I cried last night. Everyone did. Three a.m. and drunk, overcaffeinated. We clumped into the house and pulled Mathea away from studying. “I’m feeling a good vibe,” I said. “Let’s keep this going.” More caffeine for me and Will, and we all fell into the living room. We don’t go out much in the going out sense, with Uber and barhopping and dancing, and tonight had left us giddy and flushed. Seven of us remained, the housemates and a girlfriend and a friend, now lounging three to a couch plus Nathan on the floor.
“Tonight was perfect,” Will said, and Nathan murmured “I fucking love you guys” from the rug, inebriated into fuzzy memory and already wrapping himself in sleep. We could have continued confessing ideas about God and sharing hopes for our jobs and joking about sex (always joking about sex). We could have kept roaming among our two- or three-person conversations like dancers in a Jane Austen novel, trading partners and topics in a warm, happy improvisation. But I wanted to wrap all of them into a hug, or gather them to me like dreams. I wanted all of them at once, to pull them over myself like a blanket and nestle beneath them, safe and known.