Ian Matters

“Do you remember Daniel from high school?” Dillon asks me one day, he's feeling particularly nosey and going through my mail. It's not often that I get mail, and when I do I usually don't check any of it unless it looks important enough. Nobody really mailed anything anymore, right? Unless it was a package, or bills.

“Which one?”

“Transon.”

I squint to myself, “He thought my name was Sean for the first three years of high school.”

“Well apparently he's getting married and he wants you to be at his wedding.”

“What?” I drop the spatula I'm holding and switch off the stove element I'm cooking grilled cheese on to hurry over to the couch where Dillon is sitting. I grab the letter from him and give it a once over, screwing my face up into a weird expression. I'm incredibly confused for a moment before I begin to make up excuses, “You know he still owes me twenty bucks? I bet you he's trying to pay me back with an invitation to his wedding.” I tell Dillon, “Hey, thanks for the twenty bucks, why don't you come to my wedding? That sort of thing.”

Sal then drags out from the hallway half bare in her underwear. She looks completely worn, though perfectly as always, there are dark circles that I notice underneath her eyes as she approaches and she runs a hand back through her hair that is tangled and yet to be brushed.

I furrow my brow, but avoid asking her if she's alright – she only gets angry at me when I do that. “Is Frank still here?” She just nods and slips by me and collapses back onto the couch beside Dillon, curling up and blinking slowly at us. “Well alright.” It comes out slow, “... Grilled cheese?”

“Sure.” She croaks, “But don't use that processed shit.”

Dillon glances at me, “She's too good for processed cheese slices.” I tell him, he furrows his brow but goes back to looking through my mail. I return to my stove and slip the grilled cheese onto a plate and begin making the next one. “Whose he marrying? Does it say?”

Dillon doesn't answer me, instead he asks, “You know that girl you liked in high school? For like the whole of sophomore year?”

Kimberly. Oh Kimberly. I told you about her, remember? “Yeah.”

“Do you know what her last name was?”

There's a pause and I stop and think for a second. Sal's croaky frog voice answers, “Sanson?” It's more of a question, but she doesn't leave room for anyone to say anything before she's continuing, “He's marrying your first wet dream.”

My knees damn near give out and my face damn near slams into the hot pan full of grilled bread and hot cheese.



“Don't tell me you still have unresolved feelings for this girl.” Sal scoffs beside me on the couch. Her mouth is full and it should be unattractive but somehow everything Sal does is just pretty. Even now she makes being exhausted and stuffing her face beautiful and for a fleeting moment I hate her more then anything. It's never been a wonder how she gets laid so easily.

“No,” I snap at her, “Do you remember what Daniel Transon was like in high school? Or must I remind you?”

“Please enlighten me.”

“He ate paper and dissected animals in his basement.”

Dillon mutters from his spot in the chair beside the couch, “His dad was a taxidermist.”

“It doesn't matter.” I insist, “Does this guy actually think I'm going to go to his wedding?”

“Does he know you were crazy about his fiance in high school?” Dillon asks me.

I pause, “I don't know. Still.” I say, “I haven't spoken to either of them since we graduated. I was never even friends with him in high school.”

“Don't go to it then.” Sal sighs, bored with the discussion already, resting her head on her knuckles. She's lounging back on the couch with her plate on her stomach, picking at her grilled cheese. “Weddings are depressing anyway. People are jealous but act like they aren't and then other people are getting drunk, going home with people they won't even like in the morning.” She stops. Her face is disgusted and she takes her plate and puts it on the coffee table, unfinished – weddings ruin her appetite, of course. “Plus, if you're invited there's likely going to be other people there from high school.”

I groan violently and slide way the hell down in my seat, “You're right.”

I'm not going to the wedding.