Lauren Kardos ~ All I wanted was the $9 coconut water

I remem­ber search­ing for the near­est trash bin in the Whole Foods park­ing garage, wor­ry­ing that the over­priced kom­bucha might come back up on my bleach-stained leg­gings and rat­ty sweat­shirt. His room­mate looked the same, tall, lanky, a rug­by play­er with a set jaw, but, like me, the last decade had thinned his hair, lined his fore­head. His expres­sion was that of pure focus, beel­in­ing from his SUV to the slid­ing glass doors, chin raised high above all that didn’t inter­est him, like the day he played hours of Madden NFL on the liv­ing room couch as I cart­ed my belong­ings from my ex’s bedroom.

Holiday pot­pour­ri and wreaths lined the garage’s store entrance, prick­ling my nose. The gin and ton­ics flowed too freely at my friend’s wed­ding the night before, so it was my own fault (wasn’t it?) I looked and felt my worst. Though most friends’ wed­dings, back then, hadn’t I snuck the extra cham­pagne flutes from the cater­ing trays and befriend­ed bar­tenders until they poured me dou­bles? My own mat­ri­mo­ny hadn’t gone to plan, so why not cel­e­brate love’s elu­sive­ness while I could? Coconut water could fix all hangovers.

Ribbon from an autum­nal flower arrange­ment snagged at my thumb and fore­fin­ger, and I bent over, squint­ing at the pat­tern, to avoid the roommate’s approach. Should my ex get mar­ried, would his bride hold a bou­quet? Perhaps it would be a Vegas cer­e­mo­ny, the tack­i­ness over­looked for urgency. She’d have to be smart, I imag­ined, to get her ring before he felt trapped, pinned like an insect to a muse­um wall. I inhaled slow­ly, willed my heart’s flut­ter­ing to calm. I tipped my ball­cap low over my eyes. His room­mate passed by with­out inci­dent, with­out fan­fare, with­out notice (why should I expect dif­fer­ent­ly?), and my bur­bling stom­ach didn’t betray me. I unlocked my car and tucked my bag in the pas­sen­ger footwell. I slept in the back­seat until dinnertime.

~

Lauren Kardos (she/her) writes from Washington, DC, but she’s still break­ing up with her home­town in Western Pennsylvania. The Molotov Cocktail, Spry Literary Journal, hex, Bending Genres, Best Microfiction 2022, and The Lumiere Review are just a few of the pub­li­ca­tions that fea­ture her sto­ries and poems. More of her work is avail­able at www.laurenkardos.co and say hel­lo on Twitter @lkardos.