failings

   I lay on the couch I shared with my roommate and stared into the textures on the ceiling. I wanted to move, but my body seemed to grasp the futility of any further action. It ignored my attempts to force it into productivity. Instead, I thought about this past year and all of my countless failings. I'd been so eager to begin my life at the University. I had thought I'd study hard, get a job, and make a meager living while earning my degree. Unlike my family, I would refuse to accept anonymity. I'd make something of myself, and more than that, I'd make money. But there are impossibilities in place to prevent plebeians like myself from wriggling their way upstream. I'd spent a year volleying being class work and actual work, carrying the stress of failing at either. I couldn't afford to make any mistakes, and as that pressure mounted I became cruel, frenzied, and robotic. I somehow managed - for an entire year - and made something called progress at the expense of my mental health. But today, they sent out word that they're raising tuition by nearly five thousand per year, and I, who works instead of joining extracurricular's, am not a viable scholarship candidate. 

  I have my advisors note still crumpled in my hand, but I might as well toss it. "So sorry!" she wrote as an afterthought at the bottom. A nothing-statement in her jaunty script. She forgot me immediately, I was certain. Off to help some rich alumni scums son tie his shoes or figure out which major will translate the best when his daddy puts him into some VP position the second he graduates. I'm not in the mood to be charitable to those I perceive as better off than me. What use could they have for my charity, anyway? It's not like anyone at this school knew who I was. I could never party, never join clubs, never make to the tight-knit little library study groups made up of giggling girls. What could I even say to people like that? At least you tried, I tell myself. I try to be positive. It isn't as hard as I thought it would be. I'm relieved to be released from my constant hamster wheel of work/school/work/school. For once, I have nowhere and nothing to be. Maybe I wouldn't have to go home, either. Maybe no one would ever know I'd failed. I could find a job here, a little apartment, I'd figure it out. I just need to re-evaluate my hand. 

  Chris jangles in, keys hitting the door, backpack sliding off his arm. "Hey-o," he sees me. I stretch out and pretend to stifle a yawn. " -ey," I mouth, hiding my face with my arm. "Long day?" he drops his stuff on the floor and begins poking about the kitchenette. I hadn't gone to any of my classes - no point, now. We still have finals coming up next week, but was there any point? I didn't care about what grade I might get - I already knew I was smart. All a good grade would do is mock me: this is what you might be worth if you had any money. I knew when I was beat. "You've no idea. I can't wait until finals are over." I sit up. My foot knocks against a coffee mug but it doesn't spill. I sit straighter and hope that he doesn't notice it. We don't have many roommate issues for a couple of people who were paired at random. I'm never home and I've learned to avoid conflict at any expense to myself. Coffee, however, was going to take many, many years off my life. 

  Chris was here the day I moved in, and he had already made himself at home. I only had a backpack's worth of things', but he made a big show of trying to help me settle in. "I cleaned all the cupboards! Which ones do you want?" He toured me around the place and let me pick my side of the bathroom sink, my shelves in the fridge. Then he made a big pot of coffee and asked me if I'd like a cup. "Sure," I'd said. We drank coffee and Chris showed me his schedule and list of clubs he was thinking about joining. "Do you like frisbee golf?" he asked me. I shook my head 'no'. "Well, no matter, it's mostly about drinking, anyway. You do like to drink, don't you?" he asked, suspicious. I laughed and assented, and Chris spent the rest of the afternoon telling me about all the parties he threw back home, in his parents house which, I ascertained, had both a pool and a game room. The next morning, Chris left for his class at 7am. I didn't have classes until 9am, so I helped myself to a bit of coffee. He'd made another huge pot with no concern about waste. Perhaps he didn't know that you could change the settings to make a half-pot. The next morning: the same. I began to wonder if I should take the coffee. I watched him the next few days. Whenever he got home, he'd dump the pot to begin fresh the next day. It felt too late to ask. Surely, he'd notice more coffee was missing than what he'd started with. Certainly, he didn't care right? But it felt like I owed him for it.  

  After I got a job, I bought a little packet of coffee. The same brand as Chris's. It sat smartly in my otherwise-bare cupboard. I planned to mention it in a nonchalant manner. I rehearsed for a week. "If you need extra coffee, there's some in my cupboard." I told him one day as he was emptying the pot. I made my tone light, as though seeing the coffeepot had jostled the memory in me. "Oh, are we low?" he asked, his tone unreadable. Did he think I was making my own pots - not just drinking leftovers? Was he pissed? My plan had backfired horrendously, and I retreated to my room 'to study.' He couldn't expect me to make a new pot of coffee every morning and just toss his, could he? It seemed insane. It is insane, I thought. If anything, if he didn't want me to take any coffee he should be tossing his before he left each morning. If anything, it's rude as hell to monopolize the coffee maker (which came with the dorm and belonged to neither of us). I wrestled with this every morning until he went home one week for a family trip. Finally, I could make my own coffee from my own packet. I snipped the corner to pour out my arabica blend and realized I didn't have any coffee filters. Going to the store meant I'd be late to class: I was forced to borrow one from Chris. The memory still infuriates me. 

  I hide my coffee mug with my foot. The last thing I wanted was a knowing look or a pointed query. Even though I was leaving and Chris would never see me again, I'd want to be remember as someone incredibly inoffensive. A vague memory of a hardworking, taciturn shadow. A mystery. I'd hide the cup in my room until Chris went to bed, then I'd wash it and return it to the cupboard, evidence eviscerated. "How's your schedule coming along?" he asks. We haven't taken our finals yet, but our advisors have been pressing us to get an idea of what we want to stave off the usual flurry of last-minute admissions. "Left it in Roarke's office," I groan. I pretend to beat myself up over losing a schedule template that I know doesn't exist. Chris makes a tsk noise in sympathy. "What are you going for?" I ask redirecting the conversation towards him. The less acting I had to do, the better. I was already distracted by the emptiness in my chest from losing everything I'd worked for in the past year. "Well, dad wants me to go for business - " we nod knowingly at each other "- but maybe I'll try a painting elective or something this year. He can't be mad at that, right?" Mr. Doyle had his sons future in a vice grip. Chris came from affluence but I couldn't help but wonder sometimes if it was preferable to have my impoverished freedom. I couldn't imagine being afraid to take a painting class. But then, Chris probably couldn't imagine wearing wet sneakers with holes in them in negative-twenty weather. "Maybe you could join a painting club. Is it worth risking his wrath?" I ask. Chris looks thoughtful. Perhaps he means to argue the benefits of professional instruction but he thinks better of it. "Maybe," he says instead. As different as we are, we've both accepted the futility of our futures. Maybe that's the most important thing we could've possibly learned at University: that no matter how much we try to etch out our own futures, they've been predetermined by those greedier and more powerful than us. Our conversation halts there. Chris retires to his room to study for finals, and I am left to rot on the couch. My last night of pretending is over. I will pack up everything tomorrow morning. I think about leaving Chris a note. Thanks for being a roommate? I scoff at my passing sentimentality. No, I won't say anything I decide. But I will leave my packet of coffee. It's more than enough to "pay" him back. I go to bed feeling relieved.