But I didn’t get drunk off rum the same way I did off Whiskey.
One particularly late night in February, Ethan showed up unannounced at my dorm. Marie and I had actually formed a friendship by that point, and we were making spiked apple ciders in the kitchen when he knocked.
I opened the door, a little buzzed, and smiled wide when I saw him standing there.
“Hi, baby!” I threw my arms around his neck and giggled, but he just barely hugged me in return. When I pulled back, there was a thin line forming between his brows and his eyes wouldn’t fully meet mine.
“Can you take a walk with me?”
“Right now?” I asked, turning back to Marie in the kitchen. She was stirring her cider with a cinnamon stick and singing Katy Perry. “Why don’t you come inside? I’ll make you a drink.”
“B,” he said, and the way my nickname left his lips sent a shiver up my spine. I crossed my arms, trying to find warmth in the oversized sweater I was wearing. “Please. I just… I need to talk to you.”
I stared up at his frown, missing the smile that usually held its place. “Okay. Let me put on my boots.”
Marie just grabbed my cider, now holding one in each hand, and raised both eyebrows at me as she passed into her room. I laughed, tugging on my boots quickly and meeting Ethan outside. My stomach was in knots as we started walking, the campus dark save for the streetlights and dorm windows. When Ethan reached for my hand and gripped it tightly in his, I breathed easier, but only marginally.
“I need to ask you something, and I need you to be one-hundred percent honest with me.”
I squeezed his hand in return, trying to swallow down the thick ball of cotton stuck in my throat. It was cold, especially for San Diego. I learned that, just like Florida, Southern California earned about a month and a half of moderately low temperatures. At the present moment, it was just over fifty degrees, but it wasn’t just the cool night air giving me a chill.
“You and Jamie spend a lot of time together. And I get it, I understand that you guys were close in high school. I get it that you both like to surf, and I don’t want you to stop hanging out with him or anything. But…” Ethan stopped, pulling us over to a bench and sitting down first. I stayed standing, and Ethan continued to look anywhere but at me. “B, I can’t compete with Jamie.” His eyes finally found mine, and what I saw behind them nearly broke me. “I just can’t. So if I’m not enough for you, just tell me now.”
“Ethan,” I sat then, both of my hands reaching out for his. He held them tight, his teeth hard on his bottom lip as he stared at where our fingers met. “You are more than enough for me. Hell, I’m the lucky one trying to figure out what the hell it is you see in me.” I laughed and Ethan forced a smile, but it fell quickly. “I’m serious. Ethan, Jamie and I, we’re just friends.”
He nodded, sniffing, and I watched the cloud of air escape his lips with his next question. “Promise?”
A knife twisted in my heart, and I fought against it to smile. “I promise. You have absolutely nothing to worry about.”
Ethan traced the skin of my palm with his thumb before pulling me closer. He wrapped his arms around me, resting his chin on my head as he exhaled slowly. “Can you… I know you guys have a lot in common. But, I need you to just put me first a little more, okay? I need to feel more important than him. I know it sounds juvenile and needy but I don’t care. I can’t keep comparing myself to him in my head. I just want to look at you and see more in your eyes than I see when you look at him.”
I physically cringed then, shaking my head against his chest and tangling my hands in the pocket of his hoodie. “God, Ethan, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, you’re not doing anything wrong.” He pulled back then, his dark eyes finding mine. It was complete silence around us, a late Tuesday night on campus, a cold night that called for snuggling on couches, not on benches. “I just need a little reassurance sometimes. I—” he paused, as if he caught himself about to say something he’d regret. “You just mean a lot to me, okay? And I want to know if you feel the same.”
I smiled, framing his face with my hands and pulling his lips to mine. “I do.”
It occurred to me then that it didn’t matter that Jamie and I had made a promise to stay friends or that we’d kept it, not if our friendship was still strong enough to make my boyfriend feel like our relationship wasn’t.
When Ethan pulled me against his chest again, his fingers lazily running through my hair, I stared across campus toward the apartment where I knew Jamie was lying in bed. I didn’t know if he was alone. I didn’t know what he was thinking. I didn’t know if he was waxing his board or breathing seductive words against the neck of a girl he’d just met. I had no idea if he still thought about our kiss or if he’d hate the new lines I was about to draw in our friendship.
All I knew was that I couldn’t enjoy the spicy sweetness of rum if I was drinking it while still staring at a neat glass of Whiskey.
And so, I did what I needed to do.
I poured that last glass down the drain, twisted the cap on the bottle, and put it back on the shelf, locking the doors to the liquor cabinet up tight.
When I peeked back up at Ethan, he moved my hair aside before kissing me, soft and sweet, like coconut and strawberry. He was my Miami Vice, and he had my full attention.
For now.
• • •
Jamie didn’t really seem to notice me pulling away — at least, not at first. We just hung out a lot less and my texts were few and far between. But it worked out because I was busy with Ethan, and Jamie was busy with his flavors of the week.
What I started to discover as I spent more time with Ethan was that he really was serious about his political life plan. He was in full-on campaign mode, running for SGA Vice President since he was about to go into his junior year. And even though most of our newfound time together was spent designing and printing posters, running over speeches, and building a website complete with a booming social media campaign, I was enjoying it. I even helped run a few of his pizza stops on campus. He would hand out free pizza to hungry college students passing us between classes and I would talk to them about their vote, promising he was the best candidate and knowing in my heart it was true.
That’s what I loved most about Ethan — he was solid in his decisions. He had already made so many changes on campus in the year he’d been a class senator, and I knew if he did get the vice presidency, he would bring even more to the table. The girl he was running under as the presidential candidate was amazing, too. Her name was Shayla Hart and together they were the first black president and vice president nominee team. I wanted this win for them, and I could feel it — our campus did, too.
I was handing out the last of our HART|HAMILTON stickers on a Thursday afternoon when I got a text from Jamie that made my stomach drop.
— Where are you? I’m coming to pick you up. —
It was the first time since I’d pulled back that he didn’t ask me to hang out — he told me. And I knew before my fingers even moved over the keys on my phone that something was wrong.
— I’m with Ethan doing campaign stuff. Rain check? —