The Wave House
Choose Your Own Adventure!
One: 9:35am
A text from Trevor. He’s working things out with his after, after all. But he’d like to be friends. A strange request, considering we went on what, four dates across two and a half months? This cadence of late night drinks at Turtles All the Way Down followed by drunk sex didn’t feel like it would have given him enough material to say yeah, that guy, he’s my new best friend. But then again, my response could have been read as equally strange.
No, we cannot be friends. I have feelings for you.He understood. He’d leave me alone. I told him I appreciated the honesty, even though I didn’t think either one of us were being really honest with each other.
I let out a sigh and booked the Wave House.
Two: 10:45PM
A FaceTime from Tim.
Bitch, where the fuck are you? He bellowed over the muffled sounds of Kim Petras, a staple on his standard pregame playlist.
Shit. I had totally forgotten that Tim was hosting what he described as a “hefty pregame” before heading out to the Eagle with some friends from college who were visiting from out of town. Out of town, in this particular circle of people almost always meant Los Angeles, and if not Los Angeles, then San Francisco, always referred to by their initials and nothing more. LA. SF. OK, I’m going to KMS, I’d think so loudly I feared they’d fear me.
Despite Tim being one of my closest friends in college, and still spending a considerable amount of time together, we rarely hung out in his apartment, so when I peered into the vertical rectangle of his FaceTime call, it took me several seconds to register it as his apartment. The reason for this was, of course, that Tim wanted to be seen. Even on a Tuesday night, it was important to be seen.
Plus he hated his apartment. The hallways were drab, he reported, and the location was too far North to be considered Chelsea Proper even though he reported himself a resident of Chelsea on his Hinge profile and at pregames. It was embarrassing to identify as someone who lived so close to Penn Station and the Disneyland-esque neighborhood of Hudson Yard, he would say.
It was the same conversation every time we met up, ten blocks south at some overpriced New American spot that neither one of us could confidentially afford. Being seen “up there” didn’t portray the image he was trying to cultivate; something that was as important to him as the 12-to-15 hour work days he poured into his job as a Nurse Practitioner, a career that often received an Aww! That’s great! from the financial-legal-tech bros we usually found ourselves with.
As the friends and friends-of-friends poured into the pregame, he recounted his usual rant until he almost forgot that I was staring at him from the FaceTime app. The pallid hallway light, the “hike” from the train, the battle to make his way through tourists from Dubai on their way to the Vessel, the fact that he would to eventually move further south, into the heart of Chelsea, but that the market was tough (he was broke) and rent-stabilization was hard to give up (the apartment wasn’t rent-stabilized, I checked).
As his attention turned back to me and the mysteriousness of my location finally registered with him, I toggled my phone onto airplane mode while in the middle of a sentence. Sitting in the dark of the Wave House, I turned my service back on and texted him.
Call dropped. Sorry I can’t make it tonight! Not feeling great :/Three: About three months ago.
My first date with Trevor was on an uncharacteristically warm day in late February. I had picked up my bike from the repair shop, a flat tire fixed, and rode over to Herbert Von King. I hadn’t been feeling well for much of the last few months and thought to myself, maybe sunshine is the cure.
When I arrived at the Park, I laid out a small blanket for us to sit on. We sat there until the sun began to fade and a chill fell over the park, the couples with their dogs retreating into their shared homes, leaving us sitting stiffly adjacent to one enough before I broke the silence with a carefully rehearsed what’s the move?
Trevor guided my bike to our next destination, Sally’s. It was the latest tiki-themed bar in a neighborhood already saturated with that sort of thing. I told Trevor that we had to go. Their rice bowls are amazing.
He stood almost a foot taller than me, so my bike looked toylike up against his frame. The walk wasn’t far from the Park to Sallys was not far, but I liked the idea of people seeing us together. The intimacy of him pushing my bike. How it implied that he knew that I just hated pushing my bike at this time of night, when I was tired and hungry and kept flashing looks at him that said if I don’t eat soon I’m going to lose it.
When we arrived at Sally’s he found a suitable tree, locked my bike up, I offered some suitable dinner suggestions, and we had three suitable cocktails.
Part of me thought of ending the date here. Having made our way through the highlights of our lives, a couple deep dives into specific moments of our recent history, and enough flirtation that ensured me that we’d probably see each other again. But what sign would that send, I thought. Another couple drinks and who knows what will happen.
We ended up at the Coyote Club, which felt like someone’s Dad’s bar in their finished basement. I looked at him across from me in his barstool, his limbs bending into my personal space, and told him I was having a really nice time. He concurred, with a sort of bland affect whose intention I couldn’t quite make out. I decided to take it as a genuine response, after all, why else would he still be here with me?
Four: About three months and one day later.
Waking up on the couch of the Wave House. A half bottle of natural wine perched on the table, leaning on an empty one. Surrounded by the remnants of takeout from the Middle Eastern restaurant down the street that Grandma loved.
Despite my splitting headache, I got to my feet and marched to the sliding glass door. I swung it open and stepped out into the humid morning. Mid-May in Central New Jersey. It always made me think of that last month of the school year. Wearing shorts, sweat gluing my ass to my underwear, how cold the water from the water fountain felt as I gobbled it up in between classes, the fountain of youth breathing into me the promise and mystery of summer vacation, just on the horizon. Man, was life worth living.
After standing at the edge of the Wave House for a few seconds, I dropped to the ground and did 15 push ups. I’d been trying to do this whole 100 push-ups per day thing I read about on Reddit for a month now and hadn’t made it past 30. Today would be the day. I wasn’t gonna let some bitch named Trevor make me come unraveled.
After another 15 push ups, I sat on the grass and stared up at the sky. My stomach rumbled, shifting my focus to the mess I made inside the Wave House. I got to my feet, turned about face, almost sprinting to the couch to clean up the pigsty that I slept next to.
I deposited the remnants of my ouzi and the natural wine into the appropriate bins of the Wave House waste disposal system and realized that, well, at least I managed to plug my phone in last night. I tapped the screen, half expecting to have another flurry of text messages and missed FaceTime calls from Tim. Nothing. Only a few Grindr notifications from a guy 5 miles down the road that I told I was going to drive over to after I finished that first bottle of natural wine.
You coming, or what?I found the Grindr app and deleted it. I will not let some bitch named Trevor make me come unraveled.
I used to love those choose your own adventure Goosebumps books as a kid, so I figured, why not apply that concept to a short story that I’ve been writing for three years. Tell me what you want to see next: does the main character continue to fight his unraveling in the Wave House? Do we see more of Tim? Does Trevor come back into the picture? What motivations do you feel coming through for the main character? Do you want me to explore something more in depth?
Submit your thoughts here and the Wave House will continue next week!