The Expiration Date
“I mean it this time. This is my rock bottom.”
You give me a look. Your I don’t believe you look, this time punctuated by an eye roll so subtle, it would be just about imperceptible if I didn’t know you as well as I do.
“I’m serious,” I tell you. “I have never been more devastated in my life.”
“That’s what you said when you went on that date with the guy you swore was ‘The One,’ at least until you heard him use the term ‘alpha male’ unironically,” you say.
I press my lips together. “I thought we swore to never speak of him again.”
“You said you were never going to speak of him again,” you say. “I didn’t promise you anything.”
Liar.
You did.
You said you’d stay with me forever.
Evading your gaze, I pull the sun visor down so I can fix my smudged eyeliner. The tissue you handed me is so old, the fibers are practically dissolving between my fingers. Dust motes float around us like tiny gray fairies.
For a while, we say nothing. We do this a lot. After all this time, we’re okay with empty air. We still work to fill the silence sometimes, lobbing stupid questions at each other—“If you had to become a fish, which kind would you want to be?” “If a zombie bit your hand, would you try to cut it off, even if you didn’t know for sure that it would keep you from turning?” “Do you think ants see us as gods and, if so, are we benevolent, malevolent, or ambivalent?”—until we eventually lapse back into silence.
There’s nothing wrong with that. The silence. It’s rather comfortable.
With you, I mean. Not with anyone else. With my boss, for example, it’s more painful than the time I accidentally dropped the paper cutter’s deathly arm onto the side of my hand. I didn’t become a zombie, but I did wish I were a fish, if only because they don’t have hands to nearly chop off. When I texted you about my near-death experience, you said only: the ant gods must have been looking out for you.
“I really don’t see what the big deal is,” you say now. “It’s just an expired coupon.”
I turn to you, half exasperated and half thrilled. There’s nothing wrong with silence, but God, I love to talk.
“No,” I say, drawing out the O. “It is not just an expired coupon. It’s an expired Nugget Shack coupon. We could have gotten two free chocolate chip cookies with that thing.”
You scratch your ear. You were the one who told me if you time it just right, the scratching sounds like Pac-Man eating all those little dots. You claimed you had read about this online somewhere, but the conspiratorial voice in my head—the one that persuaded me to grow out my bangs because I had convinced myself my forehead wasn’t as big as I remembered it being—secretly believes you were the only one to notice. You’re the type to pick up on things like that. The weird things. The little things. The things so obscure, it’s as if you live in a slightly different universe from the rest of us.
“You know,” you say, “we could just buy two chocolate chip cookies.”
I sigh. “I guess. But it wouldn’t be the same.”
You slow-blink at me. This, I know, is your way of requesting an explanation.
“First of all,” I say, happy to oblige, “things just taste better when they’re free.”
“Not true,” you say. “What about the time you got free pizza at the office?”
I wince.
You’re right.
You usually are.
“That’s different,” I say. “It’s not the free pizza’s fault that my boss is a sadistic freak who makes an entire floor of corporate drones share two medium pizzas. Plus, that pizza wasn’t even free. Not to my boss.”
You shrug, as if to say, Fair enough.
“Second,” I continue, “I have this theory that employees secretly hold a grudge against anyone who uses coupons and gift cards and punish them by serving them slightly worse versions of whatever they were supposed to get for free.”
You furrow your brow. You do this often. I’ve urged you not to do this, especially since we’re almost thirty now, but you’re not hyperaware of every expression you make, the way I am. You haven’t even invested in any anti-aging serums. Last I checked, you still wash your face with whatever bar soap you buy on sale at StarMart.
“Doesn’t that mean the cookies you could have gotten would have been worse than cookies we could get”—you glance at the dashboard like you need to check the time, as if Nugget Shack isn’t a liminal space open twenty-four hours a day—“right now?”
“Yes,” I say, “but we wouldn’t have complained because it would have been free.”
You close your eyes, likely wondering how such a smart, promising individual (you) could have ended up best friends with a certified disaster (me).
I turn my head, my fingers twisting around each other like I’m weaving a net out of my own bones. “I just thought it would be nice, you know. One last great hurrah.”
Your eyes flick to me, then back to the parking lot. Your hand is draped over the top of the steering wheel, your fingers curled like the fronds of a fern.
“It’s not forever,” you say.
When I smile, my bottom lip cracks. I raise my tissue to my mouth, anticipating blood. “Even if it were, you’d never get rid of me. Unlike this worthless thing”—I lift my hand, the coupon clamped between my index and middle fingers—“we have no expiration date.”
“I mean, technically, we do.” You pause. “We’re going to die someday.”
I frown. “Gee, thanks for the reminder.”
“I’m just saying.” You drum your fingers along the steering wheel. “Our friendship, though? Good for life.”
Silence. A long one. The dust fairies fade.
I look at you. I see it. The lump in your throat. I have one too, a big knot. Best friends always match.
I clear my throat. “I’m just saying. I had this whole thing planned out. Take you out. Have an adventure. Finish the day off with free chocolate chip cookies. Except then you went and changed the day of our outing on me—”
“Because the movers changed things on me first,” you interject.
“And now,” I continue, “the coupon is expired. By two days. Just… expired. And sure, we could pay for the cookies ourselves. It’s just… not what I pictured.”
None of this is remotely like what I pictured.
Mostly because I didn’t think you’d really go.
“It’s just a coupon,” you say.
“No, it’s not,” I say.
You take a breath. Let it out. Outside, a mother straps her baby to a shopping cart. I wonder if your mom ever did that with you. I’ve seen pictures of you as an infant, but to me, you look like every other baby I’ve ever seen. In my mind, you weren’t really you until the moment we met.
I wonder, now, if we will still be us even once we’re apart.
“You’re right,” you say. Then: “You usually are.”
My hand drops to my lap, my knuckles hitting the door on the way down.
“I’m sorry,” you say. “I’m sorry we had to change the date.”
That’s not what you should be apologizing for.
I don’t say that. I can’t. I shouldn’t want you to say sorry to me for deciding to move. It’s what you have to do. The only way you’ll be happy.
“Do you remember,” you say suddenly, “the time I dropped my soft-baked cookies at after-school care?”
I glance up at you. Back down. My legs are trembling.
“I started crying,” you say, “but as soon as I did, you came over and handed me one of your cookies instead. I was so surprised and confused and, honestly, hungry, I stopped crying and stuffed your cookie right into my mouth.”
Liar. You liar. You did no such thing.
I mean, you stopped crying. That much is true. You didn’t stuff the cookie in your mouth, though. I know you didn’t. You have always eaten so deliberately, an archaeologist trying to pick your way around a fragile fossil. People teased you sometimes; I never did. It was just one more thing about you that I noticed, then kept. My most sacred oath.
My nails sink into my skin. The marks I leave resemble boomerangs.
Boomerangs come back.
I’m afraid you never will.
“Do you still want to go?” I ask. Then, when pain flashes in your eyes, I rush to add, “To Nugget Shack.”
You close your mouth. Think for a moment. “I don’t know. You’re the one who wanted to go in the first place.”
I’m not.
That’s you.
You’re the one who chose to go.
I pull the tissue away from my lip. It comes back clean, but I swear I’m bleeding anyhow.
We tumble back into silence. Not a comfortable one.
I should head home, I try to tell you, but the words just won’t come out.
“Okay,” you say, yanking the parking brake. “I’m not ready to take you back yet. What do you say we get some full-priced cookies?”
I look up at you, my jaw clenched. My heart pounds in my ears.
“Come on.” You smile. “I promise I won’t drop any this time.”
I swallow. Swallow hard. My fingers have gone numb. In my mind, high above, a great god smiles at his ant-sized creations, tiny and mighty and so, so alive.
Teary-eyed, I crumple up the expired coupon and buckle my seat belt. In a voice as thin as your tissues, I say, “It’s okay if you do. I’m sure I can share this one last time.”
You take my hand and hold it and do not once let go.
Listen to this piece
Read by Kelly Murashige
Born and raised in Hawaiʻi, Kelly Murashige is the author of the award-winning YA novels THE LOST SOULS OF BENZAITEN and THE YOMIGAERI TUNNEL, as well as the upcoming adult novel MILKIVERSE (2027). Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net.
Website Links:
https://www.kellymurashige.com/