Wyatt loves retelling the story of the first time he met my mom. 

    Wyatt: You guys hadn’t seen each other for months, Anna.

    Anna: I’m well aware. But when I tell you that was for the best, you just have to take my word for it.

    Wyatt: I saw a short woman in a grape purple, velvet tracksuit walking towards us in the dining hall and —

    Anna: I had warned you we don’t have the same taste.

    Wyatt: Ok, wild understatement. Oh my god and then she tapped your shoulder and asked for the directions to your advisor’s office. I don’t even think you guys made eye contact.

    Anna: We didn’t. I could just feel you wanting to be introduced. Honestly, I’m so glad you saw that. It showed you how warm a person I am in comparison.

    Wyatt: The product of divorce, I guess.

    Anna: Wyatt, no. Most of our friends are the product of divorce. I’m the product of undiagnosed mental illness and the world’s most fucked up affair.

    Wyatt: Dramatic.

    Anna: That’s my middle name.

          He grew up with three older siblings and two parents who are clearly in love, so I get how my situation could appear unorthodox. I remember telling him I’d never see her again after high school, but look at me now. Apartment 25A in a “Mid-Century Modern” building in San Francisco. She's in apartment 24A with her Romanian boyfriend. They’ve been together, what? Six years? I can’t remember the last time he and I had a conversation. 

          My mother strongly suggested I move here a few months ago. I was doing just fine, besides the time I made the mistake of drunk calling her during a bad week. “You convinced your father and me that this year would be a productive time to rethink your path of study. You said you’d work, or start a project, or do something while waiting for another college to accept you. Come live in 25A for the rest of the year. You’re going to become your aunt, Anna. I’ve let you try things out for months now. But at the end of the day, a 19 year old girl like you shouldn’t be in a random city like Seattle by herself.” A “girl like me.” Pointing out the obvious is her specialty.

          She walked into my apartment when Wyatt and I were on the phone yesterday. Six years later and they still haven’t had a conversation. He just heard her say “Food? Laundry?” I nodded no to both and she left. Brevity is our love language. On her way out he yelled, “nice to see you Anna’s mom!” No response. 

​

    Wyatt: What was she wearing today? Anything sexy? 

    Anna: Stop being smug.

    Wyatt: Ok but what was it?

    Anna: I hate the answer so I’m honestly thinking I should just lie.

    Wyatt: Well now I need to know.

    Anna: White button down shirt and the same pants she wore in the dining hall that day.

​

          That’s how we got on the topic.

*****

          I wonder what would happen if she walked in right now. I’m naked on my bed with Theo and there are condoms and lube on my nightstand. I've been sleeping with Theo for a couple of weeks now, which is probably the longest I’ve been with someone in a year. We usually go to his place to avoid my mother but I wanted to be in my own room today. I like Theo. Or at least I don’t mind him. He’s good at sex and is willing to try stuff and mostly asks OK questions. The position we’re laying in reminds me of Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts in Notting Hill.

          My head leans on my knuckle and my feet are by his head. I poke his head with my right foot in funny moments, and he strokes it with his nails when we talk about more serious things.

    “You’ve been quiet today. What’s in your head?,” he asks. I don’t mind this question.

    Anna: I don’t know. Not much, honestly.

    Theo: Can I ask you a question, then?
   Anna: Sure…shoot.

    Theo: Any memory been on your mind lately? 

    Anna: Haha, touché. I knew you liked that question when I asked it last time.

    Theo: You’re right, I did, and I’m curious. Has yours changed?

    Anna: It has, actually. It’s kind of a sad one this time.

    Theo: Go on.

    Anna: Ok then (I pause and take a deep breath to transport my mind to the scene). My senior year of high school, I went to the beach with my friend Wyatt (I pause again, in hesitation). I’ve mentioned him before, right?

    Theo: Yes (he chuckles), a few times now.

    Anna: Well, it was a great vacation. We were both kind of scared to be just the two of us for two weeks, but it was so easy and just… great. 

    Theo: I’m sure it was a real dilemma choosing to go on a beach vacation.

    Anna: (I ignore this comment. It isn’t funny and I’m trying to focus. Recenter. Continue…) I remember on the sixth or seventh day, we had walked around the town in Mexico we were in and got tired, so we decided to stop in this big outdoor restaurant to get tacos. It had been a great day. We had gotten free drinks from this street vendor and I found cheap beaded earrings and bought Wyatt’s mom a pair. 

          Anyways, we sat down and somehow got on the topic of relationships. I remember the song “Ram On” playing, which felt like the wrong vibe for a Mexican beach town. I told him the details of what I knew about Abigail and Nick’s relationship. He told me what he’d heard and we compared notes.

    Theo: Who?

    Anna: Oh sorry, Abigail and Nick. Two of our other friends. They had this big drama senior year because she was in love with him, but he fingered this other girl at a party and she walked in during, and it was just really bad. 

    Theo: Ok. Got it. Wow.

    Anna: It doesn’t really matter now, I guess.

    Theo: Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.

    Anna: It’s fine! (I add an exclamation to hide my frustration at this unnecessary pause in my story) Where was I?

    Theo: You were at a restaurant and having a really great day, you were talking about friends, and the song playing felt wrong.

    Anna: Oh right, yes. Ok so we were talking about Abigail and Nick, and then Wyatt asked me if I still think about Cory. 

    Theo: Who?

    Anna: It doesn’t matter, can you just stop with the questions.

    Theo: Fine, Jesus.

    Anna: I didn’t really know why he asked about Cory, another person from high school, but I guess it was because we were on the topic of relationships? But anyways, I realized we hadn’t talked about Cory since the weekend I’d spent with him in Sacramento two years before. I also realized I didn’t want to talk about it, so I told him yes and left it at that. He asked me to be more specific and I said I had to pee. He seemed confused but I didn’t pay attention to him. In the bathroom, I didn’t really know what to do except what I hadn’t done since that same weekend years ago. I’d sworn to myself that from that point on I was done with the bad in my life. When I sat back down at the table with Wyatt, I changed the subject. He told me I was being cold and I told him to fuck off. He asked me if I was ok, if he had said something, and I told him to stop asking me questions. I knew he felt like he had in the beginning of our friendship, before I let him in. I hated making him feel like that, but something inside me felt unable to stop. I realize today I just wanted him to understand something no one would even want to guess. I didn’t want to have to tell him anything. I just wanted him to pick up on it, and to know what I had just done in the bathroom, and to heal silently.

    Theo: Did that ruin the vacation?

    Anna: Thank you, a good question. Weirdly, not at all. After eating, we sat in silence on the beach. I hugged his arm and he kissed my cheek. We didn’t talk about it, but I think in the silence he understood I couldn’t (pause). Anyways, that’s the memory I’ve been thinking about. Your turn, Theo.

          From what I can tell, Theo’s memory hadn’t changed much since I’d last asked him. He spoke about a realization he’d had in therapy regarding his sister. His perspective had changed since we’d talked about it, but not enough to keep me from entering my own thoughts. 

*****

          Wyatt came to visit me in Seattle a few weeks before my mother made me come back to San Francisco. I made him walk the forty minutes to Standard, my favorite coffee shop. I got a large iced black coffee, and he made fun of me for going all the way there for an order that simple. “What can I say, Wyatt? You know I’m just a black coffee kind of girl.” He got the same thing but decaf because he can’t handle caffeine like I can.  “Fuck,” he muttered as we made our way out of the shop.

          Looking in the direction he faced, I saw Cory walking towards us. When we saw him it was too late to turn back, but Wyatt stopped walking. He looked at me and held my hand. We never hold hands. Cory smiled at us but we walked by him, saying nothing. I felt Wyatt squeeze my hand as we walked away. We didn’t say anything about it but I understood he had put the pieces together. He’s never told me he loves me, but at that moment I knew he did. 

*****

          My mother’s sister is 52 years old. At 23 she graduated valedictorian from her college and got her dream job. Now she is unemployed, unmarried, and lives with bipolar disorder. She’s never been diagnosed because they don’t believe in mental health on that side of the family, but I don’t really see what else it could be. I’ve always been warned I’ll become her if I don’t get my shit together. 

*****

          I imagine it would happen when I turn 40 at the latest. Wyatt would push for it to be on the beach, with him and maybe my mother. She would disagree, insisting on a church full of my “friends” even if neither her or I believes in God. Their first conversation would take place in the planning process, and I like to imagine she would thank him, or cry, or something. But realistically she would probably text him the address of a church in San Francisco with a date and a time. She would say “bring flowers, call a restaurant, and give me a list of people.” He would say “what kind? How many? Do I wear black?” But he would be thinking about her wearing a black velvet tracksuit. 

          I imagine these things up here in 25A because that’s really all I have time for. I got a message from Abigail yesterday and it was a photo of Wyatt kissing the girl he’s been telling me about. My mother saw it and laughed at me, telling me “that’s what happens to girls like you.” I think about strangling her once a day, but my imagination gets far more gruesome when I know she’s right. “That pretty girl probably knew not to take time off college,” she continues. We haven’t had a conversation this long in months. 

I text Wyatt: mom gives girl 5/5. He texts back: So she does have good taste.