At some point Jason came out with beers and sat next to me. He drank beer now, which was disappointing. Then again, so did I. It was disappointing that both of us now drank beer. In high school, not drinking had felt special, like you were making a statement about the clichéd expectations of American youth. In college, beer was just beer. There were different statements to make. After some chitchat, I asked about his engineering classes, a topic we’d somehow avoided over the previous days, perhaps intuiting that it would lead to nothing good. I brought up the story about his dad.

“Aren’t you worried your life will end up being just sort of normal and boring?” I said. I could hear how presumptuous this sounded, but at the time it seemed important to say.

Jason looked surprised. “As opposed to what?”

Maybe something you actually care about? I wanted to say. Maybe something you ever once expressed interest in the entire time we were friends?

“I always thought you’d pursue music,” I said.