About a year after the cocaine night, Noah texted me.

The number was the same. I had never deleted it, though I had stopped trying to reach him months earlier. He had never responded to my messages and had eventually blocked me on Facebook. That part seemed permanent. But the text itself was casual, like nothing unusual had happened between us. He was going out with some of the old radio station people and asked if I wanted to come. I said yes.

We met at a bar on Capitol Hill. Megan was there. Ashley too. A few others drifted in and out through the night, the way several friend groups do when they overlap. The original core of them felt colder than I expected. Noah had a way of speaking around me instead of to me. Every so often he would drop a line into conversation that seemed pointed slightly in my direction. Something about cheating, or something adjacent. Nothing direct enough that I could respond to without looking paranoid.

He never addressed me directly about any of it. I couldn’t bring it up. I will never know why he invited me out that night. I think he couldn’t tell you either.  

We kept moving from bar to bar. People came and went. Some of them seemed happy to see me. Others seemed to have already decided what role I played in the cocaine night.

At some point I started talking to a girl who had once worked a contract for one of my clients through another recruiting agency. She told me it had been the best job she ever had. I asked where she was working now and she said the contract had ended months ago. The agency that placed her had kept her locked out of the client afterward.

I told her they had no ownership over her anymore. Contracts like that expired. If she wanted, she could go work there tomorrow.

She was in awe. The conversation shifted after that. She leaned in closer when we talked. We stayed together through the next few bars while the rest of the group rotated around us.

Eventually we ended up back at my apartment.

She looked around. I could almost see the recalculation happening behind her eyes as small details rearranged whatever impression she had formed earlier in the night.

She stepped into the bathroom and threw up. When she came out, she paused for a moment near the door.

“I’m going to go back out with my friends,” she said.

I’ll stay here, I didn’t say.

She left.

I noticed a few weeks later that she had updated her LinkedIn.