Still Here

Nothing beats a Friday night at home with people you actually like, getting drunk on Beck’s Green Lemon, blasting Billy Talent and The Killers so loud someone eventually yells at you to turn it down. Running Super Smash Bros Melee tournaments, spilling beer on controllers, that feeling where nothing else in the world matters.

I thought those nights were done. The summers at Zugspitzspielplatz, the games at the old place, everything felt finished. That’s the deal when you grow up—people scatter, you move on, and you accept that those times are gone.

Then you’re in that room again and Sarah still has that mouth on her, still says things that shouldn’t work but somehow do. Ali still beats you at every game, half the time barely looking at the screen. Kalli’s still that weird guy, the one saying the thing everyone’s thinking but nobody else actually says. They look different—different bodies, different lives—but underneath they’re exactly the same people.

If they’re the same, then I’m the same. Which means these nights aren’t actually gone.

That’s the thing that feels good.