Dave Eggers was my inspiration (sorry CCRNK)

The rules to this assignment was to take a book close to you, open to a random page, read the first sentence on the page and write. The sentence I got was: Max stared to intensely at his cereal that he felt sure he could see the microscopic chemical compounds that formed each flake.--Dave Eggers

I was sitting at the kitchen table wolfing down a bowl of cheap sugary cereal that was on sale at the grocery store about a month ago. I was staring at each flake sure that I could see the microscopic chemical compounds that formed each one. “Why do I buy this shit?” I asked myself. What I really wanted were two eggs over easy, toast, and a Bloody Mary. And a cigarette. Unfortunately, I had quit smoking over a year ago and it was taking everything in my power to not run out to the corner store and buy a pack. Instead, I opted for breakfast. But the only easily accessible things in the fridge were a half empty carton of soy milk and a moldy block of cheese. “When did I turn into a frat boy? A frat boy who drinks soy milk.”

The hangover hadn’t quite begun to take effect just yet; maybe I was still a little drunk. I knew that things would be bad when I started craving greasy Chinese food and a cherry Coke. I debated going back to bed but I wasn’t ready to face the reality of what happened last night yet. I threw Greg (was that his name?) out at about 7 this morning. While stirring awake I had slowly opened my eyes afraid that my head would blast off if I let in too much light at once. I was confused when I felt something heavy lying across my stomach. I was half expecting to see a cat but was appalled when I saw an arm instead. I quietly shifted my weight to roll over to see who belonged to that one arm. I tried to piece the night together without making too much noise. Though I wasn’t exactly sure who was there, I was positive that I didn’t want him to be there. Waking up was proving to be a lot of work so I stared at his profile with only one eye. I saw spiky hair and the side of a face that hadn’t been shaved in a few days. Good God, what had I done?!

About two months ago I professed my love to my closest guy friend Keegan one afternoon holding his cat close to my heart in his apartment. We had been friends for about six months at that point and we were practically inseparable. I, apparently, have a hard time separating plutonic feelings for romantic feelings and after I had finished my overly rehearsed (yet heartfelt) speech, the only thing he could say was “ok”. “OK? OK! What kind of reaction was that? I had just told him how amazing he was and how he deserved perfection. That he shouldn’t date girls just to fuck them but to let someone in and allow himself to fall in love. I told him that he has the world to offer and should accept nothing less in return. And then I told him that I couldn’t be friends with him until these feelings inside subsided. He said “ok”. I hugged his cat even tighter afraid of losing the one contact I had with him at that moment. I asked “is there anything else you want to say?” and he shook his head no. He held his arms out and I put the cat down and fell into them. Keegan’s about six inches taller than I am and it felt good to feel small against someone else’s body. He laid his chin on top of my head and quietly said “you’re going to meet someone amazing. Someone better than me. Someone who deserves you.”


Not hanging out with Keegan proved to be more difficult than I expected. Not only did we have mutual friends, we also shared a wall. Keegan had been my next door neighbor in my apartment complex for close to a year but we didn’t start to become friends until the first snow day when we had a snowball fight in our parking lot. We ended the day with Hot Toddies and pinball at the bar around the corner. I was surprised by how well we got along and how long it took us to realize that. That snow day began a six month marathon of a friendship. We would sit on the steps outside of his apartment after I got home from work and drink beers bitching about our days. We would play Nintendo and listen to records in his apartment and watch black and white movies in mine. He would knock on my window when he was coming home from work or a bar at night and we’d catch up until neither of us could keep our eyes open. There wasn’t a day that would go by without an email, a text message, or a visit from the neighbor boy. When we hung out in groups, I would always catch him staring at me knowing what every look on his face meant. As we got closer, the awkward pauses between us became more obvious. There was ambiguous touching that I would analyze late at night trying to fall asleep. I was sure that our relationship was leaving the friend zone but clearly I was wrong. OK.

Last night was Keegan’s 30th birthday and we had a party in the driveway with all of our neighbors and friends. This turned out to be a pretty big party and lots of people I had never met before showed up. It was the first time Keegan and I had spent more than a few minutes together since “the incident”. It had been two months and we still hadn’t gotten over the awkward phase of the aftermath. I was trying to show him how much I didn’t need him around to have fun. “Who was your charming neighbor?” I wanted his friends to ask the next day. I wanted him to realize how witty, charming, and flirty I could be and I wanted him to hear it out of the mouths of his guy friends. Unfortunately, I drank a little too much cheap keg beer and went from witty and charming to slurry and surly. And apparently, a little bit slutty. I remember having the thought of “I’ll show him that I’m over him” by flirting hopelessly with one of his work buddies. Nothing was supposed to happen, we dubbed him the white rapper for fuck’s sake. He tried to argue me that Bob Marley was a better musician than Lou Reed. No one disses The Velvet Underground on my turf! He was loud and obnoxious and an attention whore. He was everything that I’m not attracted to but there he was when I woke up this morning.

Two tons of sugary breakfast shit wasn’t going to make me feel better. Nor was a carton of cigarettes. I knew that I messed this up and if Keegan ever had his doubts that he was wrong and should have wound up together, I clearly set his mind back at ease. I shook myself out of these thoughts, patted myself on the back for at least scoring at the party and fell asleep on the couch.