Sour Whiskey

He didn’t drink whiskey, really. Mostly because he didn’t really drink but also since he didn’t really drink he really didn’t handle the taste and there’s not a taste much worse than whiskey. But he was at a bonfire and it seemed like the type of thing you’d drink at a bonfire and he romanticized things like this; getting the full effect. So, he sipped his whiskey, as cautiously as one possibly could and winced as inconspicuously as one could because he wanted to look cool in front of the girl. It wasn’t the girl he had a crush on and was trying to impress; it was his girlfriend.

Well, it was his girlfriend but it was also his crush and the girl he was trying to impress because she was so impressive and because everyone always talks about how you keep someone by doing the same things you did to get them and he did most of his learning from reading and hearing instead of experiencing, anyways. That would all change later but it’s a separate story. For now he was enjoying the moment, watching the fire and trying to position himself as close to the flame as possible to remain warm without getting overheated and also managing to keep a hand on her knee without it being awkward. He leaned over and kissed her. Compared to the whiskey, she tasted sweet. Compared to anything, really, she tasted sweet, like a marigold.

They shared a smile and listened to the music. The band was LANY which is a real band because this is a real story and the song was “Walk Away” which is a real song for the same reason. It was “their” band according to the rules of young love which state that if you find coincidental commonality over a piece of music or art or an activity or a place that it belongs to you. In this case, it was theirs because she was from LA and he was from NY and the two city names combined created the name of the band which featured a front man who had traveled from one of those cities to the other in pursuit of love. He couldn’t really remember which city the guy went to and which he’d left but he knew that the story ended sadly and that’s why this song was so sad but also so perfect.

“You know,” he remarked offhandedly and unwittingly, “I think if we ever broke up I’d just listen to this song on repeat and drink whiskey.” It didn’t occur to him at the time that his comment indicated a fixation on sadness, an assumption that their relationship wouldn’t last and a desire to treat such sadness with substance. It was just him romanticizing things. Regardless, she probably didn’t read into it like that.

“Let’s just not break up,” she suggested, rolling her eyes at him. He agreed. That was a much better plan.

For those of unfamiliar with the literary term “foreshadowing”, it means “a warning or indication of a future event”, and that’s what this is and that’s what that was.

A couple months passed and school ended. For him, permanently and for her temporarily, but they went their separate ways and then he went to where she was and she went to where he used to be and the distance continued both literally and figurately, both physically and emotionally until eventually there was only one logical conclusion and that conclusion began with a letter and concluded with a phone call. The phone call began with an explanation by her and a question by him. They volleyed for a bit like so before he conceded defeat, having no fight left in him. He clicked end on his phone which also served as a vessel for carrying so many pictures with so many thousand-word memories of the two of them which could all really have just been summed up by the picture of his face right then.

A tear ran down his face as he wished the phone could have been and old phone on a hook and he could’ve slammed it in frustration but instead he looked at the locked screen; a picture of the two of them. He reopened the phone and did exactly what he said he would.

“Walk Away” echoed once more through his Los Angeles studio where he sat, thousands of miles from home just like the singer once did. He related this time. He sipped the whiskey that he’d poured, more out of obligation to a commitment than anything else. It still tasted just as bad. But compared to the heartbreak, it tasted sweet. Like a marigold.