Student Submission: Cardigans
By Preston Grover
We decided to stop drinking and spend Sunday at the zoo. It was the last day of spring break, and we realized that we hadn’t really done anything. Spring was humming throughout the air, yet we had cooped ourselves up the entire time. At the very least, we needed some fresh air and freedom, as opposed to more booze. “That sounds fun – you wanna top me off first?” Sara asked, holding out her empty gin and tonic.
Sara was wearing purple; I remember that pretty vividly. She was wearing that purple cardigan that she loved, the one that didn’t really go with anything else she had but she insisted on wearing frequently. At least it didn’t have sequins or glitter.
We gathered what we thought we should bring: a camera, a sack lunch, water bottles, a flask. We placed all of this in a backpack and I threw it over my shoulder and we left. I also grabbed a bus schedule; we had just missed the most recent bus. “Next one should be here in another half hour,” I said, uncomfortable. Her cardigan was over a neon yellow tee and some blue jeans with a hole in her right knee. She looked like the illicit love child of the 80s and 90s. “Trying to get noticed, are we?” I couldn’t help but ask; was that passive aggressive? Sara gave me a snarky smirk, and then the conversation plateaued and was silent for a few minutes.
Soon enough, Sara pulled out her phone and started texting, and I could see her typing “Wanna come to the zoo with me a Preston?”
Typical: Adj. Exactly what Sara is doing right now.
I felt myself perspiring, a moist layer coating my forehead. Spring had snuck up on us, sure, but the sweat was from anything but the heat, and I needed that bus to come. The sooner we were on the bus, the sooner we could be home.
Why did I invite her? Because stupid hormones told my stupid brain that I should invite her to the stupid zoo in a stupid attempt to get close to her. Hormones get to a point where they start making you ignore logic, and you stop having common sense. What else could it be?
I still remember sitting at a party, and across the room Sara had her body pressed against some frat boy while I started chugging a Pabst because there was nothing else for me to do. I needed to feel something, anything, besides embarrassment and shame. Belligerence would have to do.
The air on the bus tasted stale and depressing. An old man behind us sniffled the whole ride there. Soon the bus squelched to our stop and we got off. We paid the entrance fee and pressed past the metallic turnstile cylinders into the park. The stench of various feces was overwhelming in the heat. We watched antelope galloping together in their pen, too crowded. Two antelope seemed to be nuzzling each other, rubbing their necks together, but part of me wondered if this was affection or if they were itching a scratch, using each other because of proximity.
We stopped at a birdcage that had an owl in it, trying to sleep despite the noise of the patrons. I’ll think back to that owl sometimes, imagine it in that cage alone, and sometimes I’ll feel sorry for its solitude and singularity, but more often than not I’ll be envious.
“I feel like you might be mad at me,” Sara said as we were walking away from the zoo back to the bus stop.
“I’m not,” I said, which was true. I don’t think you would call it mad, but it sure wasn’t happy.
“You really don’t like this cardigan, do you?” she asked me.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I dunno.” She kept her face forward. The bus arrived at the stop as we approached, and we jogged the rest of the way to make it.
“You’re right,” I said as we had settled into some seats. “I don’t. At all.”
Two months later, Sarah will move back to Missouri. She’ll get back together with her ex, who will impregnate her and then leave her. I’ll find out all of this through hearsay, much after the fact. She’ll try and contact me after she gives birth, but I’ll ignore her. I’ll be on my own, without cages or Pabst or cardigans to worry about.
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