Toxic

I stood there, too warm from the alcohol to feel the cold March air, a cigarette between my fingers. “You know what Ange, you’re being an asshole. I’m leaving,” Lia stared, waiting for me to stop her. It was 2009, the night of my twentieth birthday, and Lia had been in a mood long before we got to the bar. “Cool. You’ve been anti-social all night. I don’t know why you came if this is how you were going to be,” I waved the smoke as I spoke. I knew she hated when I smoked. “You didn’t wait for me to finish my Starbucks before we went in!” “I wasn’t going to let all our friends, who came here together with me, WITHOUT an unnecessary frappucino, go in without me when the room was booked in my name. You came in and sat at the opposite end of the table as me, with people you don’t even speak to, and just stared off into space all night. You could have stayed home.” I put my hand to my mouth, ready to take a long drag.

Smack! The cigarette sailed from hand. Crash! My half-finished pint shattered on the steps of the bar as I dropped my cup in disbelief. “Dude did she just slap you?” The few friends that had come out for a smoke turned around in shock. “Fuck this,” I mumbled and took off down the street, leaving my own party behind.

Maybe the alcohol made me extra agile, more likely it made everyone else a little less coordinated, but I had made it to St. George and Harbord before Matt caught up to me, tackling me onto the lawn of Robarts Library. “Angelo, relax,” Matt pleaded as he helped me to my feet. “She fuckin’ slapped me, in front of everyone, at my own fucking party!” Slowly they rest of the party caught up to us. “What the hell happened?” Ashley asked as Frank piggybacked her up the street. “Who knows, she’s always been bitchy. She doesn’t like that Angelo hangs out with us degenerates,” Frank emphasized the last word. “It’s freezing damn it. Let’s just go to McDonald’s it’s close by,” I whined as I realized I left my coat on the back of my chair.

We sat down, Matt slammed some food in front of me, and the rest of the party goers lit up the group chat as they realized we were gone. “Ange, I wouldn’t stand for what just happened. I think you guys need to have a long talk,” Mark said as he leaned toward me. As if on cue the rest of the group trickled in headed by Lia. “Lia, leave him alone, just go home. You were leaving anyway, right?” Matt tried to put himself between the two of us. She pretended he wasn’t even there. “Ok, time to go home everyone,” Lia said as she started organizing who was going home with whom. “I’ll take Angelo home,” she looked over at me as she said it. “The fuck you will,” I said as I staggered out the doors and toward a cab. Lia muscled her way in after me.

“I’m bringing you inside,” she demanded as we stopped out front. “My grandparents will murder me. No, you’re not.” “Well at least let me get you to the door,” she argued. I was too tired to fight back. Lia did, in fact, come inside, and insist on bringing me to my room. I woke up at 4:30 to Lia asleep next to me. “Get the fuck up,” I jostled her awake and threw her clothes at her. “It’s so early,” she pouted, obviously forgetting the night before. “That’s cool, if either of my grandparents find out you stayed I’m going to be murdered. Liana, get up, and get, the fuck, out,” I pushed her down the hall and toward the back door.

My phone vibrated repeatedly as I hunched over the toilet and expelled my insides, not from a hangover, but from the nerves. Curled up on the couch I scrolled through the mass of messages from my friends suggesting a redo without Lia, and that maybe it was time to reconsider things. Ya, maybe it was time. Things were not good, had not been good. I sat there and wondered, as you do at the end of a relationship, had they ever actually been good?