VODKA PASTA, BURNETTS, & COCONUT COFFEE

FRIENDSHIP

1O MIN READ

It's funny how you can hate a place with such precision that you become blind to anything good in it, like you're standing in front of a house on fire, but pointing out the bad paint job.

That’s what college was for me—a place that I thought would shape me, but instead seemed designed to siphon out every ounce of my joy, slowly and without mercy.

Then I found her. My best friend, in this very miserable, sorry ass campus- the people felt off, the parties were forgettable at best, and don’t even get me started on coach that brought us both there in the first place.

So many nights were spent wishing our life away, what life would look like if we had transferred somewhere else— constantly picking apart everything around us, piece by piece, like we were unraveling a sweater that never fit right in the first place.

Yet, we somehow laughed our way through the worst parts, side-eyeing the normalcy that everyone else tried to paint in their heads. We knew they were just as miserable as us, they were just too afraid to face the reality.

We were two very different girls, from different walks of life…

Transferring from University to University— one volleyball program after another, just trying to find a place to fit in, keep our heads down, and finish out our four years.

After all, we were only athletes so that we could pay our way through college.

That’s one thing we had in common, life was never handed to us wrapped up in a cute little box with a sparkly bow on it.

It was a shock to most that we had even made it this far.

— — — — — — — —

To some, the idea of a soulmate might seem perfectly packaged in romance, but I believe it’s much more intricate—and more beautiful—than that. Soulmates aren’t just the ones we share our bodies intimately with; they can also be the friend(s) who know our mind & hearts better than we ever did.

There was a kind of magic in how we were thrown together. I think sometimes you need to hate something with someone else to see each other clearly. We didn't become friends because of some grand moment of realization or deep confessions one random night. It was more like we gravitated toward each other, slowly and surely, until we were just... together.

And once we found each other, there was no one else. We became inseparable, our own small island of sanity in the madness of a situation we were plotting to escape from as soon as possible.

And somehow that’s how pasta, liquor, and coffee came about.

The nights always started with Burnetts vodka, if we were feeling fancy and had some extra dollars we’d bring out the Taylor Port.

I hated the taste of Burnetts, but she didn’t mind it, and honestly, it didn’t matter because it did what it needed to do. We were too broke for anything better, and too busy making memories in our short time together to care—

We knew we wouldn’t make it more than a semester there.

Our pre-games were classic: always deciding last minute that we did in fact want to go out, I mean what else was there to do? If we weren’t spending hours at practice or in class, we were bed rotting, talking about every bad thing that had happened that week.

Anyways, it was always the same routine every Friday night- sneaking shots back and forth to each others dorm in the mist of getting ready

and with every shot that was sent, it was delivered with an outfit option to pick from.

We’re girls, so you can only imagine how many shots were taken just solely on trying to find the right outfit.

We would always end up way more intoxicated than anyone else at the actual pregame, but that was point.

The same routine continued after the real pregame, we went to the only club our little college town had to offer- The UG.

We hated it, but somehow we’d always find our way back there: trying to mask the fact that we were depressed with the reality of our lives.

— — — — — — — — —

Everyone always had one goal in mind when they went to the UG; stand around, look all mysterious & too cool to be there, and still end up going home with the same person they did last weekend.

But we’d stay on the dance floor all night, shaking ass with anyone who dared to dance by us and forcing rap battles on anyone who walked by.

You would think that playing the same ten song line up every weekend, people would have learned ‘First Day Out’ by Tee Grizzly already.

It was chaotic and glorious, a beautiful mess that was entirely us.

— — — — — — — —

It was after a drunk night out when she first made it— Vodka pasta. We had spent our last on the Brunett’s and couldn’t afford Taco Bell:

I know— pathetic— but listen, if you had to endure the fucked up situation we were in, you’d pick cheap liquor over a Crunchwrap any day of the week.

Anyways, I had never had it before, the Vodka pasta, but she whipped it up like it was second nature— bowtie noodles, a little Vodka sauce, and Sriracha.

Just like that, it became our thing.

Every weekend, after we’d spent the night dancing ourselves sober, we’d come back and make it. It didn’t matter how tired we were, how drunk we were, or how late it was—the pasta had to happen.

And of course mornings brought hangovers, but we had our saving grace: coconut coffee—only the cheap one from Walmart— I’d usually wake up first, drag myself across the hall, most of the time still very much drunk, and crawl into her bed.

We never had to say anything, she would just always get up, make two cups of coffee, and crawl back into bed— we’d have Insecure playing on repeat all day, occasionally we would be woken up by one of Issas horrible raps and laugh about it.

but we never felt the need to poison the air with pointless conversations. It was never awkward with us. We could just be—side by side, comfortable in our silence.

And then, just like that, one semester later, we were separated. She went back home, I transferred. One of us ran from the flames, and the other stayed to dance in them a little longer, though I wouldn't realize it was a dance until much later. I’m still trying to make something work, while she left it all behind. At the time, I thought I was the one making a bold move, but maybe she was the smart one all along—quitting the dance before it burned us both out.

— — — — — — —

Distance was supposed to dull the ache of hating that place, but really it just made me miss the one good thing I found in it. We talk, of course. There’s FaceTime’s and long messages, and we catch up when we can, but it’s not the same as those late-nights stuck in the trenches of Brockman hall. There’s no more sleepovers or barging into each others rooms when the day goes sideways. No more pre games before the pre game, or scrolling through our phones in comfortable silence, knowing the other person just gets it.

I always thought college would give me a version of myself I could be proud of, but all it really gave me was her—another intricate part of my soul that I didn’t know was missing. Our friendship isn’t something that I planned for, and now I’m not sure I can survive without.

We went from being two inseparable best friends, living just across the hall from one another, to navigating the bittersweet reality of a nineteen hour distance.

— — — — — — —

There’s a certain kind of loneliness that comes with having a best friend so far away. We found each other in the worst possible setting, only to be split apart just when it felt like we’d beaten the system.

Life has this way of doing that—taking away the one thing that made the mess worthwhile. But no matter how far apart we are, she’s still my soulmate. Nineteen hours is nothing when you've already survived something much worse together.

And we escaped that place, thank God. But sometimes I think we left pieces of ourselves there. Or maybe, we just left pieces of ourselves with each other. Either way, I’m still carrying her with me, even if I can’t reach her whenever I want.

And somehow, that’s enough.

Because she is one of my soulmates in every sense of the word. The vodka, the pasta, the coffee—those were just pieces of the bigger thing we had.

A friendship that changed every aspect of my being.