Brian Who Puked #4738

Kyle stared at us from his porch, and I felt terrible.
“Come on, how are we getting home?”
“We?” Brian’s forty was nearly empty now, and I guessed he was done for the evening. He took another swig.
“Yeah, come home with me.”
I glanced at Kyle, now smoking on the porch, pretending he wasn’t out there just to see who got in what car. Then I looked at Brian. He gazed back at me from behind his artsy glasses, looking all relaxed and sleepy.
“I can’t go home with you.”
Kyle had been glaring at me ever since I’d responded positively to Brian’s come-ons. I didn’t know why I was doing it, but I was. His glasses were nice. He looked trendy. He had a closely shaved beard-like thing. His upper lip was eclipsed by it, and I didn’t intend to kiss him, but I had. We had been behind the stairs next to Kyle’s back door. The rest of the party was inside, and Kyle hadn’t noticed us go out. But he’d seen us come back in.

I liked Kyle. I always had. Since the first day I walked into my first college class with him. I had just broken away from private school pseudo-bliss. Kyle was a great guy. He was quiet, southern, and sweet. His demeanor had mostly been defined by his awkward high school years as an overweight funny guy. Since then, he had nearly lost Nicole Ritchie’s entire body mass. He was different outside, but inside he was still shy, inexperienced, and a little bit paranoid.
I had been through an inexplicable crush on him in my first semester that I knew was bad news. Kyle liked me, would probably do anything for me, and I was using his affection like a never-ending gobstopper. I sucked it dry while I ran wild. Then, when a slutty looking freshman made out with him in his driveway on Cinco de Mayo, I flew into a jealous rage, much like the one he was pouting his way through now on the porch. Only “now” was almost three years later.

“Come on. I live close.” He drained the forty in his hand. Only disgusting alcoholics and white guys who think they’re funny drink forties of beer.
“You do probably need a ride, don’t you?”
“Kiss me.” He smelled thick and sweet. And as he leaned in I shot a look back at Kyle who was going back inside.
“Okay, okay. I’ll go.”
Now, I had only bought a six-pack of Blue Moon that night, and I didn’t even get to drink it all because the party got out of hand and people kept going in the refrigerator and stealing them. So I wasn’t toasted.
“That was a pretty great party Kyle had, huh?” We were in my car, driving away from the city. Apparently Brian lived in the upstairs of an old house near the historic district. I was jealous. What did he do?
“What do you do?”
“I work with Kyle.” Oh crap. “At the pizza place next to campus.”
“Really?”
“Yeah…” He leaned toward me and reached for my leg. “Kyle’s a really nice guy.”
“I know.”
“Hey,” he was looking right at me. Maybe he wasn’t drunk. “Are you going to come up?” His eyes were brown and shining. I didn’t know what I would do when I got there. Drive away?
“I plan not to come up.”
“Can I make you change your plans?” He spread his long fingers out over my leg and moved up and down. Something shifted inside me, but I reminded myself not to ignore the fact that there was a large empty beer bottle in the floor of my passenger seat.
“Turn here.”
We turned onto a narrow street lined with old Victorian style houses. They had beautiful lattice porches, but were otherwise sad looking. Such was the way with that college town, though. The real estate could look beautiful. It could be over one hundred years old. Yet it would be rented out to a bunch of partying, drug experimenting, co-eds who had no real ambition but to stay as wasted throughout college as possible. It would definitely explain the beer pong table set up on the wrap around porch of the yellow two-story we pass before turning into a driveway.
Brian is still massaging my thigh. We stop at the end of the driveway around back next to two other cars.
“You’re so beautiful.”
“Thanks.”
He unbuckles his seatbelt and leans over towards me.
I stare at him, still warm from his hand on my leg.
He is about to touch my neck. He’s just breathing on it, still.
“…Inside with me?” he says.
“Huh?”
Then he sits straight up. He looks a little—green?
“Come on, let’s go.”
He opens the car door, and says “Man, I think those two beers were a bad idea.”
When he stands up he bends over and pukes into the grass.

Ew.
I sit there for a minute, my hand still on the steering wheel. I’m frozen. In the third grade, this girl named Brandy Houston threw up in my lap and I never felt the same way about body fluids after. This weird fear rises up in me, and as he’s still retching, I say aloud, “Well, Brian, that’s my cue!”
I lurch over the console and grab enough of my passenger door to close it without disturbing Brian’s “situation.” Then I turn the key in the ignition and back out of the driveway. At the corner, I chuck his beer bottle out the window after I make sure no one’s looking.
It makes a satisfying shattering noise in the street.

I don’t talk to Kyle for three weeks after. I don’t want to remember this ever even happened. And when Brian asks Kyle for my number at the pizza place, Kyle gives it to him one digit off.

Good ole Kyle. He always protected me even when I should have known enough to protect myself.