Maya Caicedo

Maya grabbed the microphone, forgetting how, days earlier, before agreeing to come to the karaoke bar, she’d made it clear that she wouldn’t sing a single song. But things had changed, her mood had lit up, and more than anything, the fact that Louis had been a no-show had given her a sense of relief that made her feel capable of everything. It would’ve been awkward to see Louis again, but since they were both Harry’s friends, she knew neither of them would miss his birthday.

But now that he wasn’t there, and she could be her old self again. Granted, it probably also had to do with the fact that she had drunk a bit too much trying to get her nerves under control—but it was the result that mattered. Finally, she felt free, like she could think about herself again.

“I don’t remember the last time I saw you singing at karaoke,” Dara told her. “I think it was in college, right?”

It must’ve been, yes, back when was a simpler time, the future ahead of them, nothing to worry about other than some classes and figuring out what it meant to be an adult. Their group took it especially lightly—some studying, yes, but mostly partying. Everything seemed to be right at their fingertips.

“Did you know Louis wasn’t gonna come?” Dara started again, this time taking the drink from Maya’s hand. “Why wouldn’t he show up? He and Harry were tight.”

“I think that’s the reason,” Maya said. “They were close, not anymore. How long has it been, anyway?”

“Ten years, Maya, ten years since we celebrated Harry’s thirty in a venue like this.”

A venue, Maya cringed at the word. Harry’s “Dirty Thirties,” as Dara had insisted on calling it, had been in a dump somewhere on the border between California and Mexico, and to think that they all had driven all the way from Miami to be there. There are plenty of dumps like this in Miami, Louis had whispered that night in Maya’s ear, as alcohol was starting to get the best of them. That was a couple of hours before they ended up back in her hotel room, Maya throat deep between his legs.

“Okay, okay, Judge Judy,” Dara said, and Maya didn’t even know what she was talking about. “The place ten years ago was trash. But you don’t think that’s the reason, right? Louis wouldn’t just drop his buddy on such an important night—”

“Dara, do you hear yourself? It’s been ten years since we last saw each other, and eighteen since we graduated college. It’s already surprising enough that most of us came.”

Of course, it was hard for Dara to see it because she had started hooking up with Harry back in college and they hadn’t stopped ever since. Rumor had it that they had even had sex at Harry’s wedding party. So, in their eyes, college dynamics had crystalized and somehow remained frozen in time, waiting around for whenever they’d decide to get together. But for Maya, and probably for most of them, everything was different.

“You hooked up with him back then, right?” Dara said, and Maya felt a jolt of electricity running through her body. She didn’t think anyone knew.

“Who told you that?”

“I played a hunch,” Dara said, with a bright smile. “But you’re not denying it, so I take it it’s true.”

“It was a one-night thing,” she said, feeding that need she always had to justify herself. “We were both drunk, he came with me to my hotel room. That’s it, we didn’t see each other after that.”

She looked at Dara, expecting to read in her face whether she believed her.

“Well, whatever you did to him, I think it’s safe to say he didn’t like it, or else he’d be here, hoping for an encore.”

That was Dara, random, engaging, yet able to crush your self-esteem with a single comment. Maya shrugged, and Dara gave her a quirky smile before walking away, leaving her there, between thoughts and assumptions. Yes, it was true that they’d only hooked up that once, but it was because something a lot worse had happened that had forced them to take a step back. That night, after they had accidentally taken down the shower curtain in the middle of their poorly-planed encounter, Louis had decided that he wanted to cross the border to go drink in Mexico and asked Maya to come with him. He was going through a rough patch, his marriage in shambles after the diagnosis of their three-year-old with Duchenne Syndrome. He wanted to run away, leave everything behind, and he wanted to take Maya with him. He’d always been in love with her, he claimed, ever since they’d taken that World Lit class. Maya knew that he was lying, he had to be, but after spending the best part of the year reeling from her broken-off engagement, she needed to hear words like those, regardless of who said them. As Louis was driving in the dark of the night, Maya thought it may be a good idea to keep him entertained, and he certainly didn’t fight her off. She couldn’t tell exactly the moment when it happened, but it did. A clash, a loud noise, and even if it took them a couple of seconds to realize what was going on, the realization sobered them up. With his zipper still down and her hair in disarray, they got out of the car. The road was empty, except for a young woman, a teenager maybe, bleeding face down on the ground. What happened next would come back to Maya in bits and pieces the next morning in her hotel room. They disposed of the body, that much she knew, before driving back and Maya mixing anxiety pills with alcohol. Louis wasn’t there when she woke up, and she’d never see him again after that. She knew he’d probably decided to leave right away, to pretend none of that had ever happened, including—or maybe even especially—her. But, still, a little part of her, that part in her brain that stored unwanted memories and stories, kept telling her that that night, she’d driven back to the hotel alone.