SCARED 28: I Do Not Belong

David Kramer
Jul 10, 2017 · 3 min read

We visited Brookline last weekend for a night. It has only been a little over a year since we lived there, but it feels like longer. It barely feels like the same town as when I left for college. The departure did not end up being permanent but it felt like it would at the time.

Megan sprained their ankle walking out of an ice cream store, so we walked to the Dunkin Donuts to have a quick rest and a water. It’s not the same Dunkin Donuts that I went to as a kid; that one was four buildings over and closed years ago. That’s the one where I slapped my friend for taking the last three chocolate frosted donuts even though I was right behind him in line. I left the store after he kicked me in the shin. He left a voicemail later that night making fun of my stutter. I profusely apologized.

There’s a juice bar across the street from the new Dunkin. It feels like there’s always been a juice bar there because my town is a juice bar town. It’s only now that it literally has one instead of just the vibe.

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We saw The Big Sick the other day and it was fantastic. The movie theatre increased their prices by two dollars and we didn’t get matinee pricing even though it was 1:45, and if 1:45 isn’t a matinee then what are we all doing here?

When I was in college my roommate told me that time is a social construct and I laughed because I assumed it was a joke, because what could be more solid than time? Then I learned. The same roommate also believed consensual incest should be acceptable.

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We tried to drive up to a park that has an amazing view of the Boston skyline. It’s the park I played hide and seek with my friends when we were too old to play hide and seek. It’s the park where the police told us to leave but we stayed, and it didn’t matter. The park was closed for construction.

We drove down to the Tedeschi’s near my house to grab some snacks for the night. It’s the Tedeschi’s where I walked with my friend Sara at three in the morning one summer night before college. We got pancake mix to make our other friends breakfast when they woke up.

That summer we had very little money and very few friends who could get us alcohol, so we took turns getting drunk. None of us had ever done it before, and we all learned our limits.

Sara kept saying that it was probably the last summer we would all be together, but I didn’t believe her. I thought she was just being dramatic, and that we would all come back every summer during college and every Christmas and Thanksgiving until the end of time. I haven’t so much as texted Sara in almost three years. The Tedeschi’s was closed too.

We went to the CVS across the street instead. The interior was completely redesigned. I waited in line at the self-checkout with my two bags of popcorn. A worker offered me a bag, and though I declined, she insisted. She has worked there since I was in elementary school; she is the same cashier who questioned me when I bought a Visa gift card for M-rated video games. Every single time I have gone to that CVS she has been there. She is always there.

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I don’t belong there. The storefronts change little by little every time I come back for another visit. That doesn’t matter, but it does. It looks a little more different every time; it’s like I’m slowly leafing through a flipbook noticing the tiny shifts that make up a new landscape. My parents have been threatening to move out for years, but one day they will go through with it and nothing there will be mine anymore.

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My body hurts but its my fault, and that makes it harder to complain. I feel like I have literally written that in this newsletter before. I would rather not write it again.

David Kramer

Written by

25. Providence. Fun and nice and also cool.

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