Rebecca Yi needed something exciting to happen. This hot and humid Friday night was fucking up her blowout with every passing, boring minute. She felt the last of her brittle spirits swell, then sharply twist, because everything was so the same. Why wouldn’t it be? Same town, same day of the week. What did she expect? A magic trick?

As ever, the options in the college town of Crooks, Connecticut were either the downtown bar scene or another feckless collegiate sardine party bound to get shut down before midnight. She shuddered from a sticky body memory of last weekend. The house was packed, shoulder to shoulder, ass cheek to ass cheek; a Billboard 100 playlist blared on loop as if the party was DJ’d by A.I., everyone too stiff, if not too drunk, to engage anyone else intelligibly.

Honestly, the parties have never changed, so maybe she was the one who had. Every weekend was becoming a chore to get through. What used to take a weed pen and a spiral of shots now took a lot more to forgive and forget. To forgive her hometown for being so characterless. To forget that she was stuck here.

She dragged her nails through her scalp. The cool tingles that followed the warm, pointed pressure helped her think. She was already dressed. She looked great. The broken air conditioner be damned. The sweat melted the makeup together. She dabbed at her forehead with a soft tissue, compact mirror in the air. Be it bar or living room, all the evening’s hard work would vanish instantly anyway, she frowned. Becca was deflated again. She sank into the loveseat, drumming her nails against her phone case. Any day now, guys, she thought. If they didn’t have an address for tonight, she knew the group was headed for the bars.

Becca wasn’t sure which was worse. 

The bars did not bode any better than the overfull, popcorn-walled living spaces. With a downtown area as tiny as theirs, the bars rotated the same DJ’s with the same lazy throwback playlists, and wide empty dancefloors with impossibly sticky floors embarrassed themselves as grown adults, leery, clung to the perimeters. More standing room, but also more standing around company too old and too desperate. 

Aging into her 24th year around the sun while still in her hometown was confusing, to say the least. Becca and her friend group grew up here, graduated from the local high school and, for reasons, stuck around this flytrap ever since. The harsh, white light of her phone screen cast a well-defined box across the side of her face as she sat in the darkness and scrolled through Instagram. She thumbed through old, tagged photos of herself. She felt too old for jello shots with 18-year-olds and too young for the mid-career graduate students and single fathers on the prowl. Becca stared into the dark, not noticing when her phone blacked out from her inactivity.

Becoming an adult used to be the exciting thing, she grimaced. Everyone in the group had been eager to be free of school, not that anyone took it seriously, but that was when their parents paid the bills and made the rules; after graduating and moving out, their list of things to-do gladly shrunk to work and nightlife, and life became much simpler. 

Her phone lit up with a ping. An address appeared in the group chat. House party it would be. Then many other subsequent pings as messages flooded through about the logistics. The gang was meeting at Cedrick’s to pregame. Becca texted to make sure someone was picking up their favorite, powdery white friend on the way there. Affirmative.

Mood lifted, she licked her lips, and ripped an extra long pull from the bong. She had meant to get up right after, but time fled as she stared into the dark again, lost in thoughts forming just short of comprehension. It took her a while to remember herself. That bong hit might have been a little too much, she cringed. She shook her bag. Keys jingled in her clutch. The clutch bulged with the width of her wallet. She patted the back pocket of her jeans, the last of her cigarettes secured there, which she’d need for later. No mascara flakes, check. Lip gloss, check. Eyebrows in place with no crusted signs of gel, check. 

Cedrick’s door opened with Clara on the other side. The modelesque brunette hugged the door with a grin, dangling the little baggy filled with white before shoving it in her tiny purse. 

“20?” Becca asked. Everyone had to put some money on it, and that was the standard share when split amongst 5 people. She slipped off her boots, heart rate picking up. 

Clara shook her head. “35.”

“Oh?”

“We picked up from Steven.”

“Oh.”

“Want to get a bump in? Real quick? It’s good quality. You know Steven.”

“No, I don’t want to waste it. Later, please. Drink first.”

Clara winked because she knew. Getting sloshed made the first line feel heaven-set.

“Ugh, it feels so much better here. My AC is killing me.” Becca sniffed her armpits. “Can you smell me?”

“Like vanilla and daisy, you pretty bitch. Pay me later, okay?”

Becca nodded slowly. She would. She always did. Once she got paid, which wouldn’t be until the next Friday. The door swung shut, rushing in one final blast of warm night air. 

The living room was already abuzz with drunken activity. A handful of their friends huddled around a blunt, coughing and snickering at the ones coughing. Two fought over the bluetooth speaker, each insisting they had the best new album to play. Another was lining up a row of ten shot glasses, one for each of them. Nobody acted like they noticed when Clara returned from the foyer with Becca. Becca slipped into the blunt rotation without issue. She stole a cushion from behind Alex who only scoffed with a half-determined desire to get it back. Becca fluttered her lashes at him, tucking the cushion behind herself. 

“What took you so long? We’re about to head out after one more shot.” Cedrick said.

“SHOTS!” A voice yelled as if on cue. 

“Here, finish it.” Cedrick passed her the roach.

Becca was happy to do so. She’d lost most of her weed high in her stupor at home on the couch. But the thing was soggy at the mouth tip, and as she puffed the last of it, an unforgiving rake sliced through her throat. She recoiled in horror, trying to keep the coughing down. 

“You good?” Alex laughed.

“Fuck off,” Becca said between tightly pursed lips. She waved him away. He didn’t need to see her eyes watering. 

The shot of tequila burned her throat just as well, but in a different way. This was welcomed. As everyone grabbed their things and headed out the door, Becca gulped two more swigs from the bottle. Clara looked at her with a playful, accusatory look. 

“What? I’m catching up.” Becca rolled her eyes. Her friend could outdrink the college football team. Their whole group were lightweights compared to Clara "The Tank" Choi.

“Cigarette? You riding with me?” 

“Yep, yep. Let’s go.” 

It was just the two of them in Clara’s car. Everyone else filed off into either Alex’s mom-van or Evelyn’s SUV. They could have joined Clara's car, too, but nobody enjoyed third-wheeling the two best friends, anyway. 

The girls cracked the windows and poked the smokey ends of their cigarettes into the outside world. Clara was relaxed as ever, and Becca loved how contagious that was.

“Any agenda tonight?” Becca peered through the glass into the town’s nightscape as she asked. Neighborhoods, sidewalks, trees. Crossing signs. Red light. A quaint plaza, its storefronts studded in the same rustic font, signs of a thrift store, ice cream shop, bike repair, tailor.

“Agenda?” Clara snorted. “We going to a business meeting I don’t know about?:

“Nevermind,” Becca murmured.

“What’s up with you?” Clara asked with a piercing stare as the car stopped at another red light. 

“What do you mean?” She played dumb.

“You’re weird tonight. You seem off.” 

“I’m fine.” The warm flush of the extra tequila swigs had, at last, arrived. Becca’s head felt hot. She leaned her head to the glass which was cool in contrast. It also provided her a point of focus. She knew she felt off, but she didn’t need anyone else to know it. She sure as hell didn’t want to talk about it. Because she was at an absolute loss for what to say, or think, or do. She could hardly understand it herself. 

“Ennui.” Said Clara, after some time. 

“On what?”

“Ennui. It’s French. Like an eternal restlessness. Sound familiar?” Clara smiled.

So, this feeling of Becca’s had a name.

“What the fuck, Clara. Leave the vocabulary lessons at work with your students. I’m too buzzed for this. And you’re about to kill it.” Becca said with a huff.

“Woah, alright, relax. I just thought of it, that’s all.” Clara took one last look at her friend, then turned up the music.