‘E’ is for Experience

I.

MGMT playing the background, Salkim and Julia are getting ready to go out on a Saturday night.

“Say ooh girl / Shock me like an electric eel!” they sing in between giving their lips the last touch of colour and their eyebrows a final brush. Laughter echoes through the apartment – it is so high-pitched that even Lily’s headphone-caged ears catch it.

“Girls,” she shouts, “shush! I’m trying to study here.” Her room-mates appear in the door of her room seconds later.

“We’re leaving, don’t worry” Lily nodded and waved good-bye without looking at them. Julia however entered her room and lifted one half of the headphone and whispered:

“Have fun with your snorting buddies!” Lily glared at her.

“Again, French doesn't sound like snorting!”

“Well, say something then?” Salkim grinned. Lily squared her shoulders:

“Pourquoi?” After a moment, Salkim and Julia looked at each other:

“Snort snort!” Lily rolled her eyes and just waved her hand in the just-leave way. With a final exclamation of laughter, the girls truly left.

II.

After staring blankly at the pages for a while longer, she just closed the French textbook and began making her way into the kitchen.

“I still got a few days to go before the exam, anyway” Lily thought to herself as she opened the fridge and took out a beer. Twisting it open with her hand, she took a gulp. And then another. And another. Minutes later, the bottle was empty. Before her conscience could begin counting the calories, Francois entered the apartment.

“Bon soir”

“You didn't knock.”

“Oh, I didn't? Sorry, let me do my entrée again,-“and he turned around and gone into the hallway, closing the door and knocked on it before entering the apartment again.

“May I come in?”

“If you have more beer.”

“I have something even better!” and he lifted his index finger at her before diving his hand into his pocket and coming up with a small zip plastic bag filled with a moldy-looking green content. Lily gasped in surprise, her eyes wide.

“How?!” she demanded, studying closely the illegal grapes.

“Thomas left home yesterday and didn't want to get into trouble – so he gave it to me.”

“Good ol’ Thomas... You gonna share?”

“Why else would I be here?” Francois smiled. She clapped in delight.

“Let me just get filters and a lighter, they’re in Salkim’s room.”

“Turks, right.” Lily laughed and moments later, they were sitting on her bed, smoking weed joints, staring blankly at the wall across the room.

III.

“Thanks for coming over. I had no idea what I was going to do tonight,” Lily said. Francois exhaled.

“No worries. I couldn’t think of anyone better to share these green babies with,” smiling at her. Lily smiled back, though her mind began exclaiming that it would be better to finish smoking and tell him to leave before things go out of hand... again.

“Do you want to tell me to leave after this joint?” Francois asked, Lily jerked slightly before nodding. “I will. But I just want to say, I don’t regret what happened.” Lily sighed.

“Neither do I.”

“So why is there this tension? Why can’t we just chill like before, do the sh*t we did?” After a while of silence, Lily looked at him and said:

“Inhale, your joint is losing fire.” But Francois lost something else.

“F*ck the joint! Lily, we lost fire! Whatever it was, wherever it was going, it lost the spark. Can we go back to that?” Lily took an inhale, staring ahead of her.

“Back to what? Back to an occasional f*ck and acting in front of everyone like we barely know each other? And anyway, we’re all leaving back home in a few weeks. Why return back to that when it is to end?” Francois stared at her.

“You’re cold. So English. I thought you’d warm up with these, but you’re even worse. You’re not fun anymore.” He took the half-smoked joint from Lily’s hand seconds before she could inhale again and stormed out with the plastic bag before she could stop him.

IV.

Exhausted from exam stress and yet hyped up by joint-smoking and slightly worrisome from the entire Francois affair, it took a while before Lily could fall asleep. She felt bad – he meant well, but she just cannot allow them to experience the pain of separation once the day of departure from this city comes...

“Yes, I do fancy him” she thought, “but really, I must focus on my exams now! It’s the perfect chance now to improve my average overall grade and some snorting French guy won’t ruin it.” Content with making this decision, she fell asleep.

V.

But she didn’t sleep for long – for the smoke alarm went on. Sirens went on in the hallways and pushed their way into ears of all inhabitants of the dormitory.

“We demand everyone to leave the building immediately,” said a robotic female voice in between the high-pitched howling. Lily groaned and after putting on a jumper and tennis shoes, she bumped into Julia and Salkim who only just arrived from some party. Still drunk, they accompanied Lily down the 8 stories of stairs and joined the growing group of just-awaken youth in front of the building.

The cold 5am wind woke her up – and she spotted Francois just coming out of the building. His eyelids were falling down and his hair ruffled – just like on the morning after their first night together...

And right then, Lily realized that there are more e’s in life than just exams – and she began waving and once their eyes met, she began walking towards him.