Free Closer Than They Appear by Jess Riley

potassium
    -K
    “What? It’s clever.” He handed Josh his pint of beer.
    “First of all, it was a gift from your Mom. Second, it’s fuckin huge on you! What is that, an XXL?” Josh started laughing.
    This was true on both accounts. He’d tried washing and drying it several times on high heat, but to no avail. Still, it was a clever shirt. But definitely too big. Whenever he wore it he had to keep his arms down because it got really drafty otherwise.
    “Uh-oh,” Josh said, eyes locked on someone behind Zach’s left shoulder, his expression freezing. “Don’t turn around.”
    Zach turned around and it was as if someone suddenly reached into his chest and squeezed his heart. Andrea Wallace was standing in the crowd behind them, chatting with a friend and sipping a rum and coke. She was wearing a pink halter top that exposed her shapely, tanned shoulders, her hair pinned up the way he’d always liked: kind of messy, with a few long, loose strands. He used to kiss the back of her neck when she wore her hair like that. The light from the popcorn machine behind her gave her a warm, backlit glow—almost an aura. If this were a scene in a movie, an orchestra would swell, or the sad indie folk-rock would begin: “No One’s Gonna Love You” by Band of Horses, maybe “The Engine Driver” by The Decemberists or—why beat around the bush: “Sometime Around Midnight” by The Airborne Toxic Event. But the only option here was the jukebox, currently playing dubstep. A group of girls was trying to dance to it, waving their drinks and head-banging. They looked like slutty robots with dying batteries.
    She hadn’t seen him. “I told you we should have gone to The Algoma Club.”
    “I feel you dude, but I don’t want to go see some band I don’t even know and stand there going deaf and shouting, ‘What?’ and shit anytime someone talks to me. Let’s stay for one, chill for a bit, enjoy the moment, then we’ll hit Peabody’s.”
    Zach took a long swig of his beer. He didn’t know how anyone could enjoy the moment, unless they’d always wondered what it felt like to be a sober, irritated pinball.
    “Fuck it, broski. Let’s shoot some darts,” Josh said, but when they squeezed into the game room, all of the dart boards were already in use. So they returned to the main bar, wedged themselves miserably into a corner near the ATM machine, and drank their beers quickly so they could leave.
    And then Zach felt a small, cool hand on his arm. “Zach?” He took a deep breath, forced a smile, and turned.
    “Hey, Andrea. What’s up? You look great.”
    She went in for a hug which he awkwardly returned one-handed. “So do you.” When she pulled away, she studied him with concern. He felt lightheaded. “Gosh, it’s been too long. How are you, really?”
    Ugh. He hated this. It felt like a test to see if his heart was healed, if he still missed her (ostensibly because she was so missable), if she could stop feeling guilty.
    When he was nine, he’d fallen off his bike and broken his arm; his panicked father, first on the scene of the screaming, had attempted to assess the damage by frantically bending and rotating and twisting his arm, which only made it worse. That’s what it felt like Andrea Wallace was doing to his heart right now.
    “I’m great!” he said, going for upbeat casual and landing somewhere between bitter and crazy. He debated telling her he’d sold his novel but ultimately decided against it, because he didn’t want to look like he was break-up bragging to boost his self-esteem. It was the literary version of leasing a bright orange Dodge Challenger and joining a gym right after being dumped.
    “Still working at …?” She never could bring herself to say the name of his employer.
    “Yep, yep.” He nodded and took a long drink of beer. Where were the goddam giant Hobbit eagles when you needed them? Josh was talking to a cute brunette in braids, oblivious to his roommate’s escalating