Cassette 1: Track 1 – Out of Sync

The university campus was a sprawling expanse of manicured lawns and modern architecture, a sea of people in casual suits moving with the effortless ease of those who belonged right there. It was a world where everyone seemed to glide through life smoothly, with an innate confidence unbroken by things like defeat, cruelty, and shipwreck, that I thought life threw at everyone. Though at the moment this was slightly dampened by the nervosity that came with first meetings. During the mornings of our orientation, we would be sitting in circles talking, playing games, and getting to know each other, and when the night came we would gather at bars and clubs and drink. I don’t remember those days well, but I remember the energetic vibration I felt while getting up at six in the morning to dress well and put my make-up on, take the train into the city for an hour, party until after midnight and then take the night bus home, only to arrive in my bed at two or three a.m. every night. That is how I spent the first two weeks of my new life.

“Hey, wanna to join us for a drink?” a classmate asked, her voice bright with the casual ease.

I smiled with exhaustion, but also happy that she was including me. “Sure, where are we going? That bar again?”

“That bar again, yes.”, she nodded, giggling slightly. I thought that she was maybe called Lily? I tried to remember, but while meeting so many new people, partying and getting little sleep, their faces were clear but their names eluded me like shouts in the fog.

“Josy!”, one of the others called to her. Ah. Josy. “Coming! Come on let’s go!”, and she gestured for me to follow.

At the bar everyone immediately started ordering drinks, and I did too, although a drink here costed as much as a meal would have back home. I was living on my savings from having worked all summer after graduation, but that money wasn’t worth nearly as much here. “Sio! You gotta get a drink, the nights needs to get started!”, Josy cooed, with her drink already in hand. “Yeah, yeah, on it”, I called back. I checked my bank account, and then the price of the drink and realized that funds were running low, but I still had a little bit left and I didn’t want to be the only one going home. So I ordered. It wasn’t too bad, as some of my fellow students bought a couple of rounds for everyone every now and then, so I didn’t have to dip in my funds too much, but it stayed in the back of my mind anyway, at least until the liquid had found its way into my head.

“Omg, I think we have the same jacket!”, I said to a guy that I thought was called Nate, slurring my words just slightly. He had been smiling and talking with some of the other guys from our study, some of whom he obviously knew, but when I spoke to him he turned and looked me up and down, and took a second glance at my H&M puffer jacket which I thought seemed just like his but in a different color, and said “No, I really don’t think so actually.” Then he turned and started laughing with the other guys again, which is when my drunken brain registered the golden Cartier forever bracelet on his wrist.