“Good,” he said, still without so much as glancing my way, and I was amazed at how quickly he had turned this cold. And why? Because I had gotten too drunk off of Scotch he himself had bought and then called his friend a rich asshole? I had felt bad about it and even apologized. So why the prolonged hostility? In our little hometown we were friends out of necessity—we had to take what we could get. He was the cool kid in the grade, the rich one who owned ATVs and dirt bikes, of which the rest of us were envious. He was the quarterback of the football team, but with wrestling I was the one in the papers, and for me a tacit competitiveness had always existed between us. In my desperation I had been honest in my emails, telling him my exact situation, my indigence and lack of options. It was something I never did, knowing that any vulnerability I revealed would be later used against me like a trump card; when rational thought flees and anger takes the reins, people will employ any means necessary to destroy you. I’d been guilty of it myself. I wondered if that was the true reason Jeff had extended the invite so freely, not out of youthful nostalgia as I had believed, but so I could witness firsthand just how well he was doing in light of my own struggle to get by.

“Have you been drinking my liquor?” he asked.

“I had a few drinks,” I said, and I had, but not enough to where I thought he would notice. When I later looked, I found, on the side of each bottle, an almost indiscernible spot of black made by the tip of a marker that tracked the various alcohol levels. That’s another thing I remembered about the Midwest, the inherent passive aggression.

He slowly turned his head and looked me in the eye. “Why?” he asked, the same irritation in his voice that was now in every part of me. I was inclined to argue, but sound reasoning prevailed; I knew he was the type to turn me out onto the street even though I had no other place to go. There was nothing to do but swallow my anger and pride. Both went down like a razor blade.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was a big deal. I’ll buy you another bottle when I get paid,” I said, though I had no intention of doing so.

“Fine, don’t drink anymore,” he said, which was all he had needed to say in the first place.