I showed up on time, but no one besides my ex roomies were there, since on time was early at parties.

I hadn’t been drinking or going to parties for months now, so I’d forgotten.

But here I was.

At a party.

So I started drinking.

Last year’s New Year’s got ugly.

Happened here, at this house, only back then I still lived in it.

Had just moved into it.

Into the third-floor ‘closet-room.’

I had, since, graduated into a new ‘closet-room,’ across town.

Well…‘closet-sized.’

This new room itself had a closet.

Which I think disqualified it from being a closet.

But same feel.

Same claustrophobia.

Same shitty ventilation.

But last year.

The beginning of the end.

Or end of the beginning.

Or maybe just beginning.

Of everything.

Of the sadness.

Of Reality.

When ex bae and I decided to open things up.

Polyamorize.

Or maybe when ex bae got a firsthand look into how I polyamorized when she wasn’t around.

Before we’d agreed that polyamory was what we were doing.

Side bae coming on strong, all of us coming up, and me shrugging like Hey, ex bae, whattaya want me to do?

Side bae tryna get it.

That’s her right.

All about equal rights here.

Just like it’s my right to be a spineless fuck with no loyalty or resolve.

Molly, y’all.

That dang molly!

Ex bae, though.

She’d be back.

I was sure of it.

Just needed time.

To ‘explore.’

To hammer home that she wasn’t fucking around.

She was waiting it out, making me suffer, forcing me to reckon fully with my Destiny, without the buffer of her affection, so I’d be left with no choice but to ‘make it.’

Hit it big.

Show em all.

And then. Only then would she return.

But this year.

This year wasn’t last year.

This was a New Year.

Side bae showed up around eleven with the beans, like she’d promised.

I’d insisted No, not this time around, I was done with that.

Right up until the moment she procured my double-dose capsule.

Till she handed me the beer to wash it down with, watching to make sure I swallowed.

Right up until then, I resisted.

But how assertively she asserted.

Yes ma’am, I said, swallowing.

Too much activity going on, all around.

I returned to the middle-room couch.

Next to the roomie, who showed up with his wifey not long before side bae did.

We fit in due to our education level, but also remained slightly outside, due to our hapa-ness.

Our introversion.

Our shared misanthropy.

He was on something too, wasn’t sure what. But we started talking faster and faster and more emotionally and less judgmentally.

I’d cut my hair, dolled myself up, and washed for tonight.

Felt prettier and prettier the more people showed.