i’m pretty sure my bipolar college roommate roofied me one evening, for reasons i can only guess

was it a prank? was he doing a test run?

he was a really charming guy, and we got along well—which made an impression, because that version of me was very hard to get along with

but that semester was very strange

he also bought me expensive things, some of them kind of personal, which confused me at the time and puzzles me more all these years later

after thanksgiving break, he returned to our room for a moment then i guess had some kind of manic episode, left all his stuff behind, and disappeared

there was a whole todo, his parents and police got involved

days later he turned up on the canadian border, in bad shape, without shoes, his feet almost frostbitten off

he had suddenly decided to go camping alone deep in the canadian wilderness, the night of a major blizzard

no wallet or room key

he put on a cheery face the rest of the year, that the person i was didn’t understand enough to see through, even as he hobbled around on crutches, both his feet and lower legs in cartoonishly thick casts

i met his parents—his mom, dramatic and overbearing; his dad must have sucked all the lemons

there was something going on with him, that i wasn’t the right person to see

it comes back to me sometimes, always with more questions than before; always something else to kick myself for missing, even though i never could have caught it back then; i just wasn’t cooked enough

he was in trouble.