You're Not Special

by Meghan Rienks

  At this point the booze is wearing off and I’m trying to decide if Nathan is hot enough to make up for his complete and total lack of social skills. After about fifteen or so minutes of small talk, I had managed to peel off all my nail polish, plan my outfit for the next day’s philanthropy event, and decide that Nathan was in fact hot enough to try to make this work. As if he could read my mind, he grabs my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. I snap out of my mental to-do list and tune in to the conversation as I hear Nathan assure the group that we’d love to grab drinks with them at the campus bar as we had absolutely no other plans. So much for dinner. I muster up a smile and remind myself that Nathan is a 9. A real-time, big-city, honest-to-God 9. I can’t give up that easily. “I can fit five in my car, Meghan can sit in the middle,” Nathan says to the group of twenty-two-year-old men dressed in cloaks, squeezing into his mom’s Honda. This was going to be harder than I thought.

  There are few things worse than when your date doesn’t live up to your expectations. Like when your date invites the entire cast of the school play to tag along. And when he forgoes dinner and your grumbling stomach for beers at the campus bar. And when he doesn’t sit next to you or acknowledge your existence or remember that it was his idea to take you out in the first place. For some reason unbeknownst to my current self, I stuck it through. I managed to justify that I was sitting in the middle of a beer-soaked couch, sandwiched between two juniors doing various magic tricks as my date struck up a conversation with a senior with prosthetic elf ears. I was somehow rationalizing his actions as being close to okay, chalking them up to his GDI pedigree. Maybe this is how people outside the cult do it… I had no idea. I was an AEPi whore through and through.

  “Pick a card.”

  I snapped out of my self-pitying spiral as I reached for the clammy deck of cards and drew a joker. Fitting. He continued on with his trick and I politely smiled and nodded as he fumbled his way through it. Maybe this weekend I was just particularly lonely, or I believed in the Mayan calendar and needed to land a 9 before I died at a solid 7.5. Whatever my reasoning, I was there, and I wasn’t giving up on this one easily. Plus the dining hall food sucked this week and I could desperately use a free dinner.

  Amateur Criss Angel’s bar-side performance was cut short when the waitress tapped me on the shoulder and asked to see my ID. For the first time in my life I proudly (and loudly) announced to both her and my party that I was the ripe ol’ age of eighteen and I could show my vertical ID to prove it. Getting kicked out of the bar meant no more group hang, which meant alone time, which meant tacos (literally) and chemistry homework (not literally). As I got up to leave, Nathan firmly placed his hand on my shoulder, keeping me in my seat as he turned to the waitress and began to scream at her. Yes. Literally scream at her. For doing her job. I wish I could tell you what he said, but all I remember is that, despite how bat-shit crazy this guy was turning out to be, I was still kind of turned on. (Gross.)

  When we were finally alone, Nathan and I walked back toward his car in silence, enjoying the dry, polluted desert air. Now, I’m all for silences—I can totally jam with a pregnant pause, a moment to ponder, all that shit—but this was the kind of awkward silence that makes me want to crawl back into the womb. Neither of us even looked in the other’s general vicinity; hell, for all I know, Nathan stayed back at the bar and I was walking alongside the actual Criss Angel as he set batons on fire and stuck them up his ass. In the walk between the bar and the car I took exactly 320 steps and not one of them in the direction of this date ending well. We got into his car. More silence. He started to drive. More silence. Great. He’s Ted Bundy. But then it finally happened. Somewhere between the 79 gas station and the Phi Psi front lawn I had barfed on, he spoke.

  “Can I play you my favorite song?”

  I wanted to tell him yes, under the condition that he promised not to murder me, but instead I just said, “Sure,” and hoped he wasn’t as strong as he looked. He pulled out a burned CD with illegible scribble attempting to note its contents. As the first few chords echoed through his prehistoric sound system, I realized what song he was playing. I burst into laughter, covering my mouth as I tried to maintain any sense of composure. I turned to Nathan, smiling from ear to ear as I realized his sense of humor was so much more complex than I ever imagined. And in that moment our eyes meet, and I realize Nathan is not fucking with me. His favorite song is “Bleeding Love” by Leona fucking Lewis. Fuck. My. Life.

  I had probably sung “Just Keep Swimming” in my head about a hundred times before Nathan pulled the car to a halt. I scanned the parking lot looking for our dinner destination just as he pointed toward a liquor store. “I thought we’d ditch dinner, grab some bottles, and go to the cast party. You’re a sorority girl, drinking is your major.” He didn’t wait for my response before he exited the car. I wasn’t even going to fight him on the last part. I just really wanted tacos.

  With three handles of flavored vodka in hand, Nathan and I made our way toward the eerily quiet house where this cast “party” was allegedly being held. Before I could make some snide comment on this pathetic attempt at a social gathering, he turned to me and said, “Did I ever tell you about the time someone I knew was brutally murdered?” He said it like “Oh, hey, did I lock the car?” or “Did I turn my flat iron off?” I struggled to find words and I shook my head no, only to realize that he had already gone inside. So there I stood. Me and three bottles of vodka. And in that moment, I knew. The only way to get through this night would be to drink. Heavily.

  There are few times I wish I had a GoPro strapped to my body more than I did in the first moment I walked through those front doors. Instead of being met with the usual cloud of smoke and a Tyga song, I was met with the Lord of the Rings soundtrack playing from a record player at a responsible volume and about a dozen kids in cloaks, capes, and prosthetic ears drinking two-buck Chuck red wine out of Solo cups. As I stood there in my bandage skirt, arms filled with pastry-flavored vodkas, I realized where I was. This was my own personal hell.

  I tried to make a friend when I saw a girl from our acting class headed toward the bathroom and I intercepted, asking if she wanted me to go with her. She looked at me as if I had just offered her a golden shower. She passed. I was denied a girls’ bathroom trip!?! I was out of my element; I was in uncharted water where girls preferred to attend the bathroom alone and being trilingual in Klingon was the norm. I was outnumbered, alone, and far too drunk to care as a decently cute guy (by Inland Empire standards) proceeded to pour me tequila shots, introducing himself over the lightsaber fight in the living room.

  “I’m Ben,” he said, extending his hand. “Have we met before?”

  “Nice to meet you, Ben,” I responded, ignoring his handshake and question and reaching for the shot glass in his left hand. “I’m drunk,” I added as I slammed the now-empty glass on the countertop.

  Ben seemed to be relatively normal in the scheme of things. For starters, he was wearing civilian clothes, which was pretty much my only criterion for a drinking buddy that night. He, too, had been brought to the cast party begrudgingly by a friend, and he, too, knew not a single word of Klingon. Ben had rushed his freshman year but dropped out in the pledging process and survived UC–Rachet as a GDI for the past three years.

  “So, what about you? What’s your story?” he asked, pouring us another drink.

  I give him the hit-clips version. “My name’s Meghan, I’m a freshman, I moved here from the Bay Area, I’m majoring in acting. I’m in a sorority, and I have no idea why the hell I’m here,” I rattle off.

  He smiles into his drink. “I have no idea why the hell you’re here, either, Meghan. But I won’t lie. I’m glad you are.”

  It took about three games of failed beer pong before Ben got drunk enough to let his curiosity get the best of him and he began to try to piece together why I looked so familiar. Now, at this point I was on YouTube, but I was pretty sure this failed fraternity boy was not refreshing his fe
ed to see my latest Target haul. That being said, my online presence was not a secret at UCR, but it certainly wasn’t something I brought up in casual conversation over a beer pong table with a guy I met that night. I let him deduce it himself. “Okay, so you’re in a sorority… and you’re a freshman…” he says slowly, as if he’s profiling me à la Criminal Minds, “…and your name is Meghan…” As he said my name aloud, it began to click. “Meghan Meghan Meghan Meghan… Meghan Rienks?” he says as the lightbulb goes off. I nod, confirming that indeed that is my last name, and I wait for the internet reference to come. But instead I get a surprise much more awkward than his admission that he watched a video of me getting ready for prom. “You’re Josh’s ex-girlfriend!” He claps his hands together, proud of his low-tier-UC-level deductive reasoning. I, on the other hand, am drunk, thinking of my ex-boyfriend, and wondering how in the world did a school of 21,000 start to feel so damn small.

  I (attempt to) keep my cool as I confirm that I am in fact that Meghan, hoping that if Ben and my ex are close, he’ll relay the fact that I was totally not crazy, completely over him, and way hotter than the last time he saw me (which was maybe a solid seventeen hours ago). “This is so crazy. I can’t believe he dumped you. You’re so hot.” I don’t know whether to say “Thank you” or “Fuck you,” so I combine the sentiments and do that smile where you raise your eyebrows and nod passive-aggressively. “Did he ever talk about me?” he continued. “Me and him and this other kid have all been best friends since the dorms freshman year. Actually, I think he’s here right now.” Ben must have noticed all the color draining from my face before he clarifies, “Oh, no, not Josh; our other friend.” And before he can finish the thought, he sees said friend across the crowd and motions him to join us. “Meghan, I’d like you to meet Nathan.” And you didn’t think this date could get any worse.

  So there I am, shaking my date’s hand as I flirt with another guy who happens to be his best friend and their other best friend just happens to be my ex-boyfriend who dumped me over the phone while I was drunk and crying on the floor of a twenty-four-hour Mexican restaurant. Life is fucking great. We stand in silence for a minute before I realize I am still shaking Nathan’s hand and I am still not saying anything. I ease into it with an uncomfortable chuckle as I explain to Ben that Nathan was actually the boring dickwad sorry excuse for a date that I came here with tonight. (I said most of that in my head.) “Ohhhhh, are you guys dating?” Ben asks, attempting to hide his disappointment (surprisingly I was a hard 8 in Riverside).

  As I shake my head and begin to explain that this is only our first (and last) date, Nathan cuts me off, slinging his arm around my shoulders, saying, “Yep. And if she plays her cards, she’ll be my girlfriend by next week.” What. The. Actual. Fuck. This kid was straight-up delusional. In what alternate universe is he living in that he would classify this “date” as anything other than great material for a satirical advice book!?!? It’s official. Nathan had just crossed the line of being 60 percent hot and 40 percent crazy to 99 percent crazy and 1 percent hot. Okay, maybe, like, 10 percent hot, because I was pretty desperate and I wouldn’t have rejected an over-the-bra-feel make-out session if he initiated it and promised not to talk for the rest of the night.

  Even I knew when to stop lowering my standards, and with that, I picked my dwindling standards up off the floor, mustered up the politest tone I could, and said, “You can take me home now. I’m done.”

  Sadly, the night was far from done. After Nathan informed me that he was far too intoxicated from the sip of a lite beer he had had three hours earlier to drive me home, he suggested I go inside while he and Ben “talked it out.” You might be asking yourself, Talked what out? I have no answer to this question because I didn’t even ask this question. Nathan was crazy and Ben wasn’t that cute and Josh had dumped me. What else did I have to lose? I let the boys talk about their feelings while I proceeded to rip a three-foot bong and nap on the couch of this stranger’s house while watching Adventure Time.

  Just as I was drifting asleep, a partygoer poked me on the shoulder. “Yo, you’re Connor’s ex, aren’t you?” he asked, chuckling to his friends.

  I stared him dead in the eyes, unblinking, emotionless. “Yep,” I replied, and rolled over, shut my bloodshot eyes, and willed myself into a dreamless, ex-boyfriendless sleep. I woke up two hours later to a nearly empty house and Netflix judging my current state with its “Are you still watching?” screen. No, Netflix, I am not still watching. I fell asleep because I am crossfaded and stuck at some random person’s crappy house, waiting for two guys I don’t even like to hash out their drama so my “date” can take me back to the dorms so I never have to see him ever again (until class on Monday). I got up and wove my way through the house looking for the boys, half expecting to catch them in a crying embrace, swaying to the soundtrack of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. To my disappointment (and honest surprise) they’re bro-ing it up on the patio chairs, sealing it with a Parent Trap handshake. All the “drama” looked to be settled. “Not that this isn’t a total blast,” I begin as I walk toward them, “but can we leave now?”

  As if it were scripted, they both stood up, turned to me, and said, “I’ll take you home,” in perfect unison. Very Freaky Friday, but I didn’t give a shit if Lindsay Lohan took me home in the trunk of her limo or Jamie Lee Curtis let me ride on the Activia couch with wheels.

  I just wanted to get home to my roommate, who was dead asleep and not worried about me at all. “I literally do not give a shit which of you takes me home, but someone has to take me home,” I stated calmly as I made my way toward the front parking lot of the house. I attempted to tune out the hissy fit of an argument going on between the boys behind me, but I caught snippets of their reasoning as to why they should get to be what they thought of as my knight in shining armor. I stopped myself from correcting them by saying that the only real hero in this story was tequila and the guy who smoked me out. I bit my tongue until we reached their cars, the only two left parked on the street. (Seriously, though, WHOSE HOUSE WAS THIS!?!?)

  I turned to them, my tone dripping with annoyance. “What’s the verdict, boys?” I asked.

  They exchanged a look (possibly a really short blinking contest), and Nathan offered up that he thought Ben should drive me home. “His apartment is closer to your dorms. It’ll be way more convenient for him to drop you off,” he stated matter-of-factly.

  “Okay, then,” I announced, slightly caught off guard but still no fucks to be found. “Let’s go, buddy,” I said to Ben, motioning for him to unlock his doors. Then I slid into the passenger seat and began what I naively thought was the end of my night.

  Remember when I said Ben was normal? I lied to you. I only lied to you for the sake of the story because at the time that I told you he was normal, I was under that same impression. This car ride drastically changed my feelings. It took only about three minutes into the drive for me to realize that Ben was weird as shit too (shocker). Most of these memories are pretty hazy, as my bloodstream was filled with tequila and my mind was preoccupied with calculating the likelihood that I could survive jumping from this moving vehicle and walking home four miles in the desert without cell reception or a sense of direction. (The success of this was unlikely but utterly tantalizing.)

  “You know I took Jessica’s virginity, right?” he said proudly, as if he put that he deflowered an AChiO on his résumé at Baja Fresh.

  “Cool?” I responded, rolling my eyes as I took a mental note to slap my friend Jessica across the face.

  “What do you want?” Ben asked me, and I looked up to see the bright flashing lights of a twenty-four-hour Carl’s Jr. about half a mile from my dorms.

  “What the fuck!?” I exclaimed. “I want to go home, Ben. HOME. I don’t want a goddamn SPICY BUFFALO WRAP. I. WANT. TO. GO. HOME!!!” I sat there red in the face, stewing in frustration and anger.

  He was silent for a moment. “If I got CrissCut fries, would you eat some?” he said, c
ompletely unaffected by my outburst.

  “Fine,” I responded, flopping back into my seat. “But we eat them on the way.”

  Two #13s, two Diet Cokes, and a box of CrissCut fries in tow, Ben made his way back toward my dorm. It was finally coming to an end, it was nearly four a.m., the booze was wearing off, and the imminent hangover was just beginning to rear its ugly (and chunky) head. I couldn’t wait to take my makeup off, strip down to pajamas, and crawl into a freshly made bed. This was not going to happen. Firstly, because I would most likely fall asleep in my current getup, makeup and all, facedown on an unmade bed. And this far into the year I’m pretty sure I didn’t have a fitted sheet, because I barfed on it, so I would instead be sleeping on a stained twin XL mattress with nothing but a DIY Pinterest blanket to keep me warm. Oh, and also because Ben had no intention of taking me anywhere other than his pants that night. This was made clear when the car came to a halt and I realized we were not at the hallowed halls of the East Lothian dorms. Instead we were parked in a lot under some random apartment complex that I assumed Ben lived in. Without a word he began to slip his hand on my thigh, crawling toward the hemline of my skirt as I slapped his hand away.