She said sitting inside the sauna felt like riding an elevator bound for hell. The dry heat that crawled up her skin was the devil’s foreplay and she wanted out. Out of the raging pit I imbue myself in every day after Swim. It was purgatory for my sins, is what I told her. Where I cleanse myself of my many fierce thoughts and ill deeds. Where God’s wrath shatters my being to rid my maladies. She didn’t know the same. She never would.
Back and forth like a rally, I watched the two bounce opinions off each other and bicker about people I didn’t know. Judging from their expressions, they seemed to revel in such conversation. Arm in arm, eye to eye, we kept moving. Some arid afternoons certainly called for revitalizing friendships I wasn’t a part of. I was only a barren, unexciting third-wheeler they could hardly care to walk with for the sake of companionship. Companionship we so desperately sought.