The Get-Together That Went Off the Rails

You know that feeling when you meet up with an old friend, and you start thinking, “Why don’t we do this more often?” but by the end of the hangout, you’re just praying you make it out alive? Yeah, that was Tessa’s Tuesday evening.

Tessa had plans to catch up with her old college friend, Harper, who—how do I put this delicately—had a talent for redefining the limits of social safety. Harper wasn’t just a free spirit; she was more like a gust of wind that didn’t care if it blew over a few trash cans in the process.

“Don’t worry, Tessa, it’ll be super chill,” Harper had texted, with a smiley face that was both reassuring and oddly ominous. “Super chill” is always code for “Prepare for chaos.” I should’ve tattooed that on my arm by now.

So, Tessa found herself at a rooftop bar, the kind with a barely-there railing and an illogical confidence in people’s sobriety. I wasn’t there, obviously, but I’ve heard the story enough times to know I would’ve faked food poisoning right at the sight of the precarious fire escape.

The evening started off fine. Tessa and Harper were sipping overpriced cocktails and reminiscing about the glory days. But things took a turn when Harper decided, “Hey, let’s sneak over to the part of the rooftop that’s off-limits. It’ll be quieter there!” This was when Tessa’s brain entered DEFCON 1.

Tessa: “Uh, Harper, it says DANGER: DO NOT ENTER for a reason. I don’t think—”
Harper: “Oh, come on! It’s just a suggestion. Look, no one cares!”

Tessa sighed, the kind of sigh that lets you know you’re about to make a decision you’ll immediately regret. Harper had already hoisted herself over the barrier, waving her hand like a deranged flight attendant inviting Tessa to board the plane of bad ideas.

Now, for most people, a rational response would be a polite decline. Tessa, however, was caught between wanting to be a good friend and her irrational fear of Harper somehow getting herself into more trouble if left unsupervised.

They made it over the railing, and for about three minutes, Tessa actually thought she might relax. Harper was going on about something—astrology, maybe—and Tessa was just beginning to think about how she could somehow convert this reckless escapade into a metaphor for growth during her next therapy session.

Then, of course, Harper spotted a rope.

Not just any rope. A rope hanging from a utility pole. A rope that Harper immediately decided she had to swing from, because apparently, adulthood had yet to introduce her to the concept of gravity.

Tessa’s brain: No, no, no, abort mission.

Harper: “Look, Tess! This is going to be so cool!”

Suddenly, Harper had grabbed the rope, attempted a Tarzan swing, and—predictably—swung straight into a potted plant, knocking it over the edge of the rooftop and into the street below. The sound of the clay pot shattering echoed into the night like a bomb going off, and Tessa felt the first cold trickles of panic set in.

Her chest tightened. She could feel her breath coming in short, rapid bursts as if her lungs had decided, “Yeah, this is just about the right time to freak out.” The whole rooftop seemed to spin, Harper’s voice morphing into a distant, underwater blur.

Harper: “Hey, Tess, are you okay? You look kind of… blue. Or maybe purple?”

Tessa: “I… I need to… get down.” She was gasping now, eyes darting to the railing they’d climbed over. It was the only exit back to normality.

But here’s the thing about having a panic attack on a rooftop: there’s no real graceful way to explain it to a friend who’s busy reenacting a circus stunt.

Tessa made a desperate grab for the railing, practically crawling over it as Harper—who clearly thought the panic attack was just Tessa being Tessa—continued trying to reenact her favorite scenes from “Jackass.”

There was a bartender down below, staring up at them with a mixture of horror and confusion. Tessa managed to scramble over the railing and practically fell back onto the regular section of the rooftop, the side with actual safety regulations, collapsing into a patio chair.

Bartender: “Hey! What are you two doing? That area’s clearly off-limits!” He pointed at the sign.

Tessa tried to catch her breath, her eyes glassy as she looked up at Harper, who still hadn’t quite understood that they had officially crossed the line from “fun” to “incident report.”

Somehow, Tessa managed to talk Harper back over the railing before they both got kicked out, which, for the record, happened about five minutes later when Harper tried to explain that “technically, the sign didn’t explicitly say we couldn’t go over the railing.”

Outside, Tessa was still trying to steady her breath, her eyes narrowed at Harper, who, despite everything, had the nerve to look amused.

Harper: “Hey, at least it was an adventure, right?”

Tessa, flatly: “Yeah, nothing like staring death in the face to make a Tuesday night memorable.”

Harper grinned, completely unfazed, and Tessa just shook her head, adding yet another name to her ever-growing list of “People I Shouldn’t Trust with My Life, But Somehow Keep Doing It Anyway.”