bother being yourself, when it’s just easier to lie and act like everyone else. I found myself becoming more and more distant to ****, the people there, everything was some form of pretending, trying to make this college thing work. College was supposed to be the greatest four years of your life. A crazy time for youthful experimentation — the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have adult capabilities without the same responsibilities. There I was, thirty-three percent done with college, and I was just a skinnier version of the kid who started on day one.

I was living a double life. The weeks after Vegas spent basking in the glow of the event, retelling the weekend in vivid detail over and over amongst ourselves, buffing and polishing those memories to a mirror-finish and putting them on a shelf to look at and turn over in my hands every few days. But I couldn’t share them with anyone else, despite how many times I tried to see if there was a simpler version of the story, one that could be told without the crazy backstory of how I got there. It always ended in the concession “you had to be there”. And no one had been. Just me.

The gap between digital and analog **** widened more and more. Every day in **** opening the refrigerator of life, already knowing there was nothing in it I wanted to eat., but checking again just in case. The dim incandescent glow of its light illuminating my emotionless face in the dark kitchen that was my existence.

Not much of note happened that semester, but it solidified my feelings of complete out-of-placeness at college. The first, I can’t remember if it was pre or post-Vegas. I think it actually happened before, because of how warm the weather was, but cognitively it feels tied to the feelings I had after.

Two girls who were a year below my roommate and I called him on Gameday, as most of the students were headed to the stadium or back home to sleep off the morning’s drinks. They were freshmen, and they lived on North Campus, and were in our area, so they wanted to know if they could stop by before beginning the long trek back to their dorms. I remember my roommate fielding the call; I could tell how drunk our incoming guests were just from his side of the conversation.

“Okay, yeah, okay, Haley. Yes. Where are you? Yeah, it’s just a block up. Yeah. Haley? Haley can you hear me? Okay...just call me when you’re outside,” hanging up with a sigh and shaking his head.

For whatever reason, I think neither he nor I really partook in that day’s festivities, most likely just nursing a couple Rolling Rocks as we watched the sea of students on the street from our fourth-floor window. Haley and Jessica arrived and I knew we were in for a rough time until they left. So loud. Absolutely wasted, unable to follow any conversation, or even their own thoughts. They recounted all the tailgate parties they had gone to, forgetting some and doubling back to retrace the chronology. We couldn’t fucking care less. Total freshmen. In an effort to spare my ears and sanity, I offered to make everyone food — quesadillas. Not in the microwave like some plebeian, but in a pan, with butter. Have some goddamn self respect.

While already past the point of sobering up while conscious, the girls graciously devoured my offering, praising the simple plates put before them. The secret is to salt the outside when they’re hot out of the pan, still coated in melted butter. You’re welcome.
Jessica then fell asleep, sitting on the floor, back against the wall. My roommate and I woke her up, offering that she could sleep in my room, and Haley in his, if they wanted. Haley declined, unfortunately, feeling incredibly energized, but no less inebriated after her meal. Jessica accepted however, and I lead her to my room. She got into my bed and I got her a glass of water from the kitchen, set it beside her, closed the blinds, and turned to leave. As I stepped toward the door, she made a slight sound of frustration — that almost-grump “mmph” sound we make when too tired to vocalize. I turned back to her and she grabbed my arm, pulling me towards her.

“You want me to lay down?”

“Mhm,” she replied, nodding with closed eyes.

I lifted up the blanket to join her, and I don’t know what she had done with her pants while I was in the kitchen, but they weren’t there anymore. I remember being taken aback, not expecting to be greeted by the sight of her underwear instead of the light-wash denim shorts she had had on moments before. They were sheer, and red. I remember seeing razor burn through the translucent fabric.

I laid down and we faced each other as she put her arm around my shoulders and placed my hand on her waist. I was frozen. What’s going on... I don’t even know this girl, really... is she trying to tell me something? She’s so drunk... What does this mean?

I laid there for some time, matching the rhythm of my breath to hers until I felt her arm go limp and her breaths deepen and slow. She was asleep. I carefully extricated myself from the bed and went back out to the living room. Haley wasn’t there, having accepted my roommates’ offer while I was gone, and I shook my head as I sat down on the couch — that rapid jostle, blinking your eyes, trying to shake loose some sense out of whatever just transpired.

He asked me, “You alright?”

I explained the situation, and he sat there, hood on, drawstrings pulled tight around his face, and replied “Yeah dude, I don’t know”, equally tired and baffled by the afternoon’s strange unravelings.

I don’t know either.

The second event, strangely related, occurred during Halloween. I was at some house party — regrettably early. I always showed up to parties early, with nothing interesting enough in my life to serve as the catalyst for fashionable lateness. I was alone, dressed as a viking. Plastic horned helmet, tan cut-off shirt under my new chain-mail vest, brown pants, leather boots. I strolled through the kitchen, past the Gatorade coolers of orange jungle juice, and carefully tiptoed down the narrow, rickety basement stairs in the direction of the music. Incredibly bare, the unfinished concrete room boasted maybe fifteen guests, some cheap laser lights projected onto one wall, and a kid with his phone plugged into the speakers, sampling off a regrettable pre-streaming-era playlist. I remember hearing “Make It Nasty” by Tyga more than twice that night.

I stood there in the middle of the room, still aggressively sober, trying to muscle down my warm can of Natural Light as quickly as possible, when a girl dressed as a low-effort rabbit approached me — y’know, bunny ears, drawn-on whiskers, tights. I was about to introduce myself, but just as she was in arms’ reach she cut me off,

“Well yo-ho-ho and shiver me timbers,” before grabbing my face and jerking it to meet hers, practically ramming her tongue down my throat.

It tasted like Hawaiian Punch and peroxide. And just like that, it was over. She stumbled away, bumping into a few other costumed guests, before nearly falling down the stairs as she tried to ascend.

That was my first kiss. Not some secret sleepaway camp peck, or steamy makeout session in the backseat after a school dance — I had just gotten my tonsils tongued by Roger Rabbit as Drake’s “Started From The Bottom” banged off the walls. Started from the bottom, and I’m still in the basement it seems. Did she think I was dressed as a pirate? I guess the Vikings did kinda invent piracy...

I didn’t know what to make of any of it. Seemingly I only showed up on the romantic radars of people so drunk they couldn’t walk straight or stay awake. Part of me got it — baby-faced, blonde side-parted hair, blue eyes — I looked like a Hitler Youth scoutmaster. But the other part of me was utterly confused and despondent. Am I really the “bad decision”? Can someone only find me attractive if they can’t keep their eyes open? Are my perceived value, and their sobriety mutually exclusive?

I lingered like that for the rest of the semester. I was wholly unremarkable. Dropped the calculus class I was failing, kept up my “I’ll come when I feel like it” attendance policy for the rest of my classes, and shambled my way toward second semester, hoping that maybe like my freshman year, I’d turn things around after Christmas Break.

Christmas Break did change a lot of things, actually. The end of 2013 was to be the closing of one chapter, and the opening of another. I didn’t know it yet, but some solace was to come in my suffering. That Christmas, alone in my room at my parents’ house, I’d get to know V.