Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: One Introvert's Year of Saying Yes

by Jessica Pan

Laura from improv arrives with no umbrella, and her hair is soaking wet. She’s carrying a cake she’s just baked and a bottle of Polish spirits. I take her upstairs to my bedroom and have to actually open the door and let her in so she can blow-dry her hair. Now Laura knows my mode of organization, known as “piles of clothes.” Dammit. But there’s no time to care, because downstairs, in the living room and kitchen area, there are people everywhere. I run down. Sam is reheating the turkey and whipping up the vegan mashed potatoes. I take a look at my sweet potatoes covered in butter, sugar, and marshmallows. The marshmallows have failed to form that camp-fire-y, charred glaze and are instead completely melted, the white dissolving into clumps among the orange sweet potatoes. “It looks like I spit my toothpaste out in it,” Sam says. I want to kill him. But there are too many witnesses.