What If
By Sam Wildow

“I don’t know why you insisted on leaving the party so early,” Darla said. “It’s only midnight.”

“I have an eight o’clock class tomorrow morning,” I said, shrugging.
Our heels clicked on the black top pavement as we scuttled as quickly as we could across the frigid campus.

“That didn’t stop you last week when you were debating Kevin from your Astronomy Club about whether or not Shakespeare was actually worth reading.” Darla hugged her arms around her waist.

“I was trying to prevent Kevin from being corrupted by SparkNotes.” We passed by the Arts library as I glanced at the night sky, glowing slightly red from all of the lights. “I’m sorry I found that more interesting that a bunch of drunk people attempting to do flips and then freaking out when they end up halfway out of a window.” We were a couple blocks from our dorm room in the Honors Tower.

“You know there’s a campus therapist that you can see about that, right?”

“And you know there are also Alcoholics Anonymous meetings here, right?” I winked at Darla.

“Yeah, their refreshments suck.” Darla chuckled, tossing back her coffee brown curls. “So why did I have to leave the party, too?”

“You wanted to make sure that I got back to our room all right.” I gave her the sweetest smile I could conjure up.

“Don’t give me that cutesy look, Erica,” Darla said to me. “You would have been fine on your own.”

“You know I don’t like to walk by myself this late at night.” I ran my fingers through my bob of hair, resting my palms on my ears for a couple seconds to warm them from the biting night air. “Plus, I just saved you from falling out of a window. You’ll thank me later when your boyfriend is texting you later to come take him to a hospital.”

“Well, if you ask me, I don’t think it was dead old Shakespeare keeping you out until three in the morning with Kevin.”

“I guess I shouldn’t ask then.” As we approached the building of Architecture and Design, a guy in a black corduroy blazer walked out the door a few feet in front of us.

“Lucky coincidence,” Darla said, smiling slyly and nudging me.

I elbowed Darla as Kevin heard us and glanced back at us. When he recognized us, he paused. He smiled and nodded his “hello” to us when we reached him.

“Good, a new chaperone for Erica,” Darla said, stopping and redirecting her body in the opposite direction. “You think you can walk Erica back to our dorm so she doesn’t fall into a gutter or run into a building?”

“Hey now,” I said, “the gutters are huge here.”

Darla rolled her eyes at me, while Kevin smiled.

“Point taken, I’m on it,” Kevin said.

“Thanks!” Darla said, walking briskly back towards the party.

Once she was pretty well off, I turned and gave Kevin a shy smile as we began walking again. We made small talk – covering the sporadic Ohio weather and the latest episodes of Glee – until we reached the Honors dorms, pausing outside of it. We fidgeted on our feet next to a bench and a flickering street lamp, exchanging a unanimous “I had fun the other night…” I felt my cheeks heat up as he suggested that we should do it again – not just sometime, but soon.

Then I saw it. In that bit of light from the street lamp reflecting off of his murky pond water eyes, I saw everything about us – how we would have our first clumsy kiss outside his dorm room, after which I would not let him walk me back to my own dorm as I would not want him seeing me dashing giddily about campus; I would eventually catch my foot in a crack in the pavement and smash my face against the feet of some old, dead president of the university that reminded me of Hitler, if Hitler had been fat, American, and made of concrete. I saw how I would get a concussion and a broken femur from the car wreck on our first date. I also saw how a week later I would still go with him to Olive Garden, where the waiter would mix up my order, so I would have to go to the hospital again after having an allergic reaction to the shrimp in my pasta. Each time I would have a nurse who would look exceptionally like Matt Damon yet would be so flamboyantly gay that the combination of the two would make me want to cry.

My mind fast-forwarded through his two proposals, our wedding that would end with a visit from the fire department, the birth of our third child Henry where I would break Kevin’s hand, the first time our daughter Darla would get arrested, four high school graduations and one “I’ll just get my GED” – throughout the scattered times I would hide away in our closet and wonder, what if…

All of this he gave to me from the dilating of his eyes, continuing to do so even under the brilliant shock of a cheap street lamp stabbing them with a sudden spark of light.

“What do you say, Erica?” Kevin asked.

My tongue froze. He had asked me to coffee. Or maybe he had asked me to help him study – or maybe that was all code for wanting to go out, get drunk, and then have unprotected sex on the roof of the library or under the bleachers of the football stadium.

I was not sure if I was ready for this.

“Erica?”

“Sure,” I said, swallowing down my worry. “Coffee tomorrow, right? At three?”

“Sounds like a plan.”