Since June, I’d been too carefree to wave him out of my dreams.
It was weird that he was even there, trekking through my subconscious mind on an almost nightly basis in such a way. I hadn’t seen or heard from him since the day we graduated from high school. I still remembered the hug he gave me after my parents had snapped a thousand and one pictures of us together—The Hug in which he ever-so-secretly slipped an envelope into my hand, waved goodbye, and walked away forever.
We didn’t meet face-to-face until the summer before we were seniors. Still, I’d known who he was long before we ended up in the same honors economics class. He’d been the tenor I’d always drooled over in freshman choir, before I quit to make room in my schedule for a study hall. He was Class President; Mr. Popular; Choir Guru. I always said I loved him as I scribbled his name all over pretty much everything I owned. But I never knew what love was, or what it meant. Not until The Project.
In this particular subconscious fantasy, we were seventeen again. It was July, right in the middle of the summer festival our town always held for little kids and bored teenagers. We were walking down the blocked-off streets together, with decorated booths packed in on either side. He was eating cotton candy, but I wouldn’t touch it. Sugar made me say stupid things.
We didn’t really talk. And if we did, all memory of the words we exchanged was lost when it was all over. We just walked around, passing plenty of people we knew from school but ignoring them completely. I had that tight, tingly feeling in my chest as we turned a corner, and he stopped and looked at me with his perfect hazel eyes for a very long time.
As he grabbed my hand and squeezed, I felt something else—an index finger digging into my back, the nail boring its mark on my skin. I turned around, letting go of his hand, but the invisible finger still poked me, again and again and again. I couldn’t ignore it, and had my mind set on finding out who was messing with my head before I opened my eyes and looked up.
“You were talking in your sleep,” Caroline said.
“I was?” I rubbed my eyes, blinking rapidly in the darkness until I could make out her outline, standing over me, her hand still on my shoulder. I yawned silently as I grabbed my watch off of the table next to me. But I couldn’t see what time it was; it was dark. “Did I wake you up?” I asked as I reached for the lamp and clicked it on.
“No.” She turned her back to me and sat down on the bed that folded out of the couch every night. Her hair looked like it hadn’t even been slept on, like she’d gotten up while Ryan was offering me cotton candy and fixed it in the bathroom mirror. I put my watch down, forgetting to look at the time. “I was already up.”
“Come here.” I threw the covers back, sitting up and letting her crawl across the blankets and snuggle up next to me. She was cold all over; my theory that she hadn’t been tucked under the covers where I’d left her was confirmed. “What’s wrong?” I hated asking that question: assuming wrong is almost always a bad idea. Almost.
She hesitated before slowly easing the question past her thin lips. “Do you—?” Insert frustrated sigh. “Do you think the other kids’ll like me?”
“Do I think the other kids will like you.” She stared blankly at me for a few seconds, waiting. She hated it when I repeated her questions as statements—“A waste of words,” she always grumbled. “First you wanna know if they’ll be smarter than you. Now you just wanna make sure they’ll like you?”
“The kids didn’t like me last year,” she found it fit to remind me without much effort.
“That didn’t count.” I pulled her closer to me and hugged her as tightly as I could without crushing her lungs. “What’s not to like? You’re smart, and you like to make people laugh—”
“Could we please not outline my most desirable qualities at five o’clock in the morning?” She smiled up at me, her perfect baby teeth gleaming in the lamp light. I smiled back. Caroline always made me smile, even if I was way too tired to be happy about anything. “I just wanted to make sure you aren’t sending me off to my doom.”
I shook my head. “You’re going. To be. Fine.” I brushed a loose strand of hair off of her face—a reassuring gesture. “As long as you leave the Harry Potter at home, I’m not worried.” I paused. “And don’t try to get out of this by sneaking off to the library during recess. The main reason kids go to school at all is to learn how to be social. You know that.”
“I know how to be social. I’m not anti-social.” She rarely ever seemed to think I was accusing her of being anything other than adorable—unless, of course, we just so happened to be talking about relationships. Her relationships. “It’s not my fault they didn’t like me. All they wanted to do was play with that fake plastic food, and—”
“I know, I know. I remember.” She looked down at her glitter-painted fingernails. I’d been poked with glitter. “Now, how do you think you’re gonna have a good first day of second grade if you don’t sleep? It’s late. Early.”
“I’m too tired to get up.” And before I could persuade her, she’d fallen sound asleep on the right side of my pillow. I pulled the blankets over both of us, lay my head down gently next to hers, and closed my eyes.
At six-thirty, the alarm on my watch beeped so loud that I wanted to throw it across the room. I didn’t.
“Caroline? Wake up.” Still half-asleep, I poked her gently with my thumb. She groaned and rolled over. “Wake up.” Yawn. “You have to go to school and make twenty new friends.” She lay still, breathing only when her lungs threatened to collapse; she was awake. “Come on. Breakfast time.”
She was pouring her cereal of the week (Cocoa Puffs) into a clear glass bowl when I turned the shower on. When I came back into the room, dressed in the outfit we’d spent all of Phantom of the Opera picking out, she was sitting at the counter reading, a glass bowl of chocolate milk pushed to the side.
“Hey, we agreed no reading this morning.” She closed the book and carried her bowl to the sink, dumping out the milk. The spoon clanked at the bottom of the otherwise empty sink. “Get a move-on. We gotta be there early.”
“Because…?” She picked up her book, sliding it off the counter and tucking it under her arm.
“It’s always good to be early. Scoot.” I gave her a little shove toward her bedroom as the rest of me started going through the motions it learned back when summer started, when we packed up everything that was ours and moved across town. Before Caroline came back into the room—dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, a sweatshirt tied around her waist—I was sitting at the counter eating a bagel suffocating underneath too much peanut butter. We were still out of orange juice—a sad, sad thing.
“How come you always have the same thing for breakfast?” she asked as she sat down next to me. I couldn’t help but notice that her hair wasn’t done, but chose to ignore the fact until this conversation was over.
“I like bagels. And I like peanut butter.” It was true.
“Don’t you ever get bored?”
I shook my head in disagreement. “Peanut butter is never boring.” I finished the last of my breakfast, a wonderful taste I would most likely crave until tomorrow. “Let me help you with your hair. Then we really have to go.” I quickly rinsed off my dishes and hers, slid them into the dishwasher, and sat her down in front of a mirror.
“Could you do it like when we went to see Grandma and Grandpa?” I nodded slowly, tangling my fingers in her hair as I worked as fast as I could. We were running out of time, but I made sure she wouldn’t be able to pick up my anxiety. There were some quirks I hoped she would never pick up from living with me.
“Do you ask this many questions in school?” She didn’t say anything at first.
“Do you ever miss Dad? Like, even a little?”
I should have seen the tactic. Ask a few innocent questions—make the person forget that you’re hardly innocent at all, with a mind reaching far beyond normal limits—before you get to the question that’s really on your mind. That was how it always worked. And somehow, I still fell for it every single time.
“Not really.” I finished her hair, tying up the last bit with a pink hair band and stepping back to review my handiwork. “Do you?” She didn’t even have to think about it.
“No,” she said.
When her bag was all packed, and when I’d gathered all my things together, we headed to the car and drove, mostly in silence, to the nearby elementary school. A parking space was easy enough to find, being almost too early and all (if that was even possible). I pulled the key out of the ignition and sat back. We didn’t move.
“This is weird,” Caroline said, staring out at the morning fog, her face expressionless.
“What is?” I was staring out at that same fog, thinking.
“It’s just—” She shook her head, clutching her backpack strap and looking down at the glitter at the ends of her fingers. “Dad? He said he’d always be around. You know, to take me to school and stuff. He said he wanted to drive me to my first day of kindergarten, and then to second grade. And he’s not.”
“He’s working,” I reminded her, almost sadly. I didn’t want to admit the reason for my throat suddenly running dry, or the confusion I had to swallow. Promises were promises—to most people. “He doesn’t have time to come see you during the week, that’s why he takes you on the weekends. You know that.”
“I know that,” she admitted. There was a moment of silence as we stared out into the fog together. It was almost like we were mourning a loss, a loss that wasn’t really lost at all. It was just…out of our reach. “I still feel sad sometimes. And mad. Is that a bad thing?” As much as she knew about the world, this uncharted territory made her head spin. “I mean—are we supposed to hate him?”
“Caroline Scarlett.” Her head snapped to the left, startled at my rare motherly sternness. She looked at me, and then seemed to sink lower in her seat. “You don’t hate your father. He loves you more than anything.” My heart sank. “Just because we don’t love each other anymore doesn’t mean we hate each other.”
Hate the sin, not the sinner.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and bowed her head.
“Hey. No tears.” I reached over with my right hand and wiped the saltwater away. “Don’t worry about it, okay? Let’s think about the now, and not the past. Come on.” I unbuckled my seat belt and climbed out of the car. She did the same, setting her backpack on the ground as she bent down to tie her shoe. We walked across the parking lot and toward the school; it grew bigger as we approached.
“Mom?”
“Hm.”
“It’s not natural. Not to cry, I mean.”
And that was the Caroline that I knew and loved the most. “Everybody deals with things their own way. Some people cry. Some don’t. That’s just how it is.”
We walked through the doors and stopped. We were standing at the end of a long hallway, completely empty and clean and shimmering. As we stepped forward, the sound of my heels clicking on the floor bounced off the walls and rang in our ears. I told Caroline to pull out the papers I’d stuffed into her bag that morning. She skimmed them.
“Room twenty-three,” she said. She walked faster, ahead of me, to the first room on the right. It was closed and dark, but there was a number on the door. “This way,” she said, like she’d seen this all in a dream before. She loved patterns, and the opportunity to follow one was too exciting to pass up. I had to ask her to slow down so I could keep up.
I glanced at all the rooms as we passed them. Some doors were open and full of light, but empty. Most of the doors were closed—some with lights on, and some without. We turned a corner and started down a hallway in which all the doors were open and lit brightly by fluorescents. At the end sat Room 23.
“Go peek in,” I encouraged hopefully as she held back a little. She inched forward and poked her head into the bright, seemingly inviting room. When she disappeared inside, I held back for a second, listening. Really, I was probably more nervous about this whole thing than she was.
“Hi,” my daughter’s voice said shyly.
“Hi.” A different voice—female; another child’s. “The teacher isn’t here yet. I think we’re just supposed to sit and wait.”
“Oh.” I heard a distant thump, like she was setting her bag down on the floor.
There was hardly a pause; zero hesitation. “Why are you so short?” Uh-oh.
“Well, it probably has to do with genetics. My mom—she’s right outside the door—she didn’t really get the recessive gene from either of her parents, and my dad did, but when the first generation passes genes down to the second, and so on…”
She went a little further before she stopped. I could imagine the little girl’s face at that point, a combination of horror and utter confusion. It was typical of my daughter to pause and backtrack at this point, trying again. This time she launched into a brief explanation of how women don’t usually hit puberty or grow noticeably taller until their preteen years. And then, after another short pause, she gave up.
“I don’t like vegetables.”
She understood. “What’s your name?”
“Caroline.”
“Angela.”
My lips stretched into a smile as I leaned against the wall, temporarily satisfied. She made a friend. She made a friend! I could have run into the room, right to Angela, and hugged her like she was my own daughter. I didn’t even get a chance, as it was in that moment that the teacher arrived.
“Were you looking for me?” he asked as he came down the hallway, almost running. I turned around as he was rushing past me, toward the door. “I’m so sorry I’m late. There was traffic, and the fog—” he didn’t even stop. He just dove right into the room, somehow forgetting that he’d just asked me a question. I followed him and watched as he put his things down behind his desk and tried smoothing down his hair.
“Good morning, Mr. Drisi,” Angela droned, as if she’d spoken the words a thousand times before. “This is Caroline.”
“Well. Hello, there, Caroline.” He bent down to shake her hand. She was polite and shook back, though the terrified look on her face made me a little nervous. After a moment she seemed to relax a little. “I’ve heard a lot about you. We’re gonna have a good time this year.” And then he said the words. “I promise.”
She shook it off, pointing toward me. “That’s my mom.”
He turned his face toward me and stood up. He started crossing the room, his hand extended forward, ready to shake mine. Caroline began to follow, bragging about my job interview at eight-thirty and how I was the best candidate for the position in the whole entire world. He stopped walking.
That dream I had? Totally not a subconscious fantasy. It actually happened. Ryan Drisi had actually held my hand.
“Oh, my God.”
Things were slow at first. We shook hands and sat down at a pair of desks while Caroline and Angela talked about their favorite books (yes!). There was silence. He kept looking over at the door behind me, waiting for someone else to come in—an excuse to wiggle right out of this situation. No one came.
“How long has it been?” he finally asked, sounding like he felt as dumbfounded as I did. He looked right at me, and I almost couldn’t answer him honestly. Why hadn’t I been able to recognize his voice? Why hadn’t I bothered to read that stupid registration packet?
“Nine years,” I said—I didn’t ask. Well, give or take a few months. Sort of.
He shook his head. “Wow.”
I looked down at his hands. There was a ring on his left. “We—we should probably talk about my daughter.”
“Are you worried about her?” He said it accusingly, like he knew. But he didn’t know everything. He was brilliant, but not like Caroline. He could compose and sight read and sing soprano in falsetto (I’d heard him do it a thousand times before). I bit my lip: he had been able to do all those things, when I knew him.
“I—I don’t know.” I hadn’t been tongue-tied since high school, since there were too many people to impress and not enough that were easily satisfied. “She’s smart enough to do the work. Actually, she shouldn’t be here. They told me she could probably be in seventh or eighth grade now, and she would still be bored out of her mind. But socially—I mean, it would kill her. She didn’t have very many friends in pre-school.”
“Wow,” he said again, fidgeting with that stupid ring. “You must’ve married someone really smart.” My gaze shot up, right into his deep, hazel eyes. “I mean, two smart people, they have to—” His hands went right to his face, squashing his nose. “I’m so sorry. This is—no. I’m shutting up now.”
“Book smart,” I answered.
He spread his fingers, peeking through. “What?”
I pressed my lips tightly together. “My husband. He was book smart. Not life smart.”
“Life smart?”
Yes. He was stupid. He knew almost as much as Caroline knew that very second, but he couldn’t ever make a single decision without getting frustrated and slamming doors. And most of the decisions he made were wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. And I would never, ever forgive him. It wasn’t even possible.
“Caroline’s gonna be fine.,” he assured me confidently. “I’ve already got all these independent lessons mapped out for her. She’ll still be learning with the rest of the class—I won’t shut her in a closet with a physics book or anything like that.” I smiled warily. “And there’s time set aside every day for social interaction. We do all kinds of team-building exercises where the kids learn how to work in groups and problem-solve using their individual strengths and strengthening their weaknesses. I worked all summer on this stuff.”
“Impressive,” I noted, already feeling better.
“And if I ever notice she’s having trouble, I’ll call you the second I get a chance. Honestly, I’m not worried at all. All these kids are in good hands.” He gestured toward the two second-graders in the room. “There are more coming. I swear. I have a whole list in my bag, if you don’t believe me.”
“Ryan—Mr. Drisi.” My throat was dry again. This time, I was swallowing a whole lot more than confusion and dry saliva. “I’m really happy that they paired you with my daughter. I know you’ll be good for her. But—” there was always a but—always. “I really don’t think we should mention anything about our past. Not while you’re still her teacher.” I hesitated. “There are a lot of loose ends. Dangerous ones. You know?”
He stayed silent for too long. I couldn’t stand to see an old friend sitting there so still, looking as if I’d just ripped his brain out and put an orange in its place. His silence made me remember too much. He hadn’t ever been the type to tell me (or anyone) what he was feeling. He’d always let it slide right off his face after sitting in silence.
Some things? They never change.
“I agree,” he finally said, standing up and extending his hand a second time. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Archer.”
My teeth sank into my lower lip. “Bennett.”
He looked taken aback for a moment. And then, that too slid off of his face and fell into a quickly dissolving puddle on the tile floor. “You kept your name.”
I could feel my cheeks flushing. “I’m divorced.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was mutual.”
I softened when I went to say goodbye to Caroline, promising that I would be here to pick her up at three-thirty sharp. And then I walked out of the room and back down the hallway, having told my second lie in this new life.

“Did you get it?”

Caroline climbed into the back seat of the car and immediately asked the question that had most likely been on her mind since I left her that morning. Did I get the job? Well, that would depend on your definition of a job interview. Tiffany and Alex Hensley were so desperate for someone who could organize things and type without her fingers cramping up that they asked me enough questions to fit on one hand and told me I could start at eight on Monday morning.

“And you’ll still be able to pick me up after school every day, won’t you? I mean, it’s not too far to walk home by myself, but…” She trailed off, shrugging.

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t.” It was always better to be honest and straightforward with her, ninety-two percent of the time. Unless she had something else more important on her mind, she could usually tell when you were lying. “They don’t have kids. I mean, they’ll probably want me to stay until four. Maybe.” We stopped at the edge of the parking lot. “At least on the first day. Speaking of first days, how was yours?” I glanced back at her through the rear-view mirror. She had her backpack in her lap, lumpy and heavy-looking.

“It was okay, I guess.” She picked it up, wincing, and set it down on the seat next to her with a loud thump. “I don’t get why we would start school on a stupid Friday. Mr. Drisi already gave me homework. I mean, that’s no big deal, but Dad’s supposed to take me to the lake this weekend, and—”

“The lake?” I repeated, probably sounding more astonished than I actually felt. “Since when does your dad go to the beach? Doesn’t he work on Saturdays?”

“He has tomorrow off.” She said this like I was supposed to know this—it was common knowledge, apparently, that no one had bothered to take the time to explain to me. But according to her, I still should have known. “I mean, I guess I could try to do some of it on the way there, and maybe when it gets too dark for the beach. But still.”

“What kind of homework did he give you?” This was more than small talk: I was curious, more curious about what my daughter was learning than I’d ever been before. I was determined to watch Ryan Drisi like a hawk, and anything less than satisfactory would (gladly) land Caroline in the suggested (but declined) gifted program.

“Oh, tons of stuff.” She unzipped her backpack and went searching, her voice becoming a little muffled. “Easy stuff, I mean, but he really piled it on. He told me all about the extra stuff he’s gonna give me, which I think is a good idea. You can’t forget to sign all these papers. Everybody has to do it. All we did today was go over all the rules and meet people, but he said he wants to see exactly what kind of work he wants to have me do this year.”

“So you met new people, huh?” We were circling the grocery store parking lot, looking for a space. It was always crowded at this time on Friday afternoons. “So who else is in your class? Besides Angela, I mean. She seemed nice, don’t you think?” I saw that look in her eyes. I didn’t want to believe it was there, not now.

“There are twenty one other kids besides me and Angela. She’s nice, and so are the other kids at my desk group.” And then she pressed her lips together and kept digging deep into her bag for the planner she’d insisted I buy her last week when we went shopping for supplies. There was always, without a doubt, a but.

“Caroline.”

“Her favorite book is for first graders, mom!” I found a parking space and sped right into it, stopping before I went outside the perfect yellow lines. “I can’t do this. I can’t find stuff in common with these kids. We don’t. Like. The same. Things.” She shoved her backpack away, frustrated. “They all think I’m weird. I told them my favorite movie is Extraordinary Measures. They didn’t even know what that was about.”

“Now you stop that. Right now.” I slammed my thumb down on the release button and let my seat belt slam against the inside of the car as I spun around in my seat, tired and a little shaken, even still. “Don’t you ever say you can’t do something, not ever again. Do you hear me?” She didn’t say a word. “You cannot go to school and ignore everyone else around you. Just because they don’t learn as fast as you does not mean you’re any better than they are.”

“That’s not—”

“I will keep you in elementary school until you learn how to deal with other people. Ad I mean that, Caroline. In the real world, people are not going to bow down to you just because they aren’t as smart as you. Actually, they’ll probably resent you for it. But that does not give you the right to be a snob.”

Complete silence followed my mini lecture, silence that I knew Caroline was fighting hard to keep from breaking, but I didn’t care, and I wanted her to know it. Ever since she’d started school it’d been like this, her fighting to stay on her peers’ good sides while she tried to keep her nose in literature they couldn’t possibly understand. And until recently, I hadn’t let it bother me. But that was before. That was during the Nicholas era.

“I just want you to be happy. A person can’t be happy without friends.”

“Who says?”And then she gave me that look, the look I knew too wel…but wished I couldn’t ever hope to recognize. It was the “I know more than you will ever know, so stop trying to act like anything you tell me will really make a noticeable difference” look. She’d given Nicholas that look almost constantly, ever since June.

I let my hard heart dissolve back to its normal motherly mush inside my chest. “Let’s not worry about it right now, okay?” She was still basking in the silence, hoping that I would apologize for the things I’d dared to say. I wouldn’t, because apologizing because of truth was like loving someone that didn’t love you in return. “Can we enjoy our shopping, like we always do?’ Still, she said nothing. “Please?”

She thought about it. And as she thought, I could almost see her wondering to herself why she always forgave me. I mean, I was human, and (unlike her) I was bound to screw up again in the very near future. What was the point of always getting angry, listening to me beg, followed by a subtle but meaningful forgiveness, only to have the process repeat itself again, potentially in the very same day?

Because, she decided, all we really had was each other.

“Okay,” she said, giving me the smallest possible hint of a smile. “Do you have the list? I can’t memorize food like you.”

“So,” I said, grabbing my purse and dumping my keys into the deep, dangerous abyss, “you memorized all fifty states—and their capitals—in an hour and fifteen minutes. You memorized all forty-something presidents, and their birthdays, plus how long their terms were and what party they belonged to. But you can’t memorize a grocery list?” I pulled it out and glanced at the scribbled words. “It pretty much has the same stuff on it every week.”

“You make it complicated,” she accused, grabbing it from my hands and hopping out of the car. We raced each other to the door, grabbed our separate baskets, and temporarily parted ways. “You take the first half this time. I’m tired of walking by all those vegetables.” I smiled. “Meet you in the bread aisle!” And she was off, heading toward the frozen foods.

The two of us thrived on day-to-day routine. Meeting in the bread aisle was like a sacred ritual of some kind, one that would throw off the entire balance of the universe if ignored. I walked slowly down the aisles, grabbing what I always grabbed off of the shelves and setting them gently into the basket in my other hand. The usual necessities, plus whatever I chose for Monday and Thursday dinner. We only had four of them together per week: we just had to make them count. And it was only fair, the whole half and half deal.

By the time I’d reached the aisle next to our destination, already smelling bread (I loved that smell), the basket in my hand was almost full. I went through my mental half of the list, grabbing a few more things as I made my way slowly down the row. I stopped, read a few price stickers, and started walking again. And then I stopped.

There he was. Right in front of me.

I picked him out right away because of his soccer shirt. Nobody had one exactly like him—not with his name plastered on the back, above his lucky number (17). It was white and blue, our alma mater colors. It was one of those things that had always stuck in my mind. Even after graduation, I always held my breath whenever I saw a shirt like that. It always made me think of him. Not only that; part of me always hoped it would be him, far away from home, having come back just for me.

Why was he here? Well, I guess even married elementary school teachers had to grocery shop, too. So much for staying at work as late as possible to serve any student that needed extra assistance. And why the heck was he buying hot dogs? He hated hot dogs. Ever since that time he and his friends tried to see who could eat the most of them in five minutes. He won.

“Miss Bennett.” He looked down at me, smiling, amused, through his fake British accent. He’d never been good at that, either. The accent thing, I mean. “Long time, no see.”

“Indeed,” I said, not even trying to embarrass myself.

“I kept a close eye on Caroline today,” He said, falling into snail pace step beside me. “I figured you’d appreciate that.” This was not what I wanted. This was not. What. I wanted. Whatever happened to keeping our personal lives separate? Fine. I would shop at a different grocery store. Even better, I would move to an entirely different town, miles away from here. But I hated to uproot poor Caroline again—she finally had her Beanie Babies arranged the way she wanted them.

“Don’t single her out,” I said, pretty much without thinking. We stopped walking so I could throw something else into the basket—things I really didn’t need to buy, but at least I had an excuse to look away for a few seconds. “The last thing she needs is more attention. She’s stuck in this mindset that other people aren’t really worth her energy.”

“Well, that’s typical in these kinds of situations.” I got the feeling that his summer research was about to be summarized without my consent. “Like I said, I have a ton of things planned to make sure it doesn’t get any worse. At this point, all you can really do is encourage her to keep reaching out and making friends. Don’t scold her, though. That’ll just make her wonder why she’s even wasting her time trying to do what you’re suggesting.”

Of course.

I didn’t get a chance to respond verbally. “Mom?” It came from around the corner, sounding a little confused and hesitant. I turned my gaze away from Ryan Drisi, as if I could see Caroline right through the half filled shelves. It came again, a little closer and louder. She was about to come around. “Mom?”

“Right here,” I breathed, forcing the words out. She poked her head around the corner before allowing the rest of her to follow. Her basket was almost as full as mine, about a quarter of it being spontaneous snacks she’d plucked along her short journey that she hadn’t found on the list. I ignored them, instead studying her facial expression.

“You’re in the wrong aisle,” she found it fit to remind me. It was in that moment that she looked up and saw her second-grade teacher standing beside me, as silent and content-looking as could be. I should have been used to that by now. “Oh, Hey, Mr. Drisi.” She sounded bored with his name. Maybe she didn’t like him. “Can I ask you something?”

“Does it have anything to do with geometry? That’s my least favorite subject.”

“Mine, too.” Math came easy enough to her—it always had, as most other things seemed to do—but she found it boring and repetitive. I couldn’t agree more.

“No, it has to do with my homework.” He nodded slowly, a typical Ryan Drisi “go on” gesture. “You gave me some short stories to analyze, and a vocabulary list, and some more stuff to read in my textbooks. And that’s great—I’m really looking forward to it. But I’m afraid that it won’t be enough. I mean, if I don’t have enough to do, I’m gonna drive myself crazy.”

“It’s true,” I chimed in with a half smile, not really knowing where this conversation was going to end up. I needed to take Caroline home, to sit her down and apologize for yelling at her on the way here like her teacher told me I shouldn’t do. Both of their gazes turned to me, waiting, “She’d drag me to the library in the middle of the night if she didn’t know better. It’s like eating. If she doesn’t read, she’ll explode.”

“Well, we can’t have that.” He smiled down at his soon to be star student (not that she could really help it), and she let out a little chuckle. But I’m sure she didn’t really find anything funny in the matter. After all, it was all true. “Well, I have an idea. But once I give you this assignment, I’m expecting you to do it. No questions asked. No take backs.”

“No problem,” she said confidently, standing up a little straighter. I shook my head silently, stepping back a little and gripping the handle on my basket a little tighter. Whenever you presented Caroline Scarlett Archer with a challenge, there was no backing down. Without me there to keep an eye on her, she would go days without eating or sleeping until she finished a project, whether it be an eight hundred page book, a crossword puzzle, or, I guess, a homework assignment.

I watched him pull a paperback book from his pocket, handing it to her as if it were the most sacred treasure in the whole entire world. I didn’t get a chance to glance at the title before she turned it over in her one remaining free hand and began reading the back. Nodding, seeming satisfied, she looked up.

“I’m guessing you want me to read this,” she said, (surprisingly) not sarcastically.

“Well, it’s short.” He didn’t seem like he minded this fact. “I want you to analyze it. Pick out themes, motifs, the works. No writing in the book, or folding the corners of the pages over—I hate that. Keep a journal and make notes. Detached annotations. I want you to turn that in when you’re done reading.”

“Fine.”

“Then,” he went on, pointing at the book in her hands, “I want you to pick through your notes and analyze the story as a whole.” He sounded like my college English professor for the class Nicholas and I shared. Honestly, it scared me a little. “Basically, I want a paper. Pick a theme or something that stood out to you and write about it.”

“How long?”

“More than a sentence.”

“Word count?”

“You pick.”

“Times New Roman?”

“And double spaced. You pick the margins.”

“Due date?”

“Whenever you feel like it.”

“Deal.”

“Deal.” She dropped her basket and shook Ryan Drisi’s hand firmly. It was a good thing the eggs had been on my half of the list. “I’ll see you on Monday.”

“It was good doing business with you.”

After he walked off, around the corner and into the bread aisle I hadn’t even gotten a chance to venture into on this bizarre shopping trip. The two of us stood there in silence for a moment, neither of us really sure what to say next. Finally, I threw caution to the wind. What did I have to lose?

“Let’s go to Olive Garden,” I said. She picked up her basket. Everything still seemed to be intact and in one piece.

“What about Dad?”

“This is a weird day. It’s not a full moon, is it?” She shook her head. “He’ll understand. We’ll be back at the apartment in time for you to get all your stuff together. Besides, I hate going there by myself, and I really want pasta.”

I never thought I would regret making a dent in our routine. After all, a person had to be spontaneous every once in awhile to stay sane. But I saw his face as we came walking up to the door, and I could feel my mood sink from the very top of the meter to the very bottom. The tension in the air was almost unbearable. Caroline could feel it, too.

“I’m gonna go pack,” she said, grabbing the keys and disappearing inside the dark apartment. As the door closed behind her, we were alone. I tried as hard as I could not to think of an excuse to get out of this. But I couldn’t, and prepared to get exactly what I deserved, after snapping at my daughter—etc., etc.

“It’s six o’clock,” he said matter-of-factly, folding his arms across his chest.

“Yes,” I said, wishing Caroline had taken the rest of the grocery bags. I was holding two of them in my arms, pressing them against my tightening chest. They weren’t massive enough to hide behind. For shame. “It is.” I knew what was coming. It was funny how the things you wanted to forget about people were the things you ended up committing to memory.

“We agreed that Caroline would be ready for me to pick her up at five-thirty.” His tone was a bit fatherly. Except, well, I was the disobedient daughter being lectured to, instead of the rebellious ex-wife he was staring down with enough force to make me want to hate him more than I had already convinced the world that I did—so, so very much. I balanced the grocery bags in my arms and headed for the door. Of course, he didn’t bother to offer any assistance as I struggled to reach the doorknob with my fingers. “You can’t go breaking our agreements. We signed—”

“You think I don’t remember what we signed?” I turned the doorknob (finally) and kicked the door open with my toe. It banged against the doorjamb, echoing in the otherwise empty hallway. I didn’t care. “We’re a half hour late. Give the girl a break, would you? She had a rough first day at school. She just wanted to talk about it.”

“It isn’t Caroline I’m arguing with, now is it?” There it was again. I was a terrible, terrible child, having disowned every single possible rule in the book. What was I worth, anyway? I would end up flipping burgers and never getting married, for all he cared. “We have plans, Michelle—dinner, a movie, etcetera. We’re not like you.”

I turned around, slowly, my face reddening. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” he said, peeking around me as if Caroline would pop out of her bedroom any minute now, “you can’t make or stick to a plan to save your life, and you know it. So why am I even surprised?” He threw his hands up in the air in mock defeat. No; I most definitely wasn’t worth the excess energy.

“I’m almost ready!” Caroline’s voice sliced through the tense silence. From spending so much time with her, I knew that tone of voice well. It was a false happiness, fake anticipation used to disguise an ugly mixture of resentment and dread. I could hear her moving around, zipping a few zippers along the way. “Just let me find a sweatshirt!”

“I’ll have her back Sunday night by eight,” he informed me, emotionless, as if this wasn’t already typical procedure—it had been since June. “Don’t try to call, because we’ll be at the lake most of the weekend.” Oh, of course you will. “I swear, Michelle, if you ever pull something like this again, I’ll—”

“Make sure she gets her homework done,” I said, turning away from him, my hair swishing. “It shouldn’t be a problem, but you know how she gets distracted by stuff like this.” I stopped and glanced over my shoulder, the anger already boiling inside me rising to nearly unbearable temperatures. “Oh, right. You wouldn’t know that.” And then I stormed into the dimly lit apartment.

“I’ll see you on Sunday,” he tried reminding me.

“Just drop her off.” I slammed the grocery bags down next to the rest on the counter and stopped Caroline as she came out of her room, dragging her feet slightly. She was carrying everything she always packed on Friday afternoons, with the addition of a multi-pound backpack full of knowledge. “Behave. Don’t tell him about dinner.”

She smiled. “Well I would like to live here for a little bit longer, if that’s okay with you.”

I patted her on the head and sent her on her way, slamming the door and doing my best to rip the image of his face from my mind.

Until Ryan Drisi showed up late, there were an odd number of students in Ms. Margaret’s summer honors economics class.

At first, the idea of having to work alone on The Project had been both frightening (to the point of nightmares) and exhilarating (to the point of cartwheels in the cafeteria). Working alone would mean, of course, not having to deal with all the I-Don’t-Want-to-Be-Heres, a few I-Failed-Last-Semesters, and a sprinkle of I’ll-Kill-You-If-You- Get-A-Better-Grade-Than-Mes. Which was fine with me, as long as they didn’t call me an Overachiever-With-A-Pathetic-ACT-Score to my face (or behind my back, for that matter).

But working alone would also make The Project a little harder. The budget plans were based on two separate sources of income with a shared bank account, as well as a payment on an entire house instead of a one-bedroom apartment, two cars (or three, if you had one of those successful doctor-lawyer combos going), and the possible addition of children, education and childcare expenses, as well as saving up for an Ivy League college. Like the board game, The Project was built for a partnership. There were even mock wedding ceremonies involved.

I was the odd one out before he walked in. And when he did, without an excuse or any sort of questioning from Ms. Margaret—you could get away with that, if you were him in high school, which I wasn’t—I hoped that he would sit in the empty desk next to mine, therefore sealing our partnership. Which wasn’t so wrong to hope, it turned out, because it was the only empty desk left in the room.

The Project was what made us friends. At that point in time, we both wanted careers that reflected our personalities. All he wanted to do was write music, which wouldn’t bring a lot of money into the account at the end of each school day, but would at least make him a pretty happy camper. I chose to spend my imaginary days running and editing my own newspaper, which was what I had my heart set on doing with that life. That was an entirely separate budget in itself, but at least Ms. Margaret gave me extra credit for picking the job no one else wanted. Extra work? No problem.

We got together every day when class was over to put as much extra effort into our Project as possible. We never argued about money or house payments. We only wanted one car, so he would have a little extra money to record song demos and what-not. The only thing he failed to learn about me that summer was that, while he was into the details solely for a solid A in the class, I was planning our non-fictional life together.

I had it all written down in a notebook labeled Drisi&Bennett, with my own details added in here and there as that summer progressed. I still had that notebook somewhere, because throwing it away just might have killed me. But I couldn’t bring myself to go searching for it as I sat alone in the apartment, even if I knew exactly where it was hiding.

I’d spent every single moment since Caroline left planning out all the work related details I needed to have down and memorized before I started Monday morning. Surely that would make everything easier, as if organizing an entire office after having an absent-minded secretary occupy it for too long would prove to be a difficult challenge.

When she came through the door, I was sitting at the counter in the kitchen with lunch options staring back at me. I looked up as the door slammed behind her, and watched as she went right to her room, dragging all her things behind her. “Care?” She came back out, her hands empty, and stormed across the room toward me. As she thrust her lack of weight onto the stool beside me, I took in too much air. “Caroline. That looks like it hurts.”

“There was a girl there,” she said in response, clipping the end of her news like she was about ready to burst into uncontrollable tears. For all I knew, she was. But all I could think of in hearing those words was that there’d been someone else at the lake, someone her age that she’d hung around with to occupy her time. A friend, maybe?

“A girl?” I repeated, because I wasn’t completely sure if that’s what she had said. It wasn’t like her, not to elaborate in the same breath and all. She just stared straight ahead for a few seconds, her expression unreadable and still. Maybe that was because it hurt to move her face.

‘With Dad,” she said, not even bothering to look at me. My heart started beating a little faster as I waited for more, trying hard to keep my hands still. They were shaking. “She forgot to bring sunscreen. When I asked her if she was planning on going to the store to get some, she just said, ‘Oh, well, I’m sure it’ll be just fine. You’re so tiny and young, I’m sure the sun won’t get to you this afternoon.’” She shook her head, slowly.

“So she just let you burn,” I said, stroking her painfully red forehead with the tips of my fingers. She winced. “Where was your dad? Shouldn’t he’ve known you should’ve been wearing sunscreen if you were gonna be out in the sun all day?”

“Yeah, you would think that.” She folded her arms on the countertop, wincing again. “He was at a stupid conference all day yesterday. I asked him why he was taking me to the lake, then, if he wasn’t gonna be there to spend time with me. He said he had somebody he wanted me to meet, and that I’d be spending the day with her. Of course, then he promised he and I would spend all of today together. Yeah, right.”

“Care, I’m sorry.”

“It rained all day today. So I sat inside doing homework while he spent the day watching movies with her in the living room. But hey, that’s no problem. At least I got my work done. I mean, that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?” The end of the last word caught in her throat. I watched her closely, listening to her deep breaths. She was trying, so, so hard.

“Caroline.”

“She doesn’t deserve him.” She wouldn’t look at me. Even though I knew she would find comfort only in my familiar, steady features gazing back at her. “Nobody deserves him.” And then her head did turn, tears flooding her eyes. This time, I didn’t try to wipe them away; I knew it wouldn’t help. “He doesn’t care about us anymore.”

I pulled her close to me as the hurricane of anger and tropical tears spilled from her eyes. She was like me in that way, crying only when it was worth it and not wasting a second of the breakdown. She’d been hurt by Nicholas Archer II, her own father. Not that I didn’t know what that was like, or how many thousands of tears the pain he tended to cause was worth. And for that reason, I didn’t make her stop.

I lost count of how long we sat there, tangled awkwardly on the only two stools at the counter cluttered with my typically unhealthy need to plan things far, far in advance. Did I want an apple for my daily work lunch, or a pear? It was those kinds of things that made my heart beat in my ears if not figured out before it was too late. It hadn’t been like this for a long time, organized and carefree. I’d missed it.

“Tell you what,” I said gently as the tears faded away, a good portion of them damp on the shoulder of my T-shirt. Caroline looked up at me, blinking rapidly to keep any leftover sadness from escaping her corneas. The dull mood was still there, even if it was surely soon to fade (the two of us together could rarely stay somber for long). I would always do my very best to keep both of us as elated as humanely possible. “How about we make a”—I glanced at the digital clock on the microwave—“nine o’clock run to Starbucks, and you can tell me all about that book Mr. Drisi gave you, because I know you finished it already.” She still looked extremely unsure; I grabbed her shoulders and playfully shook her. “Can we? Can we? Please, please, please?” That got a good laugh out of her diaphragm.

“Okay, fine, just stop trying to kill me!” I grabbed my purse and she dumped out her backpack, stuffing a few choice things inside and following me out the door. Though the coffee shop was close enough to walk to, we hadn’t been there since the day we moved in. I’d stupidly sent Caroline in to ask for directions, even though we were only a literal block away from our destination. That was before I’d gotten into the hang of organizing things again. “Remember, no coffee,” she said as we went inside, almost stealthily.

“What do you mean ‘no coffee’?” I wondered aloud as I skimmed the menu above our heads, even though I already knew the answer to that question. There was always something about someone else saying the right answers aloud, even if you already knew them, that made the truth that much easier to swallow. But of course, with a grande banana chocolate Vivanno and a blueberry scone, anything is easier to swallow.

“You know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen that list you have taped to the inside of your planner. I’m not stupid.” She flashed me a smile and ordered a hot chocolate, then offered to get both drinks while I found a table. It wasn’t hard; we were the only ones left in the whole entire shop. I chose a table by the window and sat down, slowly.

“What’d you have for dinner?” I asked as she set my Vivanno (yum) in front of me and slid into the chair across from me. My stomach growled as I remembered that I hadn’t eaten much of anything all weekend, except for a bagel and orange juice either that morning or the one before that. Really, we depended on each other to survive. If anything ever happened to her, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.

“We went to Olive Garden,” she said, as if he’d done something horrendous like taken her to McDonalds and ordered her (gasp!) a Happy Meal. “I ordered two of the most expensive things on the menu and didn’t finish them on purpose, just to get on his nerves.” She sipped her hot chocolate, somehow avoiding the whole burning the tongue thing that I never could. “Do I have permission to hate him now?”

I sighed, shaking my head in defeat.

“Tonight, we can both hate him,” I sipped my smoothie through the bright green straw and wanted to melt with happiness. Times like these were not time for straight faced lectures, no matter who disagreed. I knew of one person that would. “But tomorrow, I want you to go back to being civil. No more making your dad go bankrupt, got it?”

“Yes, ma’am.” After a brief moment of silence, our laughter made the guy standing at the counter look up from his book.

“So,” I brushed my hair out of my face and swallowed another uncontrollable fit of laughter. “Tell me about this book Mr. Drisi gave you. What’s it called?” She reached into her backpack and pulled out the thick, coat-pocket-sized book and glanced at the cover. It was like she’d forgotten already.

“‘Not Expecting Much.’” I nodded, and she handed it to me. I refused to read the summary on the back, since that always seemed to give away the biggest portion of the story even before I’d opened to the first page. Usually, bookstores were all about friend recommended titles and a good percentage of guessing. “It’s about this couple. They meet in college, and fall in love, and he finds out she’s sick—I don’t remember the type of cancer off the top of my head. It’s like Love Story, you know? But better. And…different.”

“Sounds interesting,” I said as I studied the cover, even though I wasn’t really too sure about how I felt about it. It sounded overdone and predictable—someone dies at the end, and there’s a potential for a few tears, but it’s an overall happy message nonetheless. But the fast that Caroline hadn’t minded it, and would probably read it again—Caroline, who could find the occasional flaw in all seven Harry Potter novels (despite the fact that her admiration for J.K. Rowling was almost sickening)—was almost persuasion enough for me.

“Would you mind if I read it?” I asked her, studying the name of the author. It made me nervous whenever I vowed to read a book whose author I hadn’t ever even heard of before. Expanding reading horizons wasn’t easy—Caroline hadn’t gotten that ability or interest from me. “I mean, after you’re done with all your detached annotations, or whatever?”

“I should be done with the annotations by bedtime tomorrow, if I work on them from the time I get home, and maybe through dinner.” I didn’t like this idea. What was the rush? After all, Ryan Drisi would be crazy enough of a second grade teacher to make her write an analysis paper and not give her a due date. We always ate dinner together on Mondays. And Tuesdays. And Wednesdays and Thursdays, too. “I don’t know how long the paper’s gonna take, though,” she said honestly.

“How long do you think you’re gonna make it?” Writing papers for me had always been about length. After awhile, credible content just became a few good (or not so good) paragraphs of rambling fluff. “He didn’t sound like he really cared. Does that concern you at all, I mean, that he’s that lenient with your assignments?”

“No. I like that about him.” She finished her hot chocolate and flipped through the pages of Not Expecting Much, like she had a thought she wanted to pretend to circle on the page. Not that she would forget; she never, ever forgot. Sort of like an elephant, except she had a really small nose. I didn’t mention that I’d liked that about him too, all those years ago—how he could be serious and laid back, a thousand oxymoron stereotypes stuffed into such a perfect, soccer- playing-almost-valedictorian.

“We should probably get on home,” I said, glancing at the watch I wasn’t wearing and going on a visual search for a clock. You could never find a clock in Starbucks, a ploy that just naturally made you stay longer, and possibly buy more coffee. Or, you know, Vivanno. “It’s probably getting close to Caroline beddy-bye time.”

She lowered the book. “Never. Say that. Again.”

And though we both had our fair share of contagious yawns, and could hardly keep our eyes open, we didn’t move. Conversation flowed from topic to topic without either of us really noticing when one subject was dropped and another one began, like what happens when old friends get together to chat at Starbucks. It was during these times that I forgot our age difference, our differing opinions on all the unimportant things, and all previous lives. We had each other, always, and that was all either of us would ever need.

As we finally threw out our non-existent drinks and headed out the door for home, I saw a familiar figure sweeping the floor on the other side of the coffee shop, humming to himself as if there wasn’t a single other person around. And as I glanced back, I noticed that—once we were gone—there wouldn’t be. And no matter how much I hated leaving Ryan Drisi without saying a word, it was probably, at that moment, for the best.

Whenever I had a lot on my mind—an occurrence, I might add, that hadn’t haunted me since June, and had only started eating away at my insides again the day Caroline started second grade—I dreamed about my past lives.

At that point in time, I was on Life Number Six. Part of me wondered what would happen once I reached the end of my ninth, if I made it that far—if it was true, and any life after the maximum handout was non-existent; cold, dead, and black. The very first one was hard to remember, as the time between my birth and my father’s death, followed by my mother’s remarriage, ended around my fifth birthday.

I remembered my mother’s wedding—her second and last, when she married Todd. I sat in her lap while she got her hair done and asked her, as a result of my average kindergarten understanding of how the universe worked, why she was marrying someone else. If everyone had a Someone, and one Someone only—as I’d come to understand, because of how often she talked about my father—then why pick Someone new?

When she explained to me that my father would have wanted this, that (since he was unavailable for the rest of forever, no questions asked) all he’d ever wanted anyway was for she and I to be as happy as possible, and that her marrying Todd would make her very, very happy. I remembered her face, the way it lit up and the way she smiled when she talked about him, and from that point and on, I never called him anything other than Dad. They were always my parents, not my mom and stepdad. He always treated me like his daughter, not his stepdaughter, and that was how it had always been.

When he became my father, my second life began.

It was a happy one, filled with smiles and accomplishment, never ending support and loving hugs. And though those smiles never faded, and that accomplishment never ceased—though the support only grew and the hugs only got tighter as the years went by—something changed. Something, I knew, named Michelle.

Up until the end of my second life, I was just like Caroline—minus the widespread knowledge and mind boggling IQ and all. I avoided extreme spontaneity at all costs and carried a planner in my third grade backpack. My parents always taught me how to overachieve, to the point in which I didn’t know there was a way to live outside spotless grades and a near perfect appearance anywhere and everywhere I went. Even as I surrounded myself with friends that couldn’t live like me, organized and prepared and perfect, I loved being all those things. And until high school, there was nothing that could change that.

After the first week of my freshman year, homework piled so high that I couldn’t see where I was going—literally and figuratively—I gave up. I tried putting an equal amount of time into all of the subjects, spending hours upon hours locked in my room with books scattered open all over the floor. But my parents sat me down that first Friday night at dinner and begged me not to put so much pressure on myself. My father told me he wanted more than anything for me to be successful. But the one thing he wanted more than that, I remembered him saying as he squeezed my left shoulder, was my happiness.

So I let go of my desire to be perfect for them, and thus began Life Number Three.

The first three years of high school were spent keeping up a B average, traveling on the weekends with my parents on various “family bonding” mini-vacations, and adoring Ryan Drisi from afar. Though I didn’t get a chance to work out all the details until The Project, I knew we would get married before we both became famous, and I held onto that dream for dear life as I strived to keep both of my parents as happy as they could be.

And after that fantasy ended—when I hung my graduation gown in the back of my closet and finished my thank-you notes—that life ended. I immediately began a new one, hardly even having to look back at all. It was nice to be able to move forward so quickly, like my parents always advised.


Dreaming was okay. Dreams never hurt anyone, and nightmares only left you sweaty and confused. Now, thinking—that was a completely different story entirely. When Caroline was with him on the weekends, as she had been since before summer even officially began, I had to keep myself busy. Thinking led to the surfacing of memories, good and bad. And all that usually followed that surfacing was a tear dam breaking, unless you were strong enough (like me) to keep it intact. But still, taking risks had never been my thing, not even in the past.

That night, I dreamed about my third life, as I had been much too often lately, it seemed. I never dreamed about the Nicholas era, nor did I allow myself to think much about it. Dreaming about Ryan Drisi was easier. I was numb to the pain now, and could barely detect the scars that the wounds he’d caused had left me with. The wounds from Nicholas were still fresh, and split open whenever I saw his face in my mind, and lost me dangerous amounts of blood. And sleep. But I would never let Caroline know that—not a chance.

I dreamed about the day Ryan turned eighteen—November eleventh of our senior year, when we were bored and his parents were working and there wasn’t much of anything to do, except sit and talk and eat Oreos with home made chocolate milk. I made him order a CD over the phone just because he could, one that he never even opened once it showed up at his house. A few months after it arrived, I casually asked him if I could have it. I mean, it wasn’t like he planned on listening to it or anything. He handed it to me, and I kept it for a long, long time in my “Ryan Drisi Stuff” box.

We went out for a movie and ice cream after ordering the CD. It was cold in the movie theater—even colder in the ice cream shop, obviously. He gave me his jacket to wear, even though I kept insisting (at least a thousand and four times) that I didn’t need it. He told me he didn’t like looking at goose bumps, that they grossed him out.

So I wore the jacket all through the movie, and for the entire walk over to the ice cream shop. When I spilled cookie dough ice cream all over it (because in that life, I was a klutz, and any outing in which I didn’t knock something over or spill something on someone was a successful one), I felt bad and assured him that I’d take it home to wash it so he wouldn’t have to do laundry on his birthday.

I took it home and washed it. And then I let it dry. And then I wore it for the rest of the night, and on our short family trip to my aunt’s that weekend. I wore that coat so much around the house that my parents finally had to ask where it came from, and when I said it came from Ryan—the truth, which is what parents like best—they came to some bizarre conclusion that we were dating. And to many onlookers, it appeared that we were.

He forgot about the jacket, since his parents bought him a new one for his birthday and all. Part of me kept waiting for him to ask about it at some point, but he never did. Everywhere I went that I knew he wouldn’t be, I wore that jacket. Until the summer before I started college, it was my favorite article of clothing in the whole entire world. It smelled like laundry soap and him, an interesting combination I could never seem to get enough of.

When it was over, I folded it up and stuffed it into the very bottom of The Box. And as one life should end again, so did the reminiscent dream.

“Mom, wake up.” Someone was shaking me—hard. But the dreams were so nice, and they were making me so happy, and I was afraid that if I opened my eyes, they would fade away. At that moment, I wanted desperately to keep the memories close. These were good things to remember, the few things from the past that I never wanted to forget. But Caroline was rocking the entire pull-out couch. “Wake up! It’s seven thirty!”

I sat up so fast that my head spun, but I thrust myself forward and threw the covers off, running across the floor, past the kitchen and into the bathroom, screaming the whole time for Caroline to get dressed and pack her things—no, dress comfortably so you can ride your bike, because I need to be at work early on my first day. I took the fastest shower on record and squeezed into the outfit we’d picked out the night before. When I slid into the kitchen, looking for my shoes, she was panicking.

“My bike’s in the car, but my helmet—”

“—is at your dad’s. Fine.” I couldn’t breathe. I hated rushing, I hated feeling like everything was spinning so quickly out of my control—that was why we had to be early for everything, always early. I slid one shoe on, and then the other, and grabbed the lunch I’d finally packed last night from its place tucked away in the refrigerator. “Just ride without one today, okay? You don’t have to cross any busy streets on the way.”

“But—”

“Fine. If something happens to you today because you weren’t wearing a helmet, then I’ll owe karma big time. Tie your shoes. I don’t have time to drive you because I absolutely need coffee, okay? Today is important and I need to stay awake, and Starbucks is on the way. If I leave right now, I’ll get there with five minutes before eight. Go.”

I knew we were forgetting something—we had to be forgetting something. I didn’t even have time to go through my mental checklist, something I’d gotten into the good habit of doing ever since June (you knew that was coming). I pulled Caroline’s bike out of the trunk, told her to be careful, and climbed into the car. And then I gave myself a mental kick that rattled my brain hard enough to physically hurt, climbing frantically back out of the car. I didn’t think I could yell, and wasn’t even sure she would be able to hear me from where I stood. Oh well.

“Caroline!”

She stopped and looked over her shoulder. “What?”

“Stephanie Parker is gonna pick you up from school and walk you home, and hang out with you there until I get home, okay? You remember Steph, don’t you? I used to work with her mom? She’s smart, just like you…I mean, I’m sure—”

“Okay, mom. I’ll be nice to my babysitter.” She pushed off and pedaled fast.

“Be careful.”

“Yes, mother!”

“If you need anything, call me.”

“I memorized your number!”

“Look both ways before you cross—”

“I got it!” And off she went—no helmet. No worries.

I drove to Starbucks and ordered a hot chocolate, because I’d gone so long without coffee already, and breaking the habit would only make me feel worse about my already gloomy morning. I caught myself glancing around, and reminded the seventeen-year-old inside of me that Ryan Drisi was at the elementary school, getting ready to teach my daughter how to be a better person, or something along those blurred lines.

As soon as I stepped into the office building, where I would be spending many days getting paper cuts and answering to more successful people than myself (fine with me, as long as they paid me for my time like they’d promised), my phone rang. I pulled it quickly out of my purse, glanced at the number, and felt a cold chill raise the hair on my arms. I answered, gripping my hot chocolate hard enough to bend the sleeve. “Hello?”

“Mom, you forgot to sign my papers.”

I pushed the elevator button. “What papers? Care, I’m about to go in the elevator—”

“The papers I told you not to forget to sign that you forgot to sign. Those papers.” I looked at my watch; I was running out of time. It would look bad if I was late. It would look bad if I asked my boss(es) to let me rush over to the elementary school to sign classroom agreements and second grade permission slips. They would not understand; I’d somehow gotten myself stuck right in the middle of a no-win situation, which hadn’t happened since—well, you know.

“Caroline—” The doors to the elevator opened with a ding. A few people got off, and quite a few more got on. Someone held the door for me, but I waved him off, mouthed a thank-you, and stepped away. This was not how I’d planned this morning to go. This wasn’t how I had ever planned anything to go. “Can’t you just bring them in tomorrow? I’m sure R—Mr. Drisi will understand—”

“He said he’s trying to teach us how to be responsible,” she said. She sounded like she was going to start crying, a tactic she never used. Worse, I knew Ryan Drisi wouldn’t put up with it. Unlike Nicholas, he wouldn’t let tears serve as an excuse. “He says if we don’t have them, we can’t get a book at the library. Mom—I need—”

“You have too much to do already, Care. The last thing you need is a distraction.” Because there was nothing like a new book to distract someone like Caroline from the more important things in life. At five years old, there really shouldn’t have been many more important things in life. But whatever; she begged. And I was going to be late, and I was tired, and no more coffee ever ever ever. “Can I talk to your teacher?”

“Just a second!” And she was happy again, all hints of sadness having faded away in a single instant. This wasn’t like her at all, to use her tears against me. She knew I would gladly do anything for her as long as I could, but also that there were limits. She was coming dangerously close to that line I’d told her not too long ago never to cross. It had to be a full moon. It just had to be. A parallel universe, if anything else.

His voice filled my ear, sending more chills up and down my spine. “Miss Bennett?”

“Please let Caroline bring in her papers tomorrow, please?” I was done trying to be formal, done trying to do everything right. He was doing this on purpose. He was psychic, or had been watching my entire morning unfold. He just had to push me that much closer to the edge. I was cracking. No: I would not be civil to Ryan Drisi anymore.

“I’m trying to teach these children responsibility, Miss Bennett,” he said coldly.

“I don’t think you understand.” Because he didn’t. No matter how much research he did—no matter how many summer nights he’d spent away from his stupid wife to work on his stupid curriculum—he didn’t know my daughter. And if he wasn’t going to play this game by my rules, then he never would. “Caroline is the most proactive, responsible, amazing little girl you will ever meet for as long as you live—”

“All mothers say that about their kids, Miss Bennett.”

“—she needs to feel like she’s doing everything right. If she doesn’t, she’ll drive you up the wall. She won’t leave you alone until she knows she’d made up for the respect she thinks she’s lost. I can’t deal with this right now, do you understand that? Please, just let her bring the papers in tomorrow!”

My voice was echoing in the lobby. There were people staring at me. And really, noticing all this and still letting myself get so angry just went and made everything ten times worse. I felt like I was going to explode, and get crazy person goo all over this beautiful office building lobby. I heard the elevator ding behind me. I just stood there, waiting.

“Okay, Miss Bennett.” Ryan Drisi was saying okay! Never mind the fact that he was still calling me Miss Bennett, which he’d done nonstop for weeks after we read Pride and Prejudice in English our first and only fall semester as friends. “For you and Caroline’s sake, I’ll let her bring the papers back first thing tomorrow morning, signed, dated, etcetera.”

“Thank you.”

“If you let me buy you dinner.”

My jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”

“I said,” he sighed, as if I really hadn’t heard what he’d just dared to say to me—oh, I’d heard him; I just really, really wished I hadn’t—“I’ll let Caroline bring those papers back tomorrow, if you sign them and let me buy you dinner.” See, this was what I’d never understood about him. He was polite, almost always, but he always proceeded to thrust his sarcasm full force right into my face—whether I was in the mood or not.

“Wh—? No! Keep her away from the books, for all I care!” He was acting like we hadn’t been silent for nine straight an lonely years, like we were still in high school—like we were still the best of friends, and not dating, and conversation was as easy as talking to either of my parents at a formal gathering. “Where are you? Can—can Caroline hear you?” Because that would be my biggest fear, that Caroline would have something like this to ask me about when I got home. If I ever got home at all, which was questionable at this point.

“Relax,” he said, laughing—Ryan Drisi was laughing at me! This was not funny. This was absolutely, positively, definitely no time to laugh, especially at me. I could feel my face turning red. I even considered leaving the office, marching down to the elementary school in my heels, and punching him in the face. But I was pretty sure I could get my daughter expelled for that, among other things. “She’s all the way on the other side of the room, talking to the other kids. None of them are even paying attention.”

“And how do you know? Caroline has fantastic hearing.”

There was a brief pause. “There, I’m in the hallway now. Happy? Oh, and now the door’s closed. Is that better, or do you want me to walk outside to my car? Because I’m pretty sure the administration has something against leaving a room full of second graders to fend for themselves, but I could always—”

“Mr. Drisi.” I was late now. Late, late, late, for a very important…something. “You’re Caroline’s teacher. Caroline is your student. Caroline is my daughter.” The lobby was empty now, but I still felt eyes boring into my back. I turned around, but there wasn’t anyone there. “I don’t think it would be a very good idea to have dinner with you.”

“Why not? We used to do it all the time.”

“I know that. But—”

“Besides.” I could picture him smiling in that moment. He was smiling because he was about to say something that would rattle me, and he knew it. The fact that I knew it too was a little scary, and gave me a very uneasy feeling in my hot-chocolate-filled tummy. “I still owe you from last time, remember?”

I hesitated. “I’m sorry. I—I don’t.”

Even though I did. The night before graduation, when we were anxious and ready and not ready and excited and scared, all at the same time, we went out to a fancy restaurant and stayed there, talking, for three hours. Because he’d paid all the other times, and I was somehow feeling like I owed him for something, I’d offered to pay, and he let me. He said as we left the restaurant that he owed me, and had still never paid me back. I’d always wondered if he would ever get the chance, after it was all over.

“Well, I do.” He sighed, that sigh he’d always used to get me to agree to whatever plan he insisted I go along with. “Look, Miss Bennett.” That was getting really, really annoying. “I just thought you might wanna catch up after we lost touch. You know, at a time and place where I don’t have to keep looking over my shoulder all the time to make sure there aren’t a bunch of seven-year-olds pinching each other behind my back.”

“Really? I thought that was first grade.”

“Are you gonna let me buy you dinner, or are you just gonna keep being stubborn?” I didn’t answer. I thought about hanging up, because this was the exact place I’d hoped that this conversation would never, ever go. But I couldn’t bring myself to shut him out. I should have. But routine was quickly fading away. “I know you think it would be a bad idea. Honestly, I don’t think it would be a very good idea, either. But really…” He was struggling, and I couldn’t help him. “What harm could it do?”

“What harm could it do?” It could ruin everything—that’s what kind of harm it could do. Saying yes would go against every single rule in the unwritten rule book about the past. That life was over, the blurry time in which I would have given anything for Ryan Drisi to beg me to go to dinner with him. No. No, no, no, no, no. “I have to go. I’m late.”

“So am I. You didn’t answer yes or no.” He could never let it go. I couldn’t deal with him, not when he refused to understand that I didn’t want anything to do with him—not now, and not ever again. I would gladly move again, if it meant never having to speak to him again for the rest of our lives.

“I’ll think about it, okay? I have to go.”

“Don’t forget to sign those papers.”

I hung up and got on the elevator, leaning my head against the wall during my journey to the top floor. Things were so easy without men stumbling in and complicating everything. One phone conversation, and I was already doomed to an eternity of regret. If I let him buy me dinner, it would forever disturb the peace. If I didn’t, I would always wonder what would have happened if I did.

My very first job was at Starbucks.

I started working the same summer I took honors economics, because—in my mind, anyway—it was time to be responsible. I wanted my own car, my own job—a way for me to prove to my parents that they didn’t have to worry so much about me leaving for college a year following then. My goal was to ease them gently into not feeling like they needed to know every single detail about every single minute of that chaotic life. The first time Ryan Drisi and I met outside of school to work on The Project, I told him to meet me at the end of my shift.

Working was nothing like I had always pictured it to be. I was always on my feet, always doing something to earn a pay check. Because I worked from the time school got out basically until dinner time—leaving absolutely no opportunity for a tan, which upset me more than I would have liked to admit—there was no down time. There were always tables to wipe down, orders to fill, and annoying costumers to ignore.

He hated the smell of coffee, because he was Mr. Perfect. No, it didn’t matter to him if caffeine was a legal drug or not. Besides, he wasn’t even finished growing at that point in time, and refused to be short for the rest of his life. But the one thing he hated more than walking into Starbucks every day that summer after my shift to pick me up was my boss.

He was always complaining that she bossed me around too much. And no matter how often I tried to remind him that she was my boss, and bossing me around was what she existed for, he simply wouldn’t have it. He begged me to quit, so we would have more time to spend getting ahead on our work. But there was something about holding all that responsibility in the palm of my hand that prevented me from ever completely satisfying him.

I was always cranky when work was over. But then again, Ryan Drisi was always there to make me feel better. We became instant friends somehow, like we’d known each other all along and just hadn’t gotten the chance to spend that much time alone. Having my own money was satisfying enough, even though I lost interest in getting a car. I was always in the passenger seat of his, changing the radio station against his wishes.

I never told him how much I loved working. He always assumed I was just barely tolerating it, like I barely tolerated my mom always asking about him and my dad insisting the two of them sit down and “talk.” But telling him how much I loved it would mean admitting how much I loved working in general, which would eventually lead to all my secret plans spilling out before I could stop them. Which would not, under any circumstances, be good.

Any normal person living Life Number Six would walk away from her first day at a new job, look back on her memories of the first job she was ever lucky enough to have, and wish she could go and get that job back. After all, that job was probably a thousand times easier, no matter the fact that it barely paid minimum wage.

Any normal person would have wanted to quit.

But not me. Which, I guess, meant I wasn’t normal.

As much as I would have loved to stuff the atrocious head of truth into a plastic bag, tie it at the neck, and leave it to suffocate in the humid August air, I couldn’t avoid reality. I couldn’t shake the one trait that all my past and present Lives had in common. I was still an Organization Freak. I was still a Rory Gilmore. I still drooled over every chance I could get my hands on to work until the task was complete. That, I would admit, Caroline had gotten from me.

In a few lives in particular, I tried to dispose of the habit. I tried to hate working with all my heart, like all the normal people in the world. I tried not to strive for too much or get my hopes up, or set my standards too high (I still had to be able to leap over the bar without much effort, right?). I’d been successful at hiding my hunger for ambition, for the most part. That was probably why Life Number Six even existed.

No. No more thinking about previous Lives.

Like he’d hated my Starbucks boss, Ryan Drisi would absolutely despise Alex and Tiffany Hensley. They were filthy rich entrepreneurs, and successful ones at that. They were demanding and didn’t really smile unless they were being sarcastic or trying to impress a client. I’d only worked one day, and I had already learned (from watching helplessly, thank God) that the wrong thing to say to Mr. Hensley at eight thirty in the morning was, “Good morning, sir. Would you like your coffee now, or after your first meeting concludes?” He did not like being called “sir,” not one bit Note to self, and check.

They made me organize things. Really what they wanted me to do was put all their ridiculous amounts of paper into neat piles, separated by this and that and sub thises and thats. And then, after filing all that away, they wanted me to make copies of it all, enter all the information into the computer, and file away the duplicate files—separated by completely different categories and sub categories of those categories than the previous ones.

Sure, it was enough to make someone’s brain explode into a thousand tiny melted pieces. And not only did it give me more than enough insight as to why they’d been so desperate to find someone like me to do all the dirty work for them (which I was happy to do, as long as nobody yelled at me), but it made me wonder how in the world their last “assistant” had lasted as long as she had—a month. And she, according to secret sources, had been a normal person.

I pondered this as I drove home, in awe of how quickly the day had gone by. I could hardly remember even stopping to nibble at my lunch, which I wasn’t even sure I’d nibbled at all—I was hungry. And not in an, I-haven’t-eaten-in-a-few-hours-and-I-feel-sort-of-empty kind of way. More like a the-only-thing-I’ve-put-in-my-mouth-today-is-a-grande-hot-chocolate-and-I’m-about-to-gnaw-my-own-fingers-off kind of hungry. Which was a dangerous stage to be in, if you knew me well enough.

The drive home was short—in-between five and ten minutes, all depending on traffic and weather and whatever mood I just so happened to be in. I passed Starbucks slowly, seriously considering stopping and parking and getting out and going inside. I really wanted a big cookie, or a scone, or a smoothie. And there wouldn’t be any harm in picking up something for Caroline and Steph—I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to know whether or not they’d tried to cook something yet (I looked ahead toward the apartment building, and everything seemed okay from the outside). But I didn’t go inside Starbucks. There was an old, beat up, dark green Mustang convertible in the parking lot.

His old beat up dark green Mustang convertible.

It looked the same as it had that night he’d driven me to that fancy restaurant, and all those times before. I knew it was his because I’d seen it everywhere until I’d shoved him violently out of my life, against my will and against my thorough plans. It was like that stupid soccer T-shirt. Every single one out there just like it immediately brought his smiling face into my mind, even still sometimes well into the college years.

I kept on driving, knowing what I would find if I was stupid enough to succumb to my unbearable hunger. When you worked so hard so long without stopping, for fear of failing and losing momentum and all motivation fading away, you didn’t just forget about the world. You forgot how hungry you were, at least until you were hungry enough not to be able to push it away like I pushed away all thoughts of Ryan Drisi.

When I unlocked the door to our apartment and stepped inside, I found the couch folded up and pushed against the far wall, sticky notes stuck on virtually every possible visible surface, and Caroline laying in the middle of the floor, flat on her back. Her eyes were closed, and I couldn’t tell if she was breathing from where I stood. Steph was sitting at the kitchen counter, reading a magazine meant for seventeen-year-olds. As I got closer, I saw she’d highlighted the majority of the words on both open glossy pages in front of her.

“Steph?” Her head snapped up at the sound of her name. She pulled one ear bud out from the side of her head and let it drop silently into her lap.

“Hey, Mrs. Bennett!” She pulled out the other bud and set her iPod on the counter next to her magazine. I couldn’t really find any words to say—at least, all the questions I wanted to ask had words that stuck in my throat and wouldn’t come out. I just looked toward my daughter, who hadn’t moved an inch since I’d walked in. “Oh, Caroline’s fine. She was stressed, so we moved the couch, and I had her lay down in the middle of the floor and tell me about her day. She barely got past lunch before I lost her. That was the whole point, anyway, to de-stress her.”

“Why—?” I couldn’t take many more of these unusual happenings; I was almost certain. If I didn’t restore some sort of order to this Life, it was going to collapse. And that would push me even closer to eternal insanity and destruction. And that would not be a good example to set for Caroline. “Couldn’t she have just laid down on the couch?”

“No way. My mom makes me do that when I’ve been doing homework for too long. It drives me crazy. Speaking of homework.” She reached down toward the floor and came up with a messenger bag that I was sure could knock someone out with one swing. “I’m taking mostly sophomore classes this year. I’m not so sure how I feel about that now.” She stood up and slung the bag over her shoulder, not even teetering a little. She stuffed her iPod into her pocket, headphones and all, and rolled up her magazine. “I’ve got at least five hours of work due tomorrow. I can’t stop once I start, though, so.” She shrugged.

“Thank you so much for making sure Caroline got home okay and…convincing her to take a nap.” I still wasn’t sure how the sticky notes fit into the story, but I was sure I would find that out as soon as Caroline opened her eyes. “I don’t think I’ll be working this late every night, so you should be able to get home a little earlier tomorrow. Um.” I set my purse down on the counter. “Do you need me to drive you home?”

“That’s okay. I’ll just walk—I mean, it isn’t too far.”

“At least let me pay you. I told your mom—”

“Really, it’s fine.” I thought I was off the hook. “Just pay me at the end of the week—Friday, I guess. I’ll gladly do weekends for half price.” She smiled.

“Terrific.” I sent her on her merry way and stood in the doorway for a moment, surveying the damage. Everything else seemed to be in order, other than the secret messages and the couch and my daughter sleeping on the floor and all. I knelt down next to her, slipping off my shoes and tossing them gently to the side. I began shaking her awake even gentler. “Caroline? Caroline, wake up. It’s almost time for dinner.” Well. Almost.

“Dinner?” She didn’t open her eyes. “Is it Monday?”

“It is.”

“Then it’s my turn to pick. Soup sounds nice.” She pressed her lips together, and immediately seemed to be fading right back into the ever so sound sleep I was trying to wake her up from. I figured that gradually easing her into intriguing conversation was the only way I was going to get her to open her eyes and look at the clock.

“Caroline?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“What are the sticky notes for?”

“To remind you to sign the papers. Didn’t you read them? ‘Sign my papers before I’m banned from the library forever and I cry until you fix it.’ Those took me a long time to make, too. All of lunch and recess.” She started slipping away again, quickly enough that I found myself grabbing her arm and squeezing it tightly, as if she would never open those wonderful eyes again. I had to get her to open those eyes.

“Did Mr. Drisi let you get a book at the library today, even though you didn’t have your papers like he wanted?”

“Yeah, only one, though.” She finally sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands. “He said I could keep the one I’m writing the paper on, for a little while, because I told him you wanted to read it. He said you probably wouldn’t like it, but I told him Bennetts don’t judge books by their covers, literally.” She stretched, yawning.

I smiled, appropriately tickled,, letting go of her arm and squeezing her shoulder gently for affectionate emphasis. “I’ll start the soup. Where are those papers? You can start taking all the sticky notes down. They’re decorative and all, but they’re kind of driving me nuts.” I said all this as I stood, grabbing her hand and pulling her to her feet.

“They’re on the counter.” I started moving toward them, determined to check the task off of my massive (and rapidly expanding) list of things to accomplish before morning. I picked up the stack and the pen sitting next to them and began signing, determined to read every word thoroughly over dinner. At least then, Caroline would be satisfied. But I heard her gasp from the other side of the counter; impossible.

I turned around. “What?”

“Why did you let me fall asleep?” She was paler than I’d ever seen her before. The look on her face was one that scared even me, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. We stood there, frozen, just staring at each other. She was gripping the edge of the counter like a life preserver, until her knuckles lost their color. “It’s after five o’clock. Why did you let me fall asleep?”

“I didn’t let you fall asleep. Stephanie did.” I flipped to the next document and scribbled my name and the date on the line, agreeing to something I was sure I wouldn’t be able to back out of later. I spoke without looking, suddenly wishing I’d been the one taking the nap on the floor. “She said you were stressed, and I agree with her methods. There’s no reason you should be stressed about anything.” Because what kind of world did we live in, where kids who’d only been on the planet for five years felt like they had to conquer the world—and now?

“Mom, I have thirty thousand million things to do before the end of the week. Literally!” She rushed into her room and came back out, dragging her overstuffed backpack behind her. She pulled out her planner, flipped to the correct page, and held it out to me. I took it; I was done signing, anyway. “See? I have to finish my rough draft tonight!”

I couldn’t really make sense of what I was seeing. The page was covered in scribbled notes, post-its with coded reminders, and a quick yet surprisingly graphic sketch in the top right hand corner of a head exploding into ten million pieces.

“You have to get the draft done tonight,” I said, handing the planner back. She just nodded, sitting down at the counter and already pulling out books. “How about you wait until after dinner? It’ll only be about fifteen minutes. That way we can work through our lists together. I have some stuff to get done, too.”

“How was your first day of work?” Caroline asked as I went into the cabinet above the sink. She’d plucked a can of tomato soup from the shelves during our outing—easy and fair enough. We were having ramen noodles tomorrow night, but I would save that oh-so-shocking news for later.

“Honestly? I don’t really remember.” We had exactly two pots and one pan, one wooden spoon, and one ladle. “I have a feeling every day is gonna be like today, so I’m hoping I can fall into some sort of bizarre routine. I don’t even think I ate lunch.” My stomach gurgled as I said this, an appropriate confirmation.

“You didn’t,” she said, pulling the uneaten contents out of the bottom of my bag.

Dinner was uneventful, as always. We sat across from each other at the counter, eating and underlining and giggling at a typo in the third paragraph of the second sheet. It didn’t look like I’d agreed to much of anything drastic. Sure, I was willing to accept any disciplinary action Ryan Drisi opted to take, just in case Caroline were to disobey the policies and procedures we’d both agreed she would follow. Whatever.

Not an hour later, we had our heads buried in separate mental tasks. Caroline was at the counter, typing away on the laptop I’d bought in June, her notes and things completely covering her work space. Seeing her that way reminded me of how work used to get done in college—always messily organized, head buried in library computer screens. That was as far as I let my mind wander back to that life. Any more would seriously ruin any chances of my work ever getting done. I was on the floor, at the rarely used coffee table, thinking and writing and the etcetera.

“This is backwards,” I said finally, my head feeling just like the one Caroline had sketched in her planner.

“I’m concentrating.”

“I’m the one who should be frying my brain, staring at that screen all night long.” Even though, really, my brain was probably still completely melted into mush. “I should be transferring files. Why am I not transferring files? I could have brought home the copies, and put them on the computer, and put them on a flash drive, and then I could’ve—”

“Halfway done. Still more to go.”

I stirred the melted ice cream at the bottom of my bowl, frowning. There really wasn’t much more I could get done without a computer. Really, there wasn’t much more I could get done at all. The reality made me feel sick somehow, in a way I couldn’t describe. “I think we need more spoons.”

“We have spoons.”

“And plates. All we have are paper plates, and paper cups. Why can’t we buy more silverware, and real dishes?” I wanted her to stop working so hard, to forget due dates and deadlines and spend time with me like she’d done all summer. We read together, and watched movies when it got dark. We went to the beach and built sand castles with both of our fabulous architectural skills. It was the best summer I’d ever had.

“Because we’re saving up for college.”

I lay my head back and listened to her type. I hadn’t even taught her how to type with all ten fingers at once, instead of the two everyone starts out with. She’d picked up the strategy from watching me and Nicholas typing away while we worked, memorizing which fingers leapt bravely to which keys. I couldn’t help but remember Ryan Drisi, and how I always had to type up his English papers because he refused to learn the right way to use a keyboard. Our teachers always wanted them typed.

And remembering his two-fingered, turtle-slow typing, and how I’d sworn he did it just to get on my nerves (a possibility), I remembered the conversation neither one of us had managed to dominate that morning. It all began to sink in, having been pushed far, far away from my priorities. This was what happened when I didn’t have anything else to do; my mind thought about things. Things like subtle dinner invitations I was hardly willing to accept.

But I couldn’t shake off the reality of it all, no matter how hard and desperately I tried. Caroline typed vigorously, the air conditioning ran on high, and Ryan Drisi’s words bounced around inside my head. If you let me buy you dinner. If you let me buy you dinner. He’d never asked me to dinner before, not even the night before graduation. It had always been, “I’m bored.” “Me too.” “What should we do?” “Let’s go eat.” “Okay.” Never, “Let me buy you dinner.”

“Done.” She spun around on her stool, looking relieved. “You’ll have to take me to school early tomorrow, so I can get into the computer lab and print it out. That way it’ll be ready for Mr. Drisi and I to go over it at recess.” She spun back around, clicking and saving and closing out of things. She started gathering all her papers together—slowly, yet frantically.

“Hold on.” She finished her frantic gathering and hopped off of the stool, hugging her notebook stuffed full of papers tightly against her chest. She knew what was coming; that was why she’d said it in the first place. She was smart, that one. “Aren’t you supposed to be spending recess with your friends? Isn’t that what recess was invented for?”

“I do. I did. I will.” She was trying to look at me, but she couldn’t do it. She could never look directly at me when she knew she was wrong. She hated being proven anything other than right, even if she never would have admitted it. “It’s just one meeting. He wants to make sure I’m on the right track with my paper.”

“Then can’t you meet when school is over?” I didn’t want to push her into this discussion, for fear of saying all the wrong things and yelling at her again, just like I’d done before. “I know what you’re doing, Caroline, and you’d better stop it right now.” I didn’t like this. I really, really didn’t like this.

“Okay.” There were no counter arguments. No statements of reason; no declaration of victory or defeat. She just knelt down and slid the notebook and papers in her hand into her bag, tucking her flash drive deep into one of the inside pockets. She glanced at her planner, crossed something off, and pulled a textbook and spiral notebook out of her portable library. She lay down on the floor, opened her notebook, and looked up. “Highlighter?”

I tossed it across the room. She caught it, pulling off the cap and immediately dragging it across the writing on the page.

I watched her as I sat there, my back against the edge of the coffee table. She did the same thing I did when I concentrated that hard, chewing on her lip and subconsciously brushing her hair away from her face. She looked so small next to all those books, but gave off all the right vibes: she belonged in that world, a world I’d tried and hardly succeeded in pulling myself out of. She was proud of it. No—she loved it.

“Can I ask you something?” She kept reading and highlighting, the textbook still closed, and I thought for sure that she hadn’t heard me. Just when I was about to repeat my question—the question asking permission to ask another question—or at least say her name softly, just in case that was the only thing that could pull her out of this trance, she spoke.

“Ask away. I’m just reviewing.”

I nodded slowly, carefully, even though she couldn’t see me. And suddenly, I didn’t really want to ask her anything anymore. I was fine with just watching her in her element—utter brilliance in a body almost too small to carry the weight. I was too much in awe to brag, too in denial to mention her at all unless it was completely necessary. I was so proud of her that I couldn’t help being humble, for fear of forcing her onto a pedestal she might not be ready to climb.

But I had to ask. I just had to ask.

“What do you think of Mr. Drisi?” No, wait—that didn’t come out right. I backtracked as quickly as I could, trying to remember how to rearrange words in a sentence effectively enough that, when I tried again, it didn’t sound like I was implying a sudden romantic interest in him. Because I was not, nor would I ever be (again), interested in him. “I mean, do you think he’s a good teacher?” Maybe since she was multi-tasking, she wouldn’t notice.

“He’s okay, I guess.” This didn’t sound very reassuring. I could feel my heart sinking lower in my chest, though I wasn’t completely sure why. Maybe I was hoping that she loved him, so we could stay here forever. She capped her highlighter and looked up, propping herself up on her elbows. “I mean, don’t get me wrong—so far, he’s a great teacher.” But… “But it’s just kind of hard, you know? He’s responsible for all these other kids, and he still has to teach them the basic stuff. Which is understandable, I mean, they’re only in second grade.” She looked tired all of a sudden, like the truth was wearing her out.

“You just wish he could give you more attention,” I ventured reluctantly, my heart sinking.

“Not exactly.” She was used to having to explain things to people. Circumstances had taught her patience far beyond even my capacity, and I was more than thankful for that. I wasn’t sure what she would do if she’d never learned how to take a deep breath and slow down. “I wanna fit in somewhere with this group. I really do. I sat there with them today and did all the little exercises Mr. Drisi had them do. I don’t just wanna sit at a table by myself and do all the work I’m doing now.” She pointed downward, to her textbook. I could see the hesitation, and then the defeat. “He won’t let me.”

“I’m really glad you’re trying.” It was weird having a conversation like this and not sitting close enough to hug each other afterwards. We air hugged, though I noted openly that it wasn’t nearly as satisfying. “I was just asking because…” Well, what could it hurt? “I knew him in high school. And I just never pictured him as a teacher, you know?”

“You knew him in high school?” She was going to use this to her advantage, somehow; I tried not to think too hard about it. It was only fair, since I’d been crazy enough to open my mouth about it. She got that mischievous smile on her face, the one that said “I know something that you don’t.” This was dangerous territory we were digging our toes into.

“Hey. Don’t go trying anything naughty.” Not that she’d been known to cause any trouble with a valuable secret. You just never really knew until it was too late.

“Who, me?” She tried to look as innocent as could be—which wasn’t hard, since she pretty much appeared that way on the outside, no matter if she wanted to or not. I hoped she would just go back to her homework and forget that this conversation had ever taken place. But she was an elephant, one who loved asking questions. “So, were you friends, or did you ‘admire him from afar’? What was he like—a jock, or a nerd, or what? Was he both? Because I’m sure the most irresistible ones—”

“We’re not talking about this anymore.” I stood up and walked into the kitchen, carrying my glass bowl coated with melted chocolate ice cream in one hand and brushing my hair away from my eyes with the other.

“Come on. You can’t just leave me hanging.”

“Watch me.” I turned the water on and rinsed.

I’m not sure exactly when I started developing and obsessing over my routines. Maybe it was that summer before my senior year, when I claimed my life as my own and began breaking away from the life my parents had gladly plotted out for me. They only meant well, of course, and resenting them for trying to help would only raise burdens, not success. They were never sour when I started living my own life. In fact, they started encouraging me as soon as they figured out what I was up to. Which only made things that much more confusing.

I learned at a very early age that it’s impossible to impress and satisfy everyone you meet, especially all at once. So why I tried so hard to stay on good terms with everyone I ever came in contact with as the years went by became one of those mysteries that I could never even hope to solve. I could never spend much time trying to figure it out, either, because I was always moving forward—sometimes too quickly for anyone to keep up with me. I was always one step ahead of where I should have been, and always two steps behind where I wanted to be.

When I’d been watching Ryan Drisi for awhile—not really stalking, just mild observation in order to successfully determine what it was that made everyone, including me, love him so much—I decided that, if I accomplished anything in my four years of high school, it would be to win his heart without making a complete fool of myself. It was hard.

I went to every choir concert, boys’ soccer game (freshman and then varsity), play, musical, and pretty much every other event he was involved in. Which, if you knew him, was everything. At one point during the first semester of my freshman year, my mom pulled me aside and asked me where I’d been spending all my time. (Apparently, she hadn’t gotten used to the whole B-average ordeal quite yet.) When I willingly let down my guard and told her I was trying to impress a boy by showing up at all his events, she laughed. And then she told me I should either join all these clubs and teams he was in and on—since I was spending so much time there anyway—or talk to him.

So I joined the school paper as soon as I could, because it met every day during lunch, and he was heavily involved in making sure all the articles and pictures and text boxes were where they were supposed to be. But instead of falling even more in love with him, which had been my plan in the first place, I fell in love with journalism.

I stayed on the paper for the rest of my high school career. At the end of our junior year, we were elected co-editors, even though we didn’t really know each other that well. He shook my hand at the end of that meeting, and I almost melted into a puddle on the floor. That fall, when we walked into the very first meeting, we were prepared. We put out some of the best issues in our school’s history that year. Since we didn’t have The Project to work on anymore, we spent as much free time as we could doing extra work on the paper together. Maybe that was when my habit of routines started, when he met me at work and we brainstormed ideas while I handed off espresso macchiatos to extremely impatient costumers.

In college, I’d been able to convince myself that my routines existed only because of Nicholas, whose routines were as repetitive as could be. I couldn’t be friends with him—or date him, for that matter—if I didn’t succumb to his rituals. So I let that trait linger, following me from one Life to another. It was only when we were married that I stopped trying to impress him, when I dropped the routines and obsessions and plans. When everything fell apart, well, that was when I picked them back up again. Maybe it was true that I really couldn’t survive without them, and that I needed them as much as they needed me.

By the time the end of the week was upon us, I had a usual at Starbucks—that is, I walked in Thursday morning, as I’d been doing all week, and the guy working the register looked up at me and asked, “Tall strawberry banana vivanno?” and the only thing I could do was nod and pull out my debit card.

Mr. and Mrs. Hensley (not “sir” or “ma’am,” “Al” or “Tiff”) had me in a pretty steady routine by then as well, one that came so easily to me that I started coming to work not to think, just to do. I was always riding up the elevator by five till eight, and in their office exactly three minutes later. They never even really told me what to do, but instead just handed me one list each—one page or two, all depending—of tings they needed done before five o’clock, when they were already long gone doing other things. Lunch was at noon and lasted exactly an hour and a half, but no one ever invited me anywhere. I quickly got into the habit of working while I ate an apple, a non-fat vanilla yogurt, and a bag of chips from the vending machine down the hall. There were always water bottles sitting around in clumps, there for whoever wanted them. I had at least three every morning and two in the afternoon, because who knew what would happen to them if they were still there by the end of the day.

It was during lunch on the day I officially obtained my Usual, while I was munching on potato chips and checking yet another thing off of Mr. Hensley’s to-do list, when my cell phone rang. I had already learned from standing in the elevator for thirty seconds every morning and afternoon that Thursdays were the days that the bosses left for lunch and didn’t come back to the office, and sometimes didn’t even return until Monday. Therefore, it was quiet and almost peaceful at my sad excuse for a desk, and the ring startled me. A handful of chips went this direction and that, another mess there for me to clean up later. “Hello?”

“Miss Bennett? It’s Ryan Drisi.”

I swallowed, my throat suddenly running dry. It could only be bad news if he was calling me, especially during lunch—hadn’t that been what he’d said, that he would call me if there were any problems with Caroline? Or maybe there was another reason my heart was pounding. Oh, no. He was going to ask me about dinner again. What should I say? What if—

“Miss Bennett?”

“I’m here.” And seriously, definitely not okay.

“Right.” Her I was, making a complete fool of myself, just like I’d vowed that I wouldn’t ever do again. Hadn’t I learned anything from the past? Hadn’t all the waiting and hoping and despair and heartache taught me a lesson? “Um, well, I’m calling to see if you’re busy tomorrow around this time.”

Now he was asking me to lunch. Me. To lunch. Who did this guy think he was, anyway? This was wrong—so, so wrong. I had to tell him I definitely wasn’t interested, that even thinking about enduring a meal with him at any point in time made my head spin. I couldn’t tell him I would think about it, because then he would just keep asking. And what good was leading him on if my answer would still be “no”?

“Well, I think I’m free, but I’m not sure—”

“I wanted to talk to you about Caroline. At a conference, I mean. You know, like a parent-teacher thing?” I sat there for a moment, glad he’d cut me off. He wanted to meet with me for a parent-teacher conference, to talk to me about my daughter. Somehow, he always seemed to be able to mess with my head so easily, even if it was completely unintentional. With him, you could never really tell. “Miss Bennett?”

“Is—is everything okay? With Caroline, I mean?” Because teachers don’t just call their students’ parents and ask them to come in for a last-minute, emergency parent-teacher conference if everything is okay. They might call to tell the parent that everything is okay, but there was no way it would reach beyond that point.

“Everything with Caroline is fine. There are just some questions I think I need to ask you.” What kind of questions? Like what I’d been doing for the past nine years? Because we were not, under any circumstances, talking about our past as best friends, or our separate pasts as ex-best friends. We’d already agreed not to, and I refused to break promises.

“Can’t you just ask me them over the phone?” I really, really didn’t want to see him again. It had been awkward enough the first time. And sitting across from him at his desk, listening to him interrogate me about who knew what, would be a whole lot more than awkward. It would be, well…unbearable.

He had his answer ready before I had a chance to blink. “The kids are about to come back in.”

“At least tell me Caroline is actually at recess with them this time.” She’d met with him again yesterday—two days in a row—to make sure her paper was coming along. Thankfully, he’d told her that everything looked near to perfect, and that he would take her notes today and her paper on Friday. She had it ready on the kitchen counter for me to proofread as soon as I got home. I would gladly do anything for her, without question.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, Miss Bennett. I have to go.” I clenched my jaw.

“Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow at noon.” And I hung up, just like that, before anything stupidly embarrassing could somehow manage to slip out from between my known-to-betray lips. I went through the rest of the motions of the day, including the quick glimpse I got of his old dark green Mustang convertible sitting in the Starbucks parking lot.
I almost went in this time, planning to pretend that I hadn’t seen him sweeping the floor Sunday night, or his car in the parking lot. Maybe we could get our conversation out of the way then, so I wouldn’t have to upset my newfound routine of not leaving the office until five. But I quickly realized that doing something like that would only cause trouble, and urge him even more to pursue me—romantically or otherwise. If—and I wasn’t one to doubt myself very often—that was what he was up to.
When I walked into the apartment this time, I was surprised to find both Caroline and Stephanie at the counter doing homework. On Tuesday, I’d found them browsing the web on my laptop, looking up fun facts about all those things no one really cares about and laughing like good friends. Yesterday I’d found them both asleep—Caroline on the couch, and Steph at the counter. It was only a matter of time that I would come home to find them doing something virtually productive.
“Hey, Mrs. Bennett.” She always said that to me when I walked in, when she wasn’t sleeping or studying geometry. I couldn’t really find a reason to correct her, and left it alone. “Caroline is helping me with my geometry. The theorems keep confusing me.” Geometry was a class for eleventh graders, sixteen-year-olds with brand new drivers licenses and significant others and abundant social lives. Not to mention Caroline despised geometry, whether she understood it or not (she’d always gotten bored when I was trying to teach her about shapes). And apparently, she understood it pretty well.
“Really.” I set my bag down at the other end of the counter and pretended to be looking for something. I couldn’t help watching my five-year-old daughter teach a thirteen-year-old freshman in high school how to construct proofs for an eleventh grade math course. Every time I thought I was finally getting used to this bizarre universe the two of us lived in, she somehow managed to blow my mind all over again. She was good at it.
“Try this one.” Caroline pointed to a particular spot in the textbook. Steph nodded and went to work on the problem, pulling a separate piece of paper from her notebook and chewing on the end of her eraser as she read it over and thought deeply. Caroline turned to me, looking even more elated than usual. “Can Stephanie stay for dinner? We were gonna work on homework together until she has to go home.”
“Nine o’clock,” Steph murmured from her misery.
“Well…sure.” I thought for a moment, deciding. “We’re having spaghetti. Is that okay?” I got an mm-hmm from our new guest and went into the cabinet for the noodles. The Parkers were lovely people—I’d taken a class from Gina Parker’s father the year before he retired. And there was no way that I could bear to turn down a guest for dinner in my home, even if I hadn’t been the one to invite her.
But dinners with Caroline had always been special. We’d always shared them together, even when Nicholas wasn’t home to enjoy it with us. And now we only had four of them together a week, and it was the only time we really got to sit down and talk without feeling like we were procrastinating. You could change my lunch plans all you wanted. But take away my special time with my daughter, and you’re chipping off a piece of my heart.
But I was a big girl, and I could cope.
The two of them spent the entire meal chattering. I tried to chime in every once in awhile, but it suddenly seemed like my motherly opinion didn’t matter anymore. I tried to be a good sport about it—after all, isn’t this what I wanted for her, to be social and have a friend who she could talk through an entire dinner with? Of course. Though someone closer to her age would have done just as well, in my opinion.
When they were finished, they scampered off to Caroline’s room to do more homework together. It was likely that they were doing the same work, though Mr. Drisi hadn’t been exactly clear on what level work he was giving my daughter at the beginning of each day. I cleaned the dishes and took out the trash. Summer was ending—the sun was setting earlier and earlier every day. Normal people wouldn’t notice things like that, but I wasn’t normal. I could tell when a season was coming to a close.
I sat at the counter and read the five-and-a-half pages of insight that had been sitting there when I left for work that morning, with a sticky note that said “edit me” on it. I made a few notes on a separate piece of paper, probably commenting on things that would have made more sense if I’d read the book. It was sitting on the coffee table, waiting for me to read it. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to, over the hum of Steph and Caroline chattering in the next room.
The paper was wonderful. If Ryan Drisi dared to give my daughter anything less than an A as a result of all her hard work, I wouldn’t resist that potentially life changing punch in the face, right where he’d broken it the first time after being slammed into the side of a goal post. We hadn’t really known each other then. But I’d still been there, watching.
Caroline rode in the car with me when I went to drop Stephanie off at home, and patiently asked if we could stop at Starbucks on the way back. Hot chocolate was her coffee, and she needed to stay awake at least another hour to finish the last of the assignments Mr. Drisi had given her for the day. I pulled up to the entrance, handed her a twenty, and asked her to get two. But I couldn’t go inside, because that old dark green Mustang convertible was still sitting in the parking lot. And if I went in there, the only thing I would be able to look at would be his nose.

I left the office at quarter till twelve. Even though it only took me five minutes to get from there to the elementary school, the office insisted that I sign in, get a visitor’s sticker, and apply for a permanent visitor’s pass that they would punch a hole into every time I wanted to come into the building during school hours, which required filling out a thousand forms that made my head hurt. Therefore, I arrived in Room 23 at five after twelve, with Ryan Drisi sitting at his desk, looking bored.

“You’re late,” he said, still sitting and twirling a pencil between his fingers.
“It’s the office’s fault. I was here ten minutes early.” He finally stood up and came around to the other side of his desk, comfortably perching himself on the edge. I awkwardly sat down in one of the empty desks and faced him. Looking up, I felt short. I wanted a better seat. “You wanted to talk about Caroline?”
“I did.” He folded his arms across his chest and swung his legs back and forth, his heels tapping against the edge of the desk. “She turned her paper in this morning.” He said this as if I hadn’t known, like I hadn’t proofread the darn thing as many times as she wanted me to until she considered it finished.
“I know. I had to bring her in early again so she could print it out in the lab.”
“It was a fantastic paper. I skimmed it while the kids were taking their spelling test.” There was silence between us then, as if he was waiting for me to agree with him. Sure, it was a great paper. There was no point in bragging about it. Finally he sighed, one of those sighs that sounded at first like he was annoyed, but eventually turned out to mean the exact opposite. “Miss Bennett, what is your daughter doing here?”
“Please call me Michelle.”
“Michelle.” He said it like he was trying out a new nickname, like he’d never said my name before. But he had—many, many times before. Maybe this was a bad idea, letting him in on a more personal level. He hesitated for a moment, like maybe he was thinking the exact same thing. Then the world started spinning again. “Caroline doesn’t belong here.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, she’s completely bored out of her mind.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. She told me just the other day how much she loves it. And she seems to like the work you’re giving her.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” He slid off of the desk, his shoes barely making any noise as he crossed the room. He came back carrying two textbooks, one looking brand new and the other slightly worn. “See this?” He held up the slightly worn one. It said “Science for Beginners” on the front cover, with a picture of a butterfly underneath. “This is the book I’m using to teach the kids science out of. There’s just basic stuff in here, basic facts about plants and animals and all kinds of little experiments I’m having them do.”
I nodded. “That sounds appropriate.” I didn’t really know what else to say in response.
“See this?” He held up the brand new looking textbook—“Biology for the Brain.” He flipped it open to the middle, where small diagrams and a complex looking chart filled the margins, serving as aids for what the compact rows of text was explaining. “This is the same book I gave Caroline to learn from. It’s a college biology textbook.”
“I still don’t see the problem.” I could feel my heart beating faster against my chest, a bad sign. As much as I wanted to get back to the office where I belonged, I wanted everything here to go well. I wanted the two of us to remain civil—not anything less, and nothing more. We were venturing into territory I didn’t want to map out.
“Have you ever considered home schooling?” He was definitely in his place now, the boss, telling me what I should do, how I should do it, and why it would most likely be best for everyone. He knew best, of course. The words came out before I could stop them, and it all went forward from there.
“I refuse.”
He was trying to be patient; he was struggling. “Then why not move her up to a grade where she could challenge herself more in the classroom?”
“Because she needs to be around kids her own age, Mr. Drisi.” We were on a formal basis again, where I desperately hoped we would stay for the rest of forever. “I refuse to send a five-year-old girl to high school with kids who only care about sex and drugs and graduating with a 1.0 GPA. I won’t do it.”
“That’s why I suggested home schooling.”
“I really don’t think you understand.” I found myself standing up abruptly, glaring into those hazel eyes I’d dreamed about all those nights when I was alone and hoping for someone to love me besides my parents, someone who loved soccer and music and newspapers and me…but not really. “First of all, I have to work. I don’t have time to stay at home and feed my daughter information I don’t even think I ever remember learning in high school, or college, for that matter.” I was starting to raise my voice, and could tell that he noticed, and bit my lip. “Second of all, we’ve been over this before. She needs social interaction to stay sane. I won’t keep her locked up in an apartment all day analyzing Hemmingway.”
“What about independent studies?”
“You promised me you wouldn’t do that.” He didn’t seem like he remembered, which was so typical of him—of all of them, really. They could make all the promises they wanted, but would they remember them a week later? Of course they wouldn’t. “Last week, when I brought Caroline in on the first day. You said you wouldn’t stick her in a closet away from the rest of the kids. I—” I shook my head, distraught beyond repair.
His expression softened. “She’s doing fine—she really is. Come here.” I followed him across the room and to the windows lining the far wall. The playground was clearly visible from where we stood, kids as little as Caroline and not much younger than Steph Parker were out there, climbing and digging, sliding and mingling. He pointed Caroline out to me, who was swinging across the monkey bars. She got to the end and high fived Angela, who said something to her, and encouraged the rest of the surrounding group to join in. Soon Caroline was off again, moving from one bar to the next with a grin on her face that gave me chills. I swallowed the lump in my throat and kept watching her, chimpanzee-like; gleeful.
“I really don’t know what to do.” I turned away from the window and sat down on the ledge, watching closely as he did the same. “I want what’s best for her, I really do. I want her to challenge herself and reach beyond her limits and be successful and happy. Sometimes I feel like I’m doing the right thing, holding her back and protecting her, you know?” He nodded. I had to swallow again, hard. “And then sometimes I feel like I’m keeping her in chains, like she could do so much more if I just let her go and stopped worrying…” I shook my head again. “I just wanna do the right thing.”
“Is there really a right or wrong thing to do, in this situation?” I couldn’t tell if his question was rhetorical, or if he wanted me to be honest and answer him. After all, he wasn’t begging me to let him buy me dinner—answering wouldn’t kill anyone. At least, I hoped it wouldn’t. “I think you just have to ask her what she wants. If she likes it here, and wants to stay, we can try a million different things until she feels like she really belongs here. If she wants to move up—” he shrugged. “I say we let her. You let her, I mean.” He shrugged again.
I sat there for a long time, thinking—losing myself in thoughts. Of all the things I had predicted Ryan Drisi wanted to talk to me about regarding Caroline Scarlett Archer, this conversation hadn’t even crossed my mind. I couldn’t send my daughter to junior high, or high school—or college, if that was where her mind and heart wanted her to be. But maybe what I didn’t want and what was best for her were the exact same thing.
“I think you’re right.” It wasn’t that I was amazed at his being right—he’d been right plenty of times before in the past, while I’d had to be the bigger person and swallow my pride and admit I was wrong. If it weren’t for him unintentionally teaching me that lesson—that being a woman did not immediately imply that I knew everything—who knew where I’d have ended up. “But do you think we could wait a few weeks to bring it up? I mean, school only started a week ago. Maybe she just needs to adjust.”
“I completely agree.” Well, I guess that was one way of saying I was still right, if you wanted to look at it that way. Even then, we just sat there on the ledge, our backs to the window, and basked in the silence for who knew how long. It was kind of nice, being able to sit there and not feel like I had to say something. It was always different with Nicholas, who loved to talk and rarely ever stopped. Which I’d grown to love at some point, somehow. I rarely allowed myself to wonder anymore. “Listen, I know—”
My phone rang loudly, right there in the middle of him starting to ask me to dinner again. Maybe this was a sign, flashing bright red in both of our eyes to say that we weren’t meant to move beyond this civil, safe, parent-teacher-and-nothing-more casual relationship we had going. Or maybe I was supposed to ignore whoever was ruining this moment and let it continue, as if there hadn’t been an interruption at all. It seemed like a good enough idea to me.
I had to answer it. I didn’t want to, but it was important.
“I’m sorry. I really have to get this. It’s my, um.” I couldn’t speak the word, especially since I’d almost used the wrong one. My face was turning red. “I’ll be right back. It will only take a second.” He told me to take my time, not to rush. I grabbed my phone from out of my purse, still sitting on the miniature sized desk, and pushed through the half-open door and into the hallway. I flipped it open angrily, almost breaking it in the process. “What do you want, Nicholas?”
“I’m sorry. Am I interrupting something?” Like he cared.
“I’m right in the middle of a meeting,” I snapped, which wasn’t entirely a lie, after all: he would never know. “Just tell me what you want. I have to go.”
“Well, I just thought you would wanna know that I’m not gonna be able to take Caroline this weekend.” And that was all he had to say. No explanation, no apology. I wished I didn’t have to share her with him anymore, that I didn’t have to get myself so worked up and upset every time we were forced to communicate.
“What, you have something more important to do?”
“Maybe I do. Maybe it’s none of your business.”
“You’re not taking her during your stupid week off. You have her on weekends, and that’s it. That’s what we agreed.” I could feel my face turning bright red, my cheeks burning and the emotion building up behind my eyes until I couldn’t see anymore. “I can’t believe you’re canceling at the last minute. How do you know I didn’t already have something planned?”
“Do you?”
“It’s none of your business what my plans are.” I didn’t want to be fighting like this. When divorce became the only available option, I’d pictured us remaining polite and friendly—like the friends we once were, with a history we never had to bring up again if we didn’t want to. I never thought he would treat me like this, like everything that had happened was all my fault. I could hardly hold the tears back, and bit my lip so hard that it bled. “If you’re spending the weekend with your girlfriend, then why don’t you just tell me?”
“Because I have a lot of work to get done, not spend my entire weekend on a boat.”
“Stop lying to me,” I hissed angrily through my teeth. If I would have been anywhere else, I would have yelled. At that moment, I hated him—I hated everything about him and our relationship, and the way he talked to me like I wasn’t even worth his time. The sadness evaporated as my burning anger rose. “Haven’t you learned anything since we split up? Lying only makes everything worse—”
“Don’t preach to me, Michelle. I’ll see you next Friday.”
I wanted to disagree with him and his stupid opinions—so, so much. But he hung up, just like he always hung up, and I was left standing there alone at the end of the hallway, hoping no one had heard me. Nicholas Archer II made me forget my manners and how to control my temper and emotions, all the things my parents had taught me how to do whenever I was willing to learn—always. I let my heart rate slow and my face return to its normal color before I went back into Room 23.
I did not cry.
“Everything okay?” Ryan Drisi wanted to know. Maybe I wasn’t as good at hiding my emotions like I’d originally assumed I could do. Or maybe I had been yelling, even though I couldn’t really remember but swore I hadn’t been, and he’d heard every word that I’d said. Either way, there was a difference between lying because you didn’t want to tell the truth and lying because the place and time for truth was all wrong.
“Everything’s fine, just something at work that no one else can fix, I guess.”
“If you need to go, it’s okay.” Somehow, I could sense somehow that it wasn’t. I was trapped between what I could handle and what I wanted more than anything, which was to stay and talk and forget everything about my past two lives. “I think we’ve covered everything I hoped we would.” Almost everything.
“Yeah, I—I should probably get back.” There really wasn’t much to look forward to in heading back to the office; more paperwork, filing, e-mailing, and the etcetera. But I knew I couldn’t stay here much longer. I dropped my phone into my purse and slung it over my shoulder. Ryan Drisi walked me to the door, not saying a word.
I could have said goodbye, walked out the door, and left everything just the way it was. I never would have had to see him unless we were meeting about Caroline, or talk to him unless we happened to run into each other at Starbucks. And then, if Caroline decided to leave the second grade for something more challenging, the two of us could go back to occasionally remembering our past friendship, and how we drifted apart. Just because our paths crossed didn’t mean it meant anything.
But being me, I couldn’t just leave it. Not like this.
“Um, one more thing.” I turned around to face him. I hadn’t really noticed how much taller he’d gotten since graduation until we were standing so close—not dangerously close, which I wouldn’t allow under any circumstances. Apparently, working at Starbucks didn’t mean he’d started drinking coffee. He waited, trying not to smile. This was not going how I’d planned. An idea struck me. “I’d like to take you up on your offer.”
“That is a terrible British accent.” Now he couldn’t help it. “What offer?”
I dropped the fake accent. “I’d like to let you buy me dinner.” I hesitated. “As long as your wife is okay with it.”
“She won’t mind,” he said gently. “Give me your address. I’ll pick you up at six.”
“In your Mustang?”
“Yeah.” And then he did it—he smiled. “I’ll even let you sit in the front seat and touch the radio.”

“Thank you so much for giving up your Friday night, Steph. I owe you big time.” And I meant it.

I was in the closet, squashed between a row of blouses and the door. In flipping a coin in the beginning, Caroline had gotten the dresser drawers while I won the closet space. There was always less ironing to do, and finding things (as well as organizing them) proved to be a lot easier when things weren’t sitting on top of each other in tiny wooden drawers.
“It’s no problem, Mrs. Bennett. I was just gonna stay home and work on a world history project, anyway.”
Both of the girls were sitting on Caroline’s bed, side-by-side, waiting for me to emerge. They’d insisted on helping me pick out the perfect outfit when I’d rushed through the door and told them I was going out to dinner. Only when I announced that Caroline would be staying here for the weekend (and that I just so happened to be going to dinner with Ryan Drisi) did she perk up and beg me to wear my hair down, instead of up in a ponytail.
“Okay, I’m ready. Be honest—please? I don’t wanna look like I’m trying too hard.”
“Just get out here so we can see!”
I took a deep breath, not sure why I was so convinced that my daughter and her babysitter would lie to me about how I looked. I was trying as hard as I could to remind myself that this wasn’t a date, that we were two old friends reunited under unexpected circumstances who just wanted to have dinner together and to catch up after nine long years of silence.
I pushed open the door and stepped into the light. I usually didn’t wear jeans anywhere but around the house, nor did I find them very formal attire. But they’d looked nice enough hanging there next to my dress pants, and wearing a dress would definitely scream I’m-Still-In-Love-With-You. Which I wasn’t. I’d picked out a shirt and matching belt, which I hadn’t gotten a chance to wear yet. Well, now or never, I guess.
I stood there, waiting. “Well, what do you think?”
“I think—” Caroline looked, for the first time in her entire life, like all the thoughts floating around in her abnormal brain suddenly melted away. She was sitting there with her mouth hanging open a little, which I would have corrected if it wasn’t so funny. Steph glared her way, urging her to speak. Good Stephanie. Good girl. “Mom, you’re like. Hot.”
“Ew. Caroline, you can’t say that about your mom!”
“Well why not? It’s true!”
“Okay, fine. I’ll say it.” She looked at me, her eyes examining my outfit, and then my face—and then me as a whole. It made me wonder what she’d thought of me before, when I’d been wearing clothes leftover from the Nicholas era. “Mrs. Bennett, you look amazing.”
“Thank you, Stephanie.” I walked across the room, out the door and into the kitchen. My Stiletto heels made me wobble a little; I wasn’t really sure where they’d come from, or why I’d chosen to wear them for this particular outing. It was a whole lot more than likely that I would trip over something and fall on my face in front of Ryan Drisi, and the chances only increased when I couldn’t even walk across my kitchen. Not that it mattered what Ryan Drisi thought of me or anything.
“Where are you guys going? Someplace nice?” Caroline was trailing behind me like a shadow, Steph Parker not too far behind. I didn’t really know, nor did it matter much to me. Not only had I paid for the meal we’d enjoyed together the night before graduating from high school, but I’d also picked the restaurant. It was his turn now.
“I don’t know,” I said, transferring a few things from one purse to another. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“I really like your hair like that, Mrs. Bennett. Does it tickle your shoulders?”
I shook my head, smiling. “Yeah. It does.”
“Good.” I raised my pencil-thin eyebrows. “If he says something that’s supposed to be funny, but you don’t think it’s funny, move your head back and forth like that. That way you’ll still laugh, even if it’s not at what he said.”
It was getting a little ridiculous, I thought, dating advice from a thirteen-year-old.
“Thanks. I’ll remember that.” I heard a soft knock coming from the other room, snapping my gaze to the door, and then to the digital clock on the microwave. “He’s early. Caroline.” I knelt down beside my daughter and placed a firm hand on each of her shoulders. I looked toward Steph, who didn’t seem to get the hint that I needed to talk to my daughter—alone. Oh, well; I went ahead anyway. “I want you to remember that we didn’t get much of a chance to talk at our conference today, and that’s why we’re going to dinner together.” I suddenly regretted bringing this up at all, but it was a little late for turning back. “I just don’t want you thinking that it’s anything more than that.”
“Don’t worry. I wasn’t thinking that.”
“Good.” I kissed the top of her forehead; Ryan Drisi knocked on the door again, less gently this time. “Hang on, I’m coming.” I grabbed my purse and jacket, took one last deep breath, and strode over to the door, pulling it open confidently. My chin slammed hard against the floor. “Dad?”
“Grandpa?”
“Caroline!”
“Grandpa!”
“Everybody freeze.” Caroline froze mid-dash toward my father’s open arms. I couldn’t help but notice Steph inching back a little, away from the confusion and potential chaos that was about to unfold. My father looked up at me, his arms still spread wide. He was taking me literally, just to mess with my head. Way to go, dad. “What are you doing here?”
“What? Am I not allowed to visit my one and only daughter and my most favorite granddaughter in the whole entire world?” Caroline looked like she was about to explode with happiness, still frozen mid-run. I had one last issue with this situation, besides the fact that I was due to be picked up by Ryan Drisi any minute now.
“Is Mom with you?” I asked, trying not to sound disappointed or hopeful or any sort of emotion at all. He looked ridiculous, bent over like that.
“She’s at a women’s retreat for the weekend.”
“Unfreeze.”
Caroline leapt into her grandfather’s arms, probably damaging his already ailing back beyond repair—but the gesture was out of love, so what did it matter? He hugged her and kissed her and spun her around, acting like he hadn’t seen her since she was learning to walk. We’d just spent a week with them at the end of July; it wasn’t like we were strangers. Mostly.
“Michelle, gimme a hug.” Before I could protest—and believe me, I wanted to—Todd McCarthur pulled me into a bone-crushing hug. I missed his daily hugs, and never hesitated to tell him so. But I was so caught off-guard by his surprise visit, and the timing, and everything else that seemed to be spinning out of line lately, I let the loving hug I gave back speak for itself. When he let me go, he was still smiling. “Look, I know I shouldn’t have dropped by like this, without calling first and all. But I just miss you girls so much. And your friends.” He nodded at Steph, who gave him a thunbs-up. “Look at you. You’re getting ready to go out, aren’t you?” He looked so, so sad.
“Yes. No. I—” There was something wrong. Maybe not wrong, but out of place; unsettled. My sophisticated, predictable parents were organized, efficient planners like me. They always scheduled their visits weeks in advance, arrival and departure times and all. The only time either of them ever dropped by unannounced was when something was out of order. They’d come to me the night everything fell apart all those months ago, because they somehow sensed that I’d needed them. I swallowed, hard. “It’s okay. I can cancel.”
“Mom, don’t.”
“It’s okay, Caroline. I love your grandpa too much to leave him here alone with you two for the rest of the night. We want him to live forever, remember?” She smiled like she always did when she knew my words were coated in fake. I plucked my phone from the bottom of my purse and found Ryan Drisi’s cell phone number, and was about to hit the number to dial when I realized that he hadn’t given it to me that afternoon at the parent-teacher meeting. It was the same number I’d kept in my phone since we lost touch, one that had probably changed in the nine years we spent saying nothing. I closed my phone, dropping it back where it belonged.
“Knock, knock.” I looked up to see him standing in the open doorway, his lips curled upward but closed. Then I saw his eyebrows raise, and I was sure it was a reaction to my appearance. My face turned bright red, until I realized that he wasn’t staring at me at all, but who was standing behind me. “Todd?”
“Drisi!” And now I remembered: how had I forgotten? From the time the two of them had first sat down to talk—that fall during my senior year, when my parents were wrongly convinced we were at the boyfriend-girlfriend stage of our relationship—they’d gotten along almost better than he and I had. He’d always called him by his last name, I recalled, as the two men shared an embrace that would have worried me if I hadn’t known them in the past. “Michelle? This is the fine young man you were going to cancel on because of me?”
“Wait, you were gonna cancel?” Ryan’s gaze flew to mine so fast that it almost felt like he resented me already. But I knew that look, that look of fear and disappointment with a little touch of hope on the edges. He wasn’t mad at me. It was just that, if I canceled on him, he would rush down to his second job and force down hot coffee until he drowned.
“No, I—I wasn’t.” This was a horrid conversation to be having in the middle of a doorway full of people who could have easily migrated over to the couch to give us some privacy. My glances didn’t say anything valuable anymore. “It’s just that, my dad showed up, and I didn’t wanna leave him, and I thought that we could always reschedule—”
“We don’t have to reschedule.” And for that half a second of silence that came before his next words, I really thought he was going to wave it off. Forget it; never mind. I was almost sure he would walk away, claiming my life was too hectic to keep up with. I wouldn’t have blamed him, on account of the fact that I agreed—I couldn’t even keep up with me most of the time. I would have suggested it myself, if he wouldn’t have gone on. “Why don’t we just stay here?”
There went those eyebrows again. “What?”
“Yeah. We could order pizza or something. There’s a really good place down the street—their takeout is a ton better than the stuff you get when you sit in, and cheaper, too. They give you free breadsticks if you order two large pizzas and a salad.” And suddenly, everyone around me was excited, murmuring about their favorite toppings and launching into a miniature discussion about the world’s largest pizza. My head was spinning so fast that I thought it was going to fall off.
“Mr.—Ryan, can I talk to you for a second?” And before he could utter some stupid excuse about having all night to talk, despite the other talkative bodies that would be invading our personal space, I grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him into the hallway. “We’ll be right back!” I pulled the door closed as gently as I could and let go of his wrist. “Are you crazy?”
“Not that I know of.”
“We can not stay here and eat pizza with my family!” I was more against this than I’d been against the idea of agreeing to let him buy me dinner in the first place. I refused; I wouldn’t do it. A night spent with my father and Ryan Drisi in the same room would mean reminiscence, reminiscence, reminiscence galore. And I couldn’t handle that, not now; not tonight. Not ever. “This was supposed to be our night to catch up.”
“We can still catch up. It isn’t like I’m gonna ignore you the whole time.” I highly doubted that. From what I could remember, it wasn’t rare that I would have to drag him away from my father just to get a few hours of alone time with him every time he came over. “Come on. It’s a win-win situation.”
“And how’s that?”
“Because.” I wasn’t too sure about that look he was giving me. He was about to speak the words that would make me agree to do exactly what he wanted, and he knew it. “We get to eat the best pizza you’ll probably ever eat. We get to spend time together and not feel awkward about it, like we’re on a date or something.” There was a pause. “And I get to catch up with your dad, which I never thought I’d ever be able to do again.”
I sighed. “I’ll call the pizza place.”
“Yes!” He was so excited and relieved and satisfied that he hugged me, right there outside the door of my apartment. It was supposed to be one of those quick, meaningless hugs that he’d used to give me whenever we put out a good issue of the paper. But he kept his arms around me a second longer than either of us expected, and I forgot how to breathe. He pulled away. “Sorry. I really like pizza.”
“I remember.” I didn’t really mean for those words to come out of my mouth, not out loud, or at least not like that. I had to make a save, to say something that would make him forget the way I’d smiled. He wasn’t an elephant like Caroline, and forgot things all the time. I knew there was no way he would remember half the things I did about our time as friends. “Um. I have an idea.” I took a deep breath. “There’s a ton of people here already. Why don’t you call your wife and ask her if she wants to join us? Does she like pizza, too?”
I had to ask. I mean, there had to be a way to let him know without saying it word-for-word that I was happy for his marital success, and that I was not (and would never be again, ever, even if every other male in existence choked and died) still in love with him. I had to show my support for his lifelong significant other, even if it would be hard not to study her every move as she sat in my living room, eating pizza.
He got this really weird look on his face, like I’d stepped on his bare foot with one of those special soccer shoes with the spikes on the bottom. Or maybe I’d stabbed him in the heart somehow, and his blood was invisible. Either way, he looked like my suggestion was number twenty-five on the list of twenty-five things he wanted to do the most—one being the most desirable. I immediately regretted everything. No exaggerations.
“No. I—I’m sorry. Never mind. I just…” I gave up then, sighing heavily.
“It’s okay. Really.” But he didn’t sound like it was okay. Was that how I’d sounded when I’d lied to him after my phone conversation with Nicholas? “I just don’t think it would be a very good idea, that’s all.”
I knew better than to ask him why. I just let him turn away and watched him walk back into the apartment, entering like nothing of any sort of significance had happened. He held the door open for me, which I assumed was a good enough sign that he didn’t completely hate me. But I watched him as he went around to verbally collect topping preferences, and there was still something off. I tried to shake it off, reciting the address of the apartment building when he was almost done ordering. But my curiosity would only remain etched into the correct lobe of my brain until I figured out what it was I’d done wrong.

We ate pizza. We split breadsticks, shoved the salad in the refrigerator to most likely not be eaten later, and tossed around the idea of going out for ice cream, which dissolved when we took a moment to realize how full we all were. But most importantly, we laughed—hard, nonstop, and for all the right reasons.
It was the most perfect five-person date I’d ever been on.
I couldn’t help noticing how much attention Ryan Drisi actually paid to his “date.” It wasn’t like he ignored me, or something—after all, he’d said he wouldn’t do that, and he’d meant it. He tried including me in all the group conversations, and looked at me when I talked. But that was the only time he really looked at me. And even then, he was always looking at my forehead, or my nose.
Maybe it was just me. Maybe it was hard to pay attention to one person and one person only in a room full of insightful people you wanted to spend an equal amount of time looking at. But that couldn’t possibly have been true. I spent the entire evening paying all my attention to him, and he still barely noticed.
I wasn’t quite sure why I cared so much. I mean, I was over the fact that we hadn’t gotten to spend any alone time together, catching up like I knew we’d both wanted to do. And the evening was worth all the confusion and waiting; I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard Todd McCarthur laugh that hard. And Caroline seemed to enjoy it—we hardly ever ordered out, even when she asked.
“Do you have all the stuff you need?” I asked her as she and Steph came out of her room and made a beeline for the door, carrying all sorts of things I wasn’t sure anyone needed for an overnight stay only a few blocks away. “Toothbrush? Pillow? Something to wear tomorrow, if you do anything fun—?”
“Mom, this is all the stuff I usually take when I go to Dad’s. If I forget something, I’ll call you. Okay? Now let’s go.” She pulled Steph in the direction of the door, waving goodbye to her grandfather and her teacher and looking like the last thing she wanted to do was give me a kiss on the cheek.
“Hold on, Care. Are you walking?”
“Yeah. It’s only a few blocks from here.”
“I’ll walk with you, then.” She gave me a death look, like I was the worst mother in the world. She’d never been embarrassed to have me tag along before. “It’s completely dark out, Caroline. I’m not gonna let you two walk all the way to Steph’s by yourself.” I grabbed my jacket and stuffed my cell phone into my pocket. “Don’t worry. I’ll walk a half a block behind you so you don’t have to be seen with me. Sound good?”
“I’ll come with you.” I turned to see my once-date standing next to me, jacket hanging over his arm. I was too astonished to protest, all the while wondering what it was that made him feel inclined all of a sudden to spend any sort of time with me. I bid my father a temporary farewell, leaving him to read his book in peace. He was always reading something I’d never heard of before, something Caroline would probably like.
The evening air was cooling off, which made me glad I’d remembered my jacket. I highly doubted that he’d give me his, after the way the night had gone. For all I knew, he’d willingly agreed to come along just so he would have the chance to tell me that he didn’t want to see me anymore, unless of course, he had to. This was what had kept me far away from accepting his invitation. If things went south, it was going to quickly become a very difficult school year for more than just Caroline.
We walked slowly at first, only picking up the pace a little when the girls reached the end of the block and looked both ways before crossing the mostly empty side street. Silence was okay when we were far enough apart that it didn’t matter much, or when things were comfortable and okay between us. But he was still flustered, though he was doing his very best to try and hide it, and that didn’t make it very easy to walk down the sidewalk without saying a word.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” His apology almost startled me, like I’d already accepted the silence for what it was and moved on. I knew that a thousand things were about to spill out of his quivering mouth, and I shook my head, ignoring the urge to smile, because I wasn’t ready for them. I was less okay with what he was about to say than crickets. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just, what you said…it just wasn’t what I was expecting. It kind of threw me off balance a little, you know?” No; I didn’t really know at all. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m the one who should be apologizing.” It wasn’t entirely true, since I technically did deserve an apology for the way he’d been treating me all evening. And really, all I had to apologize for was being friendly. It was a mixed up world we were living in. “I was just being nice—I didn’t know inviting your wife over would upset you.” There was silence again, and this time I couldn’t take it. “I say stuff without thinking sometimes, okay? I’m sorry.”
He just kept walking, his hands stuffed deeply into his coat pockets. And I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the heck he was thinking about. I wished he would just tell me for once, instead of assuming that I could somehow suddenly read minds. But as I thought about it, I shook it off. He’d always been like that, reserved when the more difficult subjects were addressed, even when it was just us. He hadn’t changed.
“I love this time of year,” he said finally, breathing in the air as if it was quickly running out. I wished he wasn’t telling me this, because I already knew it. I already knew virtually everything about him, because I’d studied him so closely during the time we didn’t know each other and then even closer when we did. There couldn’t have been a single thing left I didn’t know about him. “My anniversary is in August. A few weeks ago, actually.”
Except that.
“Really.” I was interested; I really was. “Did you do anything special?”
He hesitated, his shoulders drooping slightly. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“My anniversary was May seventeenth.” I wasn’t really sure where that came from. He’d made it clear that he didn’t want to give me all the details of he and his wife’s special day together, so—naturally—the first thing that popped into my head was my own anniversary. Not that it would potentially lighten the mood or anything. “But um, it wasn’t a very happy one this year.” And there was silence again, which I swore was going to kill me.
The rest of the walk toward the Parker household was almost unbearable. I waved goodbye to Caroline as she ran up the front walk beside her new best friend, and was happy to note that she waved back before disappearing into the house. I turned back around, my hair swishing as I did.
Ryan looked up, curious. “What are you laughing at?”
“What? Oh, nothing.” I tried keeping my head still, but thinking about it only made the involuntary act impossible. I had to tell him, or he really would think I was crazy. “It’s just, um—it’s my hair. It tickles when I shake my head. See?” I moved it from side to side and up and down once, laughing the whole time.
“You’re still so easily amused.” I brushed my hair out of my face and was relieved to see an adorable smile taking up most of the lower half of his face, that same smile that had drawn me in all those years ago. Even if we never saw each other again after this roller coaster of a night was over, I would never forget it. All of a sudden he was reaching forward, making me forget how to breathe all over again. “I like your hair short like this. Remember when it hung down past your shoulders?” He continued reaching out to touch it, slowly; I flinched. “Oh. I—”
“No. Don’t apologize.” I hated how much we were having to say we were sorry to each other, back-and-forth almost like we didn’t really mean it. Maybe we didn’t, and all of this was just a façade we both desperately wanted to believe was real. Maybe we really did mean it, and there was nothing to be afraid of. “It’s fine. You can touch it, if you want.”
You never think it’s true, that things can really move in slow motion like they do in the movies. Not until it happens, and the awe of it actually happening only makes time move even slower. His hand moved in slow motion toward my face, and I just stood there, my lungs begging for mercy. He ran three of his fingers through my hair, then brushed it out of the way of my face to match the other side, behind my ear. Goose bumps were shooting up and down my arms and legs so intensely that I was sure he could see them through my jeans and coat. That would have been unfortunate.
Finally, I found my voice. “I—”
He seemed taken aback. “What?”
“Nothing. It’s just—” Maybe I hadn’t really found it after all, but just half of it, so that speaking full sentences would be virtually impossible for the rest of my life. That would make life plenty difficult, besides the fact that I honestly didn’t mind talking, and not being able to do it right would drive me even more insane than I already was. “We had a moment. Just now. Did you feel that?” Or maybe not talking would only make things better for everyone.
“I did. But you kind of just killed it.”
“I did not.”
“Look, there it is on the ground.” I looked down, for reasons I will never understand. “It’s gasping for air. Oh, you just stepped on it with your ridiculously dangerous heels.” He looked up. “Now you’ll have that on your conscience for the rest of your life. How does it feel to know that if you would’ve just watched where you were going—”
“We could bring it back to life,” I said gently. He looked down at me, his gaze so intense that the goose bumps came back right when the moment did. I would have given anything nine years ago for Ryan Drisi to kiss me, for him to look at me the way he was right now, silently pleading for me to let him brush his lips against mine and stay awhile.
But that was then. This was now.
I pulled away. “No. I can’t.” He said my name and reached for my hand—he wasn’t going to let this go. He was going to keep me here until I kissed him, and I couldn’t do that. I had already let this go too far, dancing with danger in my white Stiletto heels. I should have known it the moment I’d seen him standing there in the middle of Room 23. I needed to get away from this, and fast.
“Michelle, wait.”
“I can’t do this, Ryan.” He had to speed walk to keep up with me, despite his long legs. Either he was dangerously out of shape, or I could move faster in these shoes than anyone would have ever thought possible. He grabbed my wrist and held onto it, tight enough that I couldn’t pull away. We stopped walking.
“Please, just hold on a second.”
“We said we wouldn’t let it go this far.” I swallowed my unborn tears and bit my lip hard. I’d promised myself a long time ago that I would never shed another tear because of this man, and I’d already broken enough promises I’d made to myself to last a lifetime. “You’re married. What are you doing here with me?”
“My married life is none of your business.”
“I will not be the woman you cheat on your wife with!” The tears were almost too determined to hold back now, but I was well-trained and prepared. The sadness went away, replaced with the anger that I’d grown to know so well. It saved me from the tears, and I therefore owed it its freedom. “Even if you weren’t married, why would I wanna have anything to do with you?” I was making him angry, possibly even angrier than I felt, and I was happy about it. “I cannot be in a relationship with you. All my relationships have ever left with me is hurt. I’m tired of hurting, and I’m tired of looking at you and remembering how much you hurt me all those years ago!”
“So now you’re blaming me for what happened?” It probably wasn’t a good idea to be standing in the middle of a quiet neighborhood sidewalk on a Friday night, yelling at each other like this. I began counting the seconds until a porch light would turn on, causing us to scamper into the bushes to avoid confrontation. “You have no idea what was even going on when you sent me that letter. You have no right to blame me for all those things you said.”
“You could have written back.”
He shook his head. “No, I couldn’t have.”
“I waited for two months for a letter from you.” Forget avoiding the past like it was a long forgotten sin. Forget thinking that I could run from it, that none of it mattered anymore. Because when one element of a previous life invades a new, better life, it isn’t possible to ignore the past anymore. “I had to give up. I had to move on, or—I don’t know what would’ve happened to me. I don’t wanna know what would’ve happened to me.” I brushed my own hair away from my own face with my own hand, folding my arms across my chest, hiding behind an imaginary shield.
“I already know you had to move on.” There he went again, trying to act like he knew everything about everything. He wasn’t, nor would he ever be, Google. But his expression softened in that moment of hesitation, and his words stopped seeming like a know it all remark. He spoke softer, like he really was sorry. “That’s why I didn’t write.”
I touched my chin to my chest, suddenly cold.
“I think it’s time for me to walk you home now.” And we walked side by side in complete, uninterrupted silence, down the three-and-a-half blocks of sidewalk it took us to get back to my apartment building. I went inside without saying goodbye or turning back, climbed the stairs to my floor, and somehow floated down the hall and through the door. It closed softly behind me, making my father look up.
“Welcome back.” He set his book down on the coffee table and looked up at me as I approached, my coat still hanging from my shoulders. “How was your walk?”
I sank down onto the couch beside him, keeping a neutral expression on my still flushed face and fighting off the tears behind my eyes with all my remaining strength. I thought about everything I would say differently, do differently, if I could go back to ten, twenty minutes before this moment. Never in my life had I felt so defeated, so guilty, or so ashamed of everything I had and hadn’t done—everything I had and hadn’t said.
“Dad?” He was looking at me, even if I refused to look at him. His aged, wise face would only make the sadness harder to fend off with my depleting energy. “Is Mom really at a women’s retreat this weekend?”
His sigh was long and full of unexplainable pain. He was the one who’d stayed the strongest through all this, the one who’d hugged me the hardest and held me the longest. It wasn’t that she didn’t love me, or that she didn’t feel sorry for me. She just couldn’t understand why things had to be the way they were.
“She leaves tomorrow morning,” he said, sounding sadder than I’d ever thought possible. We sat there for a long time, only the awkward silence wasn’t as much awkward as it was unfair. We’d never gotten to talk about this like we’d wanted to, and—now that the opportunity to do it right was sitting on our laps, drooling on our jeans—we were afraid to let it stay.
“Did you ever tell her about the money?” I was surprised that I was still brave enough to make the first strides into this difficult subject. Usually we covered up the real issue with small talk for a few minutes, until one of us finally let down our guard and spoke the words we were afraid would sting. Sometimes they did—more times than not—but they never terminated our lives. And each time, it got a little bit easier than the last.
“No.” There was no prolonged sighing or hesitation. The word was firm and steady, like he wouldn’t take it back for anything in the whole entire world. I’d already known the answer, but the question still slid easily past my lips somehow. There was always something about someone else saying the right answers aloud, even if you already knew them, that made the truth that much easier to swallow. Even without a grande banana chocolate Vivanno and a blueberry scone to make it go down even easier.
“I meant it when I said I would pay you back someday.” He was already shaking his head from side to side, but I couldn’t let him say no. I’d made a promise, one I wouldn’t break, even if it meant I would never get to buy real silverware and plates and cups that wouldn’t dissolve if you tried to wash them in the dishwasher. “Don’t tell me it isn’t necessary. It’s necessary, Dad. That was a lot of money.”
“But look what you got out of it, Michelle.” I looked around the apartment as he gestured to the living space in general, then back at him. “You’re living in a fabulous apartment in a fantastic neighborhood. You got to spend the summer with your daughter, and take her places she wanted to go and buy her things she really wanted to have—and deserved to have, even.” He wasn’t finished; I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take. “You didn’t have to worry about getting checks to your landlord. You didn’t have to stress about finding a new job right away, like you would have had to do otherwise. You needed those months to recover, you and Caroline, and you got them. I knew that’s what you needed, and I didn’t hesitate to get you what you needed.”
“We would have been fine on our own.”
“That money was a gift, Michelle. Didn’t your mother and I teach you that offering to pay someone back for a gift is rude and insulting?” He waited.
“I just don’t wanna have to feel like I owe you something! I’m tired of feeling like I owe people things. I’m tired of apologizing for every wrong thing I say, and I’m tired of feeling guilty about every mistake I make.” I looked down at my hands, folded awkwardly in my lap. They were shaking slightly; I was falling apart. “Ryan owed me for a deal we made when we were still friends. That was why he was supposed to be buying me dinner tonight.”
“Did everything work out okay out there?”
I shook my head. “I don’t really wanna talk about it.” He nodded, putting his arm around me and squeezing my shoulder affectionately. “Dad, you know I’m thankful for the money. I really am. I don’t know what we would’ve done without it.” I pressed my lips together, willing away more sadness. “I just wish that Mom understood the situation. She’s acting like it’s my fault we decided to split up. It’s not.”
“Wasn’t it a mutual decision?”
“It depends how you look at it. Yeah, I guess. No. I don’t know.” I leaned my head back slowly, closing my eyes and wishing this night would fade away into morning. With morning came sunlight, and the promise of a brand new day where everything went right and no married men tried to kiss me in front of a house with lawn gnomes in the yard. “We’re doing fine—we have everything we need. We’re happy here, really.”
“That’s—” He hesitated; I waited patiently. “That’s what I came to talk to you about.”
I opened my eyes and sat up slowly, fixing my gaze onto his face and waiting for the worst. I’d known there was something off about his timing, and the way he’d shown up and completely caught me off-guard like this. This was what it would all come down to, the reason why he really was here. If it weren’t for him showing up unannounced, maybe my night with Ryan Drisi wouldn’t have turned out like this. If it weren’t for whatever it was that he was about to tell me, maybe I wouldn’t feel as helpless as I did right then.
He took a deep, silent breath. And then he spat the words out at me slowly—trying to do it gently, of course, which was a great gesture and all—but it was still venom that was eating holes though my already cracking skin. “Your mother and I think it would be wise if you and Caroline came to live with us.”
“Dad.”
“Just listen for a minute, Michelle—”
“No.”
“‘No’ what? ‘No,’ you won’t come live with your mother and I, or ‘no,’ you won’t listen to what I have to say?” I was just shaking my head; my hair wasn’t tickling my neck anymore, even if I wished it would so I could laugh my way through this horror movie. “You haven’t even heard our reasoning. And I think, if you would just consider—”
“Caroline and I are not coming to live with you!” I couldn’t remember a worse night. Even saying goodbye to Ryan Drisi at graduation had been easier to cope with than this. “I lived in that house for eighteen years, Dad. It is no place for a girl like Caroline to live in.” That was one of many vague excuses I was prepared to fire in his general direction.
“And what kind of place would you consider acceptable for your precious little Caroline to live in?” I’d made him angry, too. I was even happier about this than I’d been before.
“This apartment seems to be suiting her just fine.”
“We’re trying to help you, Michelle!” I’d never heard him raise his voice like that before—not at me. The shock was enough to shut me up just long enough for him to gain enough momentum to keep on going. “We’re trying to help you, and you just won’t have it! For once in your life, could you please just swallow your pride and admit you can’t raise a girl like Caroline all by yourself?”
“And who says I can’t?” This was the last place I’d expected this conversation to end up. I thought his news would be something along the lines of “Oh, by the way, Michelle, your mother and I are thinking of selling the house and moving across the country. You don’t mind, do you?” “In case you haven’t noticed, I know what I’m doing. I have Caroline enrolled in a fantastic school with a teacher who is breaking his neck to challenge her as much as humanly possible. I have a job that I love, one that will pay the rent and pay for food and make sure I have enough money put away for whenever Caroline is ready to go to college. That’s enough.”
“And what about spending time with her?” Now he was going to dare and accuse me of avoiding my daughter’s social needs, which was the polar opposite of what I’d been trying so hard to keep stabilized. “Who’s this babysitter you’ve hired to watch her while you’re gone? Do you think she’s a good influence on your daughter?”
“I am not getting into this discussion with you.” I stood up, storming across the room and thrusting open the door. I held it open, waiting for him to get out of my apartment. “I am not coming to live with you. My decision is final, and I will not be changing my mind.” He was putting on his coat, stuffing the book into his pocket. “Tell Mom to have a nice trip. And next time you wanna come ruin my night, why don’t you call first?”
“My pleasure.”
As soon as I was out the door, I slammed it so hard that one of the pictures on the wall crashed to the floor. Glass shattered like my hope had done a long time ago—a hope that I could prove to the world as well as myself that I didn’t need help raising my brilliant daughter. I went to the fallen frame, crushing bits of glass beneath my heels as I bent down and picked it up. Turning it over, I stared into the faces of a young Michelle Bennett, flanked on either side by a happy, smiling mother and stepfather.
I let the frame drop back down to the floor, leaving the mess there and collapsing onto the couch. When I would open my eyes again, I hoped that it would be Friday morning, so I could do everything over—starting with the parent-teacher conference, where I would walk out the door when all necessary business was covered and never look back.

The night my parents and I got into a heated argument about college, Ryan Drisi was only a phone call and five minutes of waiting away.
We drove to the park next to his house at eleven o’clock at night and sat in his car in silence for fifteen minutes. It took that long for my anger to dissolve into sadness, at which point I started crying. And once I started crying, I didn’t stop for three hours. That was how long it took for me to spill almost everything regarding my feelings into his lap for him to pretend to deal with so I wouldn’t have to.
I told him about how much I longed to break free of the hold my parents still seemed to have on my life. As much as they supported me, and made sure I knew that no wrong decision I ever made would make them love me any less, they had dreams they wanted desperately to be able to live through me. And they would stop at nothing to make sure I didn’t make any wrong turns that would prevent their plans for me from coming true. This included, of course, going to the one college they’d made me apply to that had accepted me. I had already gotten into every school I applied to on my own. They didn’t approve of any of them.
I told him how lucky he was that his parents didn’t care where he got an education, or what he majored in, as long as he got a degree and wasn’t living in their basement for the rest of his life. My parents wouldn’t make me do anything—they couldn’t, really. But supporting my decision to attend a school they didn’t approve of would be the most agonizing thing they would ever have to endure.
I told him how much I longed to please my parents, to make them happy and love me more than anything in the whole entire world. And I told him how part of me didn’t care what it took, as long as they weren’t upset with me anymore. And then I outlined the other part of me, who just wanted to go to the right college with the best journalism programs, the one school that would make me happy.
He gave me a hug when there was nothing left to spill, almost holding me as I tried to gather myself together again. He took me back to his house and into the basement, where he had me sit down facing him on the couch and outline my dream life. I did exactly what he wanted me to do, without him ever finding out that this dream life I was unfolding right in front of him included changing my last name to Drisi. I never told him that the college I wanted to go to was the same college he’d had his heart set on since the seventh grade, the one he was possibly attending on a full music scholarship.
He didn’t drop me back off at home until late that following morning, after my parents had gone to church, come back, and sat waiting for me to come home for an hour and a half. I walked calmly into the house and answered them when they asked where I’d been, letting the false implications smack them in the face like I wanted to do with the back of my own hand. We didn’t speak for two weeks, until Christmas Eve. I went to them and apologized, telling them which college I’d already said yes to. It was the one they’d hoped I would attend for as long as I could remember. After that, things between the three of us were good. And things between Ryan Drisi and I were even better.
He was always there for me, until things ended in confusion and a determined declaration of no more tears. And there were times throughout our friendship that he would need me to be there for him—and I always was. We never had to thank each other out loud, not once, because there was an unexplainable sort of warmth in knowing that we were thankful without uttering a word. It was like a secret I could hold close to my heart, and a duplicate that he could hold tightly against his.
He wasn’t there when I opened my eyes on Saturday morning. I couldn’t call him and tell him I needed him. If I stood out on the sidewalk and waited for his old dark green Mustang convertible to pull up beside me, it would never come. There was no shoulder to cry on. And if I tried to apologize to my parents, there was no way that they would ever forgive me.
I changed into a different pair of jeans and a sweatshirt with a T-shirt underneath, slipping into my comfortable tennis shoes and sliding my cell phone into my pocket. There were a thousand things I could have spent that morning doing, work related things that would lighten my load for the coming week. But I thought about getting ahead, and what the benefits would really be. And I realized that there weren’t any, that the work was going to get done sooner or later, if I wanted to keep my job and impress my bosses and make them like me—so why not later? I left everything in my bag and my bag on the counter and ventured out into the world, forgetting routine for the time being.
I walked around town slowly, waving to people I knew and bidding a polite good morning to joggers and dog walkers and everyone else walking the streets that I’d never had the pleasure of meeting before. I hoped I would see them again, that I would get some sort of opportunity to prove to them that I really did have a handle on things—really. Some things were just trying to wiggle out of my grasp at the moment.
My body drifted toward Starbucks somehow, like the giant letters had a magnet inside them and I was wrapped in bone crushing chains. I saw his Mustang sitting there in the parking lot—the driver side window still didn’t close all the way, and the duct tape he always used to try and keep over the opening was falling off. I told myself not to go inside the death trap, that it would only mean trouble. But I wasn’t in control anymore, and my body went inside.
I was the only one inside the coffee shop besides the lone employee at the counter. He was looking down at a piece of paper in front of him, completely oblivious to my presence. I knew who it was even before he lifted his head to take my order. I picked something completely random off of the giant menu above his head, a venti vanilla latte that I intended to pay for with cash. Ryan Drisi looked at me like I’d gone completely insane, which I wouldn’t even consider denying if asked under oath.
“That’s not your usual,” he said, refusing to push the buttons on the register.
“You don’t know what my usual is.” I pulled a ten dollar bill from the deep dark depths of my pocket and slid it across the counter. He just looked down at it, completely unsatisfied. “I want a venti vanilla latte. Are you gonna give it to me, or am I gonna have to come back there and make one myself?”
“You don’t know how.”
“I worked at Starbucks for eight straight months. You think I don’t remember how—”
“Taylor works here every week day morning from seven thirty until noon.” He had his arms folded across his chest, and was staring at me with those once attractive hazel eyes that now hurt me to look at, literally. I didn’t want to listen to his ramble, and thought about walking out and never coming back. But I wanted my latte. “Taylor comes into work five days a week talking about the girl who comes in every morning at seven forty eight on the dot. She orders a tall strawberry banana vivanno and uses her debit card to pay for it. She always thanks him with a smile, walks out the door, and doesn’t come back until the next morning at seven forty eight, without fail.”
I rolled my eyes. “Your point, please.”
“Taylor would be very upset with his fellow employees if he found out his mystery girl came into Starbucks on a Saturday morning when he wasn’t working and didn’t order her usual. He might even blame them for every bad thing that has ever happened to him, and storm out of Starbucks and never come back.”
“This has no point, does it,” I observed.
“But if Taylor’s mystery girl didn’t happen to order her usual, and Taylor did happen to find out about it, all that the employees would need to do would be to ask for his forgiveness. That way, he would know that they were truly sorry for what had happened, and they could go back to being civil co-workers.”
“I swear, you’re killing me here.”
“Follow me.” He stepped out from behind the counter and expected me to follow him, wherever he was going.
“But I—”
“You’ll get your latte. Follow me.”
I followed him, though I had a feeling I would regret it. He led me across the coffee shop and to a corner table with straws dumped all over the surface. As we got closer, though, I realized that they hadn’t been dumped there at all. Standing right in front of the table, looking down with a smile on my face, I read the message spelled out in bendy straws.
IM SORRY
I reached out with my hand and straightened a crooked straw, feeling satisfied beyond belief for a thousand reasons plus one. I turned to look at him, his hazel eyes seriously clashing with his uniform. There was no one else in the restaurant, but I kept a reasonable distance between his feet and mine.
“There’s no Taylor, is there?”
“No, it’s a song. I kind of switched the roles around.”
“Then how’d you know my usual?”
“Because you made one for yourself every day at the end of your shift that summer you started working at Starbucks. It was just a guess, but I was pretty sure you still liked strawberry banana smoothies. Not vanilla lattes.”
“Can I change my order?” I asked with a smile as we walked back to the counter. I’d never seen this Starbucks so empty, not even the one time I’d dared to stop in as soon as it opened at five thirty and buy coffee for me and Nicholas on our way to visit his parents’ house. Even then, there’d been a line.
“Hm. I don’t know.” He drummed his fingers on top of the wrinkled ten-dollar bill he’d left on the countertop, pretending to think hard about my flirtatious request. “We don’t usually let customers change their orders after we punch them into the register.” He was fighting a smile; he was losing.
“But you didn’t punch it into the register,” I said, holding back my own giggles, playing along.
His smile widened. “Like mother, like daughter.”
I waited while he fixed me my strawberry banana vivanno. And when he finally handed it to me, and I started to walk away, he pulled me back and placed a brand-new ten-dollar bill into my hand, crisp and colorful and almost glowing.
“Keep the three fifty five,” he said.
I looked at my receipt. “It wasn’t—”
“Just go along with it, would you? Right this way.” He led me right back to the table in the back with the IM SORRY straws still taking up most of the surface. He pulled out the chair for me, and I sat down surprisingly gracefully in front of the successfully decoded message. They were so perfect; I didn’t want to move them. “Let me get those out of your way—”
“No!”
He looked down at me, puzzled. “Why not?”
“Because. You worked hard on arranging them all like that.” I reached out carefully and straightened another crooked straw, feeling like I was suddenly the most special girl in the whole entire world. “It’s like, art.”
“It took me five minutes.”
“Can I keep them? Please?” I looked up at Ryan Drisi and batted my eyelashes like I always used to do at school newspaper meetings when I wanted to convince him that my way to do the front-page layout was better than his.
“You wanna keep the straws?” I nodded, grinning from one ear to the other. He looked around quickly, like we were about to commit a vicious crime, before he agreed. “Fine. But don’t tell anybody.” We slid the IM SORRY straws into my purse, careful not to bend any of them as we zipped the thing closed. “There. Are you happy now?”
“I would be, if you’d sit down with me.” The eyelashes went fluttering again. I didn’t really know what I was doing, all of a sudden acting like nothing was wrong just because of a bunch of straws that could apologize all by themselves. He looked around again, seeing that there still wasn’t anyone else sharing our space, and pulled out the chair across from me. His legs were long, and he accidentally kicked me in the shin.
“Oops. S—”
“No. Let the straws speak.” We sat there for at least thirty seconds without saying a word, as if we were actually waiting for the IM SORRY straws to do the dirty work. They didn’t say anything, probably because we’d shoved them right out of their formation. Still, it was fun while it lasted. At least, it was for me. “Why do you have two jobs?”
“I actually have about five,” he corrected me without a grain of hesitation.
I almost choked on my vivanno. “Are you crazy?”
“Probably.” He started listing them, counting off on his fingers as he went. “There’s teaching second grade—that’s my favorite one. Then I work here every week day morning for two hours, and from four until close Monday through Thursday. Saturdays I work from when we open until eleven, and on Sundays I work from seven PM until close.”
“And that’s not all, ladies and gentlemen.”
“I also teach Sunday school to fifth and sixth graders every Sunday morning. It’s kind of refreshing, not having to put kids in time out for stealing each others’ milk during snack time.” He was enjoying this; I could tell. “I also play the piano at weddings. I have a special number they can call, and if I’m not busy, I play what they want me to play and get paid for it.”
“That’s only four, smarty-pants.”
“I’m not finished yet. Stop interrupting me.” I kept sipping my smoothie, determined to keep my commentary to myself until he was finished. After all, it was only fair. “I also tutor kids on Saturday afternoons. I have a few regulars, and I help some of the rich kids study for their ACTs every once in awhile. There’s a lot of money in those sessions.”
I shook off a brain freeze, swallowing reluctantly. “Do you ever have any time to yourself?”
“I also play indoor soccer. They have a year round league and a stadium about forty-five minutes away from here. I don’t get paid for playing, but it keeps me sane, as long as we win.” He was starting to remind me of the Ryan Drisi I’d known in high school—always busy, always happy, and as perfect as could be. “And I also have to go over all of Caroline’s notes, homework, etcetera. Sometimes I have to sit down and touch up a few lesson plans, or come up with a new team building activity.”
“Let me guess: you never sleep.”
“Only when it’s completely necessary.” He leaned back slightly in his chair, careful not to kick me this time. He seemed proud of himself—but not in a disappointing, conceited kind of way. He seemed happy with the way things were going, content with the back-to-back schedule and lack of time spent at home by himself every night.
What’s your wife’s name? What does she do for a living? Is she a starving artist, like you were supposed to be—is that way you have so many crazy jobs? Is she pretty? Is she smart? What’s her favorite color?
“What time are you supposed to pick up Caroline?”
“What?” His question caught me off guard. I’d been so engrossed in the conversation we were apparently never going to have about his wife that him mentioning my daughter snapped my gaze from the ring on his finger and back to his face. Maybe those hazel eyes weren’t so hard to look at, after all. “Um. The girls are due back at the apartment at one. They’re supposed to call me when they’re on their way.” I went searching for my phone, sifting through the straws as carefully as I could.
“It’s only a quarter till eleven,” he said, somehow knowing what I was searching for. I tried my best to hide my surprise at how quickly the time had flown by. But then again, tragedy does tend to make you sleep in a little later than normal. “I get off in fifteen minutes.” He hesitated; he was going to tell me why. “I want you to meet Nattie.”
“Short for Natalie?”
“Yes.” It took a few seconds for the reality of his statement to sink in. Could he read my mind—was I that easy to read? The second I stopped thinking about his wife, he suddenly decided that I should ride with him to his car, to his house, and meet her. I suddenly felt uneasy, like all of this was going to go wrong all over again.
I started shaking my head. “I don’t know if—”
“Don’t say no. Please?” His pleading for me to accept his out-of-the-blue invitation seemed even more out of place than the invitation itself. It was like all this conversation had been leading up to this one Big Question—like none of it had really mattered at all. I wanted to say no, more than anything. “She’ll like you. I promise you, she will.”
But I owed him, somehow, for the past.

The day after Christmas, Ryan Drisi showed up at my front door.

This was awkward beyond belief. Not for us, because the night I’d broken down and told him all my secrets and plans and dreams (most of them, anyway) had somehow brought us closer, like me really opening up to him meant we were ready to move on to that “next step” in our relationship. Whatever that meant.
No; it was awkward because my parents, in the past few weeks, had grown to hate him. And I mean really, really hate him. They were convinced that he was going to ruin my life somehow, that we would drop out of school and run off together to audition for starring romantic comedy roles in Hollywood. How he convinced them to move back onto our side, I’ll never know. But on New Year’s Eve, we were driving alone to a lake two and a half hours from where we lived to watch Millennium fireworks.
It was warm in his Mustang, because he’d started blasting the heat even before he’d driven over to my house to pick me up. This was before his window stopped working, when we were sealed in tight and speeding down the highway, listening to songs he’d written and recorded in his friend’s basement. The quality was terrible, the drums were too loud, and one of the guitars wasn’t tuned right. But it was still his music, and we sang along.
I’d always dreamed that we would have moments like that, where we were happy and together and everything was perfect. But I’d never thought we would actually become friends, at least not like we were. So riding with him in his car that night, and watching the fireworks, and even falling asleep on the way home—it was one of the best nights of my life. Every time I climbed into that old dark green Mustang convertible after that night, I remembered how much that outing had meant to me.
I climbed into the passenger seat of that Mustang, buckled myself in, and sat there as he pulled out of the Starbucks parking lot and drove slowly down the street. I’d shoved the dreams away with the promise of dry eyes, and the reality circling around my head was almost too much to bear. Things were just like they used to be. We were young again; free.
I let him turn the music on, keeping my hands folded neatly in the safety of my lap. Music I’d never heard before began filling the car—a choir, with four equal parts in a harmony that sent chills and goosebumps dancing across my skin. The chords began to build, and I swore that the sound would burst right out of the hidden speakers.
“Oh. Sorry.” And then it stopped, because he reached out with his free hand and turned it off. Click, just like that. The beautiful sound seemed to echo for half of a second before dying away, lost in the stillness. The light above our heads turned green, and we began moving forward again. We were moving so slowly…or it could have just been me.
“That was pretty. Why’d you turn it off?”
“Oh, you don’t wanna listen to that.” He had his eyes fixed on the nearly empty road ahead of him, his shoulders tense and his fingers gripping the steering wheel a little too tightly. I lowered my eyebrows, feeling like a good book being read upside down and backwards.
“Who says?” Because I’d been to all those high school choir concerts, and had loved listening to the ring and glee of harmony ever since.
“It’s an old CD from my college. It’s the choir—I forget which year.” We drove straight for about ten more seconds before turning onto an even more deserted road. I’d never been this close to the edge of town—at least, not on this road. “I mean, if you wanna listen to it, we can. It’s, um. It’s kind of boring.”
“Not possible.” I jammed my finger down on the button he’d pressed before, and the song picked up where it left off. The chord ended, echoed for a few seconds (for real this time), and then there was silence. I waited patiently for the next song to begin, and listened to the beginning piano part with my eyes closed. “Is this you?”
“Playing the piano?” I nodded. “How’d you know that?”
“I don’t know.” I opened my eyes and stared out the window at the houses we passed. I’d heard him playing his family’s grand piano time and again, and his keyboard in all its wacky modes. I’d memorized the way he played, somehow. It was different than the way anyone else played, but you wouldn’t be able to tell unless you’d seen his fingers glide across the glossy keys like I had. But I wouldn’t dare admit that, not to anyone.
A single voice filled my ears—female, steady and gentle and full of passion for the words she sang so beautifully. It was almost hypnotizing, listening to her perfect pitch. I’d never heard anyone sing that amazingly without the assistance of technology, and especially not at all those high school choir concerts. Our high school hadn’t been known for its music, just its average seventy eight percent graduation rate and cliques, cliques, cliques galore.
“That’s Cassie Ongman.” He spoke her name like I should have known, like she was one of those people who knew everyone, and everyone knew her right back. We stopped at a stop sign, and—just for a second—he closed his eyes and tried to fight off a smile. I watched him closely, a little worried. “She was an amazing singer. We dated for awhile.”
“What was she like?” If he wasn’t going to tell me anything about his wife, and I wasn’t going to ask, at least I could inquire about a past girlfriend I’d never heard of.
“Cassie?” I nodded slowly as we kept driving. Where the heck did he live, anyway? He seemed to think about my question for a moment, like he couldn’t remember someone he had obviously cared very much about. I could see it in his face, the way he kept chewing on his lip to keep the grin from slipping from its hiding place. “She was the most loving person I ever met. She loved everything. Even pit bulls.”
“What’s wrong with pit bulls?” He shrugged. The choir had come in behind Cassie now, harmonies and all. I wanted to ask how much longer it would take to get there. I didn’t.
“She was an alto, but she could pretty much sing whatever she wanted, even the first soprano parts.” I was really feeling sorry for his wife now—whoever, wherever she was. “I gave her piano lessons for awhile, while we were dating. She always liked listening to me play instead, though. And volunteering—she loved volunteering.”
“What happened to her?” Because clearly, something had gone wrong. None of these stories ever ended happily, movie or romance novel or fictional ghost story. Someone always found a significant other who was better than the first, or something else tragic happened that made the two lovers break apart. I would know. “I mean, you’re obviously not together anymore.” At least, I really hoped not.
“We don’t talk anymore.” And that was all he said. We pulled into the driveway of a one-story house with a giant cottonwood tree in the front yard. There had been flowers along the front of the house once, judging by the line of bricks that separated the grass from the dirt. That was all that remained from the abandoned project—dirt.
“I like it so far,” I said with a smile as we climbed out of the Mustang and headed toward the door at the side of the house. The concrete stairs were covered in shoe prints, and there was still a Christmas wreath hanging on a hook above our heads. A gust of August wind swept past us suddenly, sounding off the wind chimes I hadn’t noticed were there.
“I really hope you’re not expecting much.” At least he was being honest with me, instead of getting my hopes up and letting them crash down hard, shattering on the concrete steps. He was known to do that, you know—give people he really cared about all sorts of false hope in the form of a one-page letter.
“My apartment couldn’t be much better.” I continued looking around while he sifted through his ridiculously large collection of keys (I felt sorry for his key ring). I couldn’t help but notice that his grass was a little dryer than his neighbors’, a little less green and lush and mowed…at all. “Your yard looks nice.”
“It suits Nattie well enough.” He found the right key and slid it into the lock, turning it hard and thrusting most of his weight into pushing it open. He had to kick it a few times before it finally gave in, the doorknob slamming against something behind it as it swung back. I followed him inside. “Nattie? I’m home!”
You know, you’d expect a guy like Ryan Drisi to talk about the love of his life—a wife, maybe, or a mistress of some kind—more than a beloved pet, or a past girlfriend who he claimed he wasn’t even in touch with anymore. Nattie came bounding into the room at the sound of his voice, touching her hands firmly to his shoulders and kissing his face.
Golden retrievers are loyal, aren’t they?
He scratched Nattie behind the ears, smiling and not even bothering to wipe the doggy slobber from his chin. He held onto her bright pink collar gently and looked up at me (for once), his smile never fading.
“I’m gonna let her go now,” he said.
I nodded. “Okay.”
“She gets pretty excited, but I swear, she’s a sweetheart. She loves people.”
“I figured.”
“Are you ready?” Nattie looked up at me, panting excitedly and silently pleading for Ryan Drisi to let her go. He’d never had any pets before, and had hated real dogs even more than the kind you grill and wrap in a bun. I was suddenly starting to feel like I didn’t even know this man anymore. After all, nine years can change a person.
Before I even had a chance to answer him—I would have said yes anyway, since saying no wouldn’t have really made much sense at this point—he released his grip on the golden retriever’s sparkling collar. She came toward me slowly, curious, before she stood on her hind legs and licked my face, just like that. And somehow, though I’d never really been much of a dog person either, I didn’t mind.
“My wife trained her not to bark at strangers. Honestly, I have no idea how she did it.” Nattie kept licking my face, and the experience was so new and unreal to me that I couldn’t stop laughing, even though getting doggy slobber in my mouth was not on my long list of things I still wished to accomplish that day. “Hey, that’s enough. Get down.”
And just like that, she did what he told her to do. No questions barked.
“You’re right,” I said as he handed me a dishtowel. I dabbed the corners of my mouth, hesitant. “She loves people. And she’s a sweetheart.”
“She is. And obedient, too. Watch this.” He reached out with his hand and pulled the door back open. Nattie darted happily from her place at his side, down the concrete steps and the driveway and into the mangled front yard. We watched out of the kitchen window as she rolled over onto her back and stayed there, basking in the sun. “She doesn’t run away.”
“Your wife trained her not to bark and to stay in the yard without a fence?” He listed off a dozen other things his amazing, invisible wife had managed to do with Nattie the Wonder Dog. I didn’t blame him for loving her so much—the dog, I mean. I had a hard time believing you could love someone that potentially doesn’t exist. I had to know why my extended invitation upset him so much—it was eating away at my insides. “So…” I walked slowly though the kitchen, feeling his eyes on me as I moseyed. “Is your wife working?”
I couldn’t just leave it alone.
“She’s not here. That’s all you need to know.” He opened the refrigerator and started looking for something, even though I could tell there wasn’t really anything he was hoping to find—other than another escape. He opened the freezer next, and I saw them—hot dogs. Rows and rows of frozen hot dogs, stacked on top of each other, seemingly untouched. He closed the freezer.
“Ryan—” It was easy to say a thousand wrong things on purpose, to hurt someone’s feelings or prove a point or even just to make them angry, out of spite for something they’d said or done to you, or hadn’t said, or hadn’t done. It wasn’t easy to say the wrong thing when the one thing you didn’t want was to upset a person you really cared about. Not saying anything at all wasn’t an option anymore. I had to know; I couldn’t stand it anymore. “You are married. Aren’t you?”
He was silent for a long time—a clear indication, thankfully, that whatever came next would not be words of anger, yelling or frustration. We watched Nattie for awhile, sunning herself and panting happily without a single care in the world. When he finally spoke, his voice was gentle, yet firm.
“I meant what I said.” His words were soft somehow, with an edge to them that should have served as a red flag, a warning to stay away. Drop the subject; it’s over. And you’d think I would listen, after last night had ended. But I was as stubborn as he’d always claimed, just like my mother. I didn’t want to let it drop away, because it was likely that I would never be able to bring the subject up ever again. “My married life is none of your business, Michelle.”
“Why do I feel like you’re hiding something from me?” My words were just like his, gentle yet humming with purpose. There were things he never would have told me way back when if I hadn’t persuaded him to spill his thoughts. He had been the perfect friend to tell secrets to, because getting the truth out of him was like trying to fit a square block into a round hole. And even then, he always seemed to keep part of everything to himself.
“Maybe I am. But like I said, it’s none of your business. So stay out of it, all right?” I was ready to go home now. I was ready to sulk around my empty apartment with no windows, and bask in the regret of ever opening my mouth. Why had I gone to Starbucks? Why had I been stupid enough to think that a bunch of straws could make up for years and years of dangerous loose ends? “Come here. Let me show you something.”
I reluctantly followed him through the rest of the kitchen, temporarily losing sight of Nattie as he led me into the living room. There was only one picture frame sitting on the mantle above the fireplace, looking lonely and a little out of place. He picked it up, looked at it for a moment, and then held it out to me. I took it from him, slowly, knowing that this had to be special. Looking down, I saw that it was.
I’d only seen him dress up several times in the time that I knew him, the majority of them occurring when we were very close friends. He dressed up for the turnabout dance, which didn’t exactly count (since we didn’t end up going, anyway). He dressed up for the prom, which we did end up going to, and had a wonderful time. He dressed up for graduation, a dress shirt and pants under his dark blue robe as he gave a speech as senior class president. He’d dressed up for his wedding day, too, though I hadn’t been there like I had always hoped to be.
Her dress was floor length, purely white and beautiful, and made her look ten times prettier than she probably already was. She was thin and tan and smiling, with a flawless face and hair the exact same color as his. As I looked closer, I zeroed in on her brown eyes, and the dimples on her cheeks. Without all the makeup, the dress and the veil and the sun-bleached hair, I couldn’t help but notice that she looked a lot like—
Me.
But it wasn’t me standing next to him in that picture. She was perfect, in every single possible way.
“You two look amazing,” I said with a smile, handing the framed picture back to him. I watched how he handled it, gently turning it right side up and setting it back down on the mantle. There were no decorations surrounding it, no candles or bright lights or flower petals. It just sat there alone, speaking for itself just like the IM SORRY straws before we’d stuffed them into my purse and ruined the magic. “You two—” I hesitated. “You don’t have any kids?”
“No.” He shook his head, seeming a little sad. But the brief dip in his mood faded away quickly as soon as he started talking, a tactic of his I knew almost too well. “But I almost kind of consider all the kids I work with mine, somehow. One of my classroom policies is that we all have to treat each other with respect, like a family.” We crossed the room and sat down on the couch against the wall. It was soft. “I love being a teacher, more than anything.” His passion was almost tangible, like I could reach out and run my fingers through it.
“Honestly? I never would have pictured you as a second-grade teacher.” He was supposed to be spending his summer in between high school and college recording a bunch of songs he’d written with his roommate downstate, away from me and his family and everything familiar. He was supposed to be a rock star. A mellow one, anyway.
“It’s weird. I mean, I never thought anyone could ever get this much satisfaction out of babysitting a room full of seven-year-olds.” He shook his head, his smile making me want to laugh for no reason in particular—or every reason. “But a lot of these kids—they don’t have parents like Caroline. They’re either not around to teach their kids the basics, like counting and reading and shapes. Either that, or they just don’t see a point.”
When he started talking like this, there was no stopping him. He could go on for over an hour about the things he would die to keep on living. Once, he sat with my parents in our living room for almost two hours, trying to convince them there was no danger in majoring in something like music or art or creative writing. According to him, taking chances and hoping for the best were what made the best kinds of artists.
“By the time these kids get to me, pretty much all of them know that two plus two equals four, and that there’s a difference between a circle and an oval—stuff like that.” I couldn’t keep the smile off my face; this was exactly how he’d been the night before we said goodbye. “It’s my job to teach them how to move onto the next step. I teach them grammar and how to construct simple sentences, how to comprehend what they read and how to respect other people. It almost feels like it’s up to me sometimes, you know?” I blinked.
“Up to you to do—what?” I wasn’t completely sure.
“You know—steer them in the right direction.” He went on more tangents about how the problems our generation was trying to cover up were the same problems that Caroline’s generation was going to have to fix. And apparently, it was up to him to make sure they had the skills and the confidence they needed to make it all happen.
I couldn’t wrap my mind around the words flowing from his mouth and straight into my ears. Somewhere between high school graduation and this very moment, Ryan Drisi had expanded his horizons from changing the world with song lyrics to changing the future by teaching the ones that held it loosely in their hands. He was still trying to save the world. He’d just developed a completely different approach to accomplishing his goal.
“I have an idea.” Which was kind of an odd thing to say in that moment, considering the fact that he’d just dumped half of his brain full of ideas out in front of me. I waited patiently for him to go on, noticing how he was subconsciously fidgeting with the ring on his left hand, even after the question finally rolled off of his tongue and into my ears. “Do you wanna come to my game tonight?” He hesitated again, still fidgeting. “You can bring Caroline, if you want.”
“To your soccer game?” I hadn’t been to a soccer game since senior night, the last game he’d ever played in high school. They won that game, and hoisted him up on their shoulders with the trophy and everything. I was the first girl to run up and hug him afterward, and the only girl he’d hugged back. Going to watch him play again wouldn’t be so bad. After all, I would have Caroline there to keep me company. “Sure. That sounds like fun.”
We printed directions from his Mac and went over them to make sure I wouldn’t get lost on the way—because he had to drive to the other side of town to tutor one of his regulars and head straight to the game afterward, and wouldn’t have time to pick the two of us up on his way. I walked out to the front yard, rubbed Nattie’s tummy as an official symbol of my acceptance, and climbed into Ryan Drisi’s Mustang so he could drive me home.

It was a good thing Caroline was good at reading MapQuest directions, or we never would have made it as far as we did. Once we got onto the highway, it was pretty much straight driving for the next half hour. The two of us, when enclosed in a small space together with not much of anything to entertain us, were rarely serious, mature, or silent. We’d gone about two and a half miles before I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Okay. Tell me what’s up, and tell me now.”
She looked up at me, having had her head practically hanging out the open window for the past ten minutes. “I hate it when you assume things.”
“I’m not assuming anything,” I shot back, trying to get the song Cassie Ongman had been singing earlier out of my head. “You’ve barely said a word since Steph walked you home this afternoon. You did wanna come with me tonight, didn’t you?”
“I told you I did. I don’t lie.” And ironically enough, that was the truth. She’d only ever lied to me once in her short time in this world, in one of two lives I refused to allow myself to think about. She’d meant well, of course, but I still wouldn’t ever forget it. “I know something happened after I left last night.”
“Come on, Care. What happened between Mr. Drisi and I is none of your business.”
“I’m not talking about whatever happened between you and Mr. Drisi. I couldn’t care less about what happened.” She stared straight ahead, out at the road. It wasn’t time for the sun to set yet, but it was getting dark. I hadn’t checked the weather, but it looked like it was going to thunderstorm by the time this game was over. The sky was turning grey. “I’m talking about whatever happened between you and Grandpa.”
My hesitation was an immediate confirmation for her that, once again, she hadn’t spent an entire night and morning away from home worrying about nothing. This hadn’t been the time or place I’d hoped to have this discussion. Actually, I’d hoped we would never have to have this discussion at all. She never would have known about my parents’ meaningless offer, as long as we never had to see them again.
I quickly realized that probably wouldn’t have gone over well, come Thanksgiving, Christmas, and her birthday.
“I wasn’t gonna mention any of this to you—I didn’t want you to be upset.” She waited patiently for me to continue, tapping her brand new sparkling nails on her knees as the hum of the highway filled the silence. I sighed heavily, wishing I could change the subject as easily as Ryan Drisi. “Grandma and Grandpa want us to go live with them.”
Her reaction was surprisingly non-existent, like she’d somehow known exactly what was coming before I’d said a word. “We’re not going to. Are we?”
“No.” I bit my lip. “Unless you want to—”
“No. I don’t. And neither do you.” Moving in with my parents would mean complete relocation—a new neighborhood, a new school, and no more Stephanie Parker. No more job I loved almost as much as Caroline, unless I wanted to make a forty-five minute commute there and back five days a week (I didn’t). Relocation would mean no more Starbucks. No more IM SORRY straws. No more catching up with Ryan Drisi. “Why’d he ask you if he knew you were gonna say no?”
A good question, I had to admit. “He didn’t even ask. He said they thought it would be ‘wise’ if we came to live with them. I honestly don’t think I know what that means.” He made it sound like we were upsetting the delicate balance of the universe by surviving on our own. Unless I’d missed something, we weren’t doing anything wrong.
“They think you can’t take care of me, don’t they.” She wouldn’t look at me—just down at her fingernails. I started unintentionally slipping into the next lane, and without using my turn signal, too. Where did that come from?
“Where did that come from?” She hadn’t been there during our creative discussion. She’d been with her new best friend, getting her hair and nails done by all the women stuffed into that house. She couldn’t possibly be smart enough to know why my parents were being stubborn and unfair and completely out of line. “Caroline, you know I can take care of you. I’ve been taking care of you since you were born.”
“Well, obviously.” She folded her arms across her chest, sinking lower in her seat. There was something else coming, something underneath the surface that she hadn’t wanted to mention—just like I hadn’t wanted to mention this. It would take time, but it would rise to the surface eventually.
I waited, but it didn’t come.
The soccer stadium wasn’t crowded. Actually, it was the exact opposite, making me think that Ryan Drisi had given me the wrong time for the game. I took the directions from Caroline, and looked at the note he’d scribbled in the top left hand corner: six o’clock, free parking, free admission. When I stepped up to the counter to buy a water bottle for Caroline, I understood why everything else was free.
We sat down on the bleachers, the side of the team we were apparently rooting for, and greeted the other spectators with smiles and polite introductions. There weren’t very many of them—eight, if you counted the adorable little baby sleeping in a stroller and the toddler who wouldn’t stop sticking his hands in his mouth, despite his mother’s scolding.
“Which one is your husband again?” She asked, handing her son a plastic train to occupy him. It went straight into his mouth. I was speechless for a second, a little caught off-guard.
“Oh. He isn’t—I’m just here to watch.”
“Mom, I’m freezing.” I turned to look at Caroline, who was shivering so hard I could feel the metal bleachers shaking beneath me. I slid out of my coat, suddenly regretting that I’d changed out of my sweatshirt as I handed it to her. She seemed satisfied enough, gulping down the rest of her expensive bottled water greedily.
“Michelle!” I looked over in the direction of the all too familiar voice. Ryan was coming toward me, looking as content as could be in his shorts and high school soccer T-shirt. I could feel the eyes of the other spectators on me, which made my heart beat a little faster than normal. I met him halfway, ignoring Caroline’s questioning gaze as I got up off of the bleachers and walked steadily toward him. No heels today; thank goodness. “I hoped you wouldn’t get lost.”
“I didn’t.”
“I can see that.” He looked past me to where Caroline was sitting. I turned around to watch her smile and wave back, then turned back toward Ryan. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, scratching the back of his neck almost nervously. “Do you think you could hold onto this? Just until the game’s over?” He slid his wedding ring off of his finger and held it out to me. I let him drop it into my hand, closing my fingers tightly around it.
“Of course,” I said, not sure what else I was supposed to say in response.
“I just—” He cleared his throat. “I don’t want anything to happen to it.”
“That’s understandable. I’ll keep it safe.” He nodded, standing there for a moment as if he wasn’t ready to leave my side. I could still feel all those women watching us, as well as Caroline, the adorable baby, and the toddler who liked to chew on things. Finally he closed the conversation, hearing a whistle.
“I’ll see you when the game’s over,” he said, turning away and rushing back toward his teammates. I stood there for a second, mouthing the “good luck” that I hadn’t quite gotten a chance to wish him out loud. Was that bad luck, not to wish someone good luck?
“I’m not buying you another water,” I said as I sat down next to Caroline.
She ignored my statement completely. “What did Mr. Drisi want?”
“Oh.” I squeezed my hand into a tighter fist, making sure the ring was still there. If anything happened to it, I would never forgive myself—just as I would never forgive myself if I let anything happen to Caroline. Unless he’d given it to me knowing I wouldn’t be able to keep track of it throughout the course of the game, he would never forgive me, either. I held Ryan Drisi’s marriage to his wife in the palm of my hand.
“He just wanted me to hold this.” I held my hand out to her, opening my fingers and revealing the treasure underneath them. Her eyes widened.
“Wow.” She looked up at me, not blinking. “He must really like you.”
“Caroline—”
“I mean it, Mom.” She gave me one of her serious looks, the one she’d learned from Nicholas. It meant she held her own valuables in between her fingers, information she hadn’t been prepared to release to the public until now. All background noise faded. “He was the lunch monitor the other day. Someone was asking him about his ring, and he started telling us about it. He never takes it off.”
“But he just did.”
“That’s why I said, ‘Wow, he must really—’”
“Caroline, stop it.” She closed her mouth, knowing she’d gone too far this time. The other spectators didn’t appear to be paying attention to us, and most of them were sitting too far away to be able to hear what we were saying anyway. The game had already started, but I wasn’t watching. “Leave it alone, okay? It isn’t like that, and you know it.”
“Whatever you say.” I rolled my eyes and turned to watch the game, slipping the ring onto one of my fingers so I didn’t have to keep my hand balled into a fist the whole time. I watched Ryan Drisi closely, taking in a sharp breath as he stumbled and fell during a mad dash for the goal. He stood, brushed himself off, and continued playing.
The games I’d seen him play in all throughout high school weren’t anything like what we were watching now. Those games back then were rough. People got kicked and stepped on and slammed into goal posts—intentionally and not. Those games were about skill, the most valuable players, and maintaining a reasonable win-loss ratio throughout the season. Back then, he’d brought the varsity team all the way to state three consecutive years in a row; they won twice. The time they didn’t, I’d been in the middle of a road trip with my parents.
The game we were watching now had a different sort of feel to it. Ryan Drisi was playing alongside and against other male specimens around the same age, as well as much younger and much, much older. They ran around with smiles on their faces—not I’m-going-to-beat-you-no-matter-what-it-takes smiles, but let’s-just-have-fun-tonight smiles. Every goal scored came with a clap. I quickly realized that no one was really rooting for any team in particular, just the individual they’d come to see play.
The first time Ryan Drisi scored a goal, Caroline and I clapped politely. The second time he scored, I clapped a little harder. The ring barely shook on my tiny ring finger, making me instantly forget that it was even there at all. When he scored his third goal of the night, I found myself cheering right along with everyone else. He just smiled, letting the praise slide right off his skin like he couldn’t even hear it.
I finally sent Caroline off for two more water bottles after that goal, feeling my wallet somehow shrinking as I tried clearing my dry throat. Both the baby and the toddler were asleep now, giving their mothers free will to talk amongst themselves. They were wearing sweatshirts and wrinkled jeans like I’d been before, making me feel a little too overdressed for the occasion. I mentally shook it off and continued watching the game.
“Number twenty-three must’ve played in high school, or college, or something,” one of the women ventured, sounding overly impressed. It wasn’t my fault; they were sitting right behind me, and I didn’t have anyone to talk to. “I know I say that every week, but that’s got to be the case. I mean, look at him run.”
“I wouldn’t know. Chris only started playing in this league about two years ago. How long has Drisi been at it?”
“Who knows. He definitely seems to know what he’s doing.” Ryan Drisi was going for his fourth goal, dodging the defense and looking for an open shot. I screamed, telling him to kick it even if he couldn’t hear me. He sent the ball straight for the goal, and looked only slightly disappointed when it bounced off the goal post. “Oh, that was close.”
“He could’ve made that one.”
“Honestly—” The adorable once-sleeping baby in the stroller next to her began stirring, making little fussing noises as she went on. Apparently, her kid wasn’t as important as the opinion she was about to spit out. I kept my eyes on Caroline’s teacher, never tearing my gaze away. “I can’t believe he’s still playing. I mean, after his wife and all.”
What?
“What happened with his wife?” She sounded even more curious than me—sad, and she didn’t even know him like I did. I wanted to turn around, to stop pretending that I wasn’t listening in on their conversation. I wanted this information so badly, I was willing to do anything to get my hands on it—even if it meant exposing myself as a practicing Eavesdropper. I could handle that, as long as I finally knew.
“Oh, you didn’t hear.” Now they both sounded sad, like they were the ones who’d known him that year, when everything between us was right and wrong and everything in between. But they weren’t the ones who’d come here for him, who were holding the ring he never took off, who were hoping he would just score another goal already! “It’s so sad—”
The once-adorable, no-longer-sleeping baby screamed particularly loudly in my ear.
All chances of me ever finding out the one secret I didn’t already know about Ryan Drisi were now lost. The woman with the baby disappeared, gone to nurture her beloved child as any mother would gladly do. Caroline came back with the matching water bottles, a bag of chili cheese Fritos, and no change. I tried so hard to hide my disappointment that my head started to hurt; I pressed the water bottle against my forehead and sighed.
“What’s wrong?” My daughter asked as she turned toward me, her mouth full of Fritos.
“Babies. Screaming. Pain.” I leaned my head on her shoulder in mock defeat.
“It’s okay. The game’s almost over.”
But that was the problem—I didn’t want the game to be over. I hadn’t gotten to see Ryan Drisi play soccer in almost a decade. I didn’t want to drive forty-five minutes back home in the dark, with Caroline talking my ear off and no food until we got home. I wanted to tell him congratulations on his goals, and thank him for inviting us. Who really cared if I would never be able to solve this mystery?
Well, I did. But whatever.
The game ended; his team won by a single goal. He and his teammates high-fived and chest-bumped and man-hugged, all the minor celebrations of victory that I’d never been able to understand, not even way back in my third life. Caroline complained that she was still cold, even while wearing my coat that appeared oversized on her tiny body. We waited at the bleachers for the individual we’d come to watch, who smiled as he came toward us.
“Evening, ladies.” He had his jacket tied around his waist and his bag slung over his shoulder, an extra soccer ball sticking out of the top where the zipper was broken and the fabric had torn. He smelled like sweat and victory, like he always had at this point in the whole post-game process. “Well? What’d you think?”
“Great.”
“Amazing.” I looked up at him, smiling like an idiot and letting my hair fall disobediently into my face. “I can’t believe you scored three goals.”
“Chris scored four,” he reminded me.
“Sure,” I voiced my hesitant agreement while chewing mercilessly on the inside of my lip. “I mean, it doesn’t matter that one of those was a penalty shot.”
“Right.” He looked downward, his facial expression shifting. “You okay, Caroline?”
I looked down at my daughter, leaning against me with her eyes closed as we stood in a threesome away from the minimal crowd. Her eyelids rose slowly.
“I’m fine,” she assured him. “Just tired. Steph and I didn’t sleep much.”
“Come on,” he urged, beginning to lead us in a different direction from which we had come. I never left someplace through a different door than I came in, unless the entrances and exits were clearly marked, signs and all. It was just one of those quirks I’d never been able to shake, not even after shedding Nicholas. “We might be able to beat the rush, if we hurry.”
We followed him through a maze of stragglers, people stopping every now and then to talk to someone they knew. I saw the woman with the no-longer-adorable baby, her husband’s arm wrapped affectionately around her shoulders as they talked to another couple I didn’t recognize. We hurried down a dark hallway and slipped out a pair of double doors, walking straight into a sharp downpour.
“Where are you parked?” He had to scream over the sound of the rain slamming against the pavement. Caroline mumbled something meant for me to hear, but I couldn’t.
“I don’t know—somewhere?” Goosebumps rose above my soaking wet forearms, giving me away. He untied his jacket from around his waist and handed it to me as he looked around for a moment, then leaned in close so I could hear what he was saying without him having to yell.
“Stay here. I’ll go get my car, and then we’ll figure out where you parked.” He ran off, disappearing behind the sheets of rain soaking through our clothes. I tried the door behind us, hoping we would at least be able to stand with something over our heads until he came around with his Mustang. It was locked, making my heart sink.
I felt bad about getting the seats of his car almost as soaked as we were as we climbed inside. I let Caroline climb into my lap to save time, and thus began the search for my missing-in-action car. It was raining so hard that we could barely see much of anything at all, but we eventually found it sitting alone on the other side of the stadium. He pulled into the space next to it and tried smoothing his dripping hair out of his eyes. All he did was make it stick straight up, which brought a smile to my face.
“You can follow me, so you don’t have to worry about having your face in your directions while you try to get through this thing,” he said as I rested my hand on the handle of the door. Caroline was leaning against my chest, half asleep. I shook her a little with my free hand so she would wake up. “Be careful, okay? I’ll see you at home.”
I knew what he meant, but I couldn’t shake his mistake from my mind as Caroline and I climbed into our own car and began following Ryan Drisi and his Mustang as closely as possible. The two of us didn’t utter a word on the horrendous drive home so that I could concentrate on following his taillights, except for when we were still in the parking lot and Caroline asked me to turn up the heater.
The tension in my shoulders finally dissolved as we pulled into the parking lot behind our apartment building. He stuck his thumbs in the air and nodded with a smile on his face, waving and mouthing a polite goodbye. I slung my purse over my shoulder, dropped my keys inside of it, and followed Caroline to the door across the pavement.
It was so dark and still raining so hard that I didn’t see the tree branch that the rain had knocked down while we were gone. I tripped over it, landing on my knees and unintentionally dumping the contents of my purse out onto the pavement. There were IM SORRY straws everywhere, drowning in the rain. Caroline started to bend down to help me pick everything up, but I shook my head.
“Take the keys and go on in, okay? I’ll be right there.” She picked the keys up off of the soaking wet ground and did as she was told, disappearing inside and leaving me out in the rain to clean up my mess. After a few seconds of picking up the straws, wrappers dripping, I felt a familiar presence beside me, and looked to my right.
“I know these are important to you,” he said, dropping a handful into my now upright purse. His hair was sticking to his forehead, reminding me of all those games I’d sat through in the pouring rain, hiding underneath my oversized umbrella. He’d never even noticed me sitting there until we were friends.
“Thanks.” We gathered up the last of the straws and miscellaneous items and stood simultaneously, raindrops dripping from the end of his nose. The rain began letting up as he walked me to the awning above the door that led inside, making sure I didn’t trip over the fallen branch again. He knew me too well.
“I’m really glad you agreed to come,” he said, moving to stuff his hands into his pockets before he remembered he didn’t have any, other than the tiny zipped-up one on the side of his shorts for his keys.
“It’s no problem. It was fun. I mean, until this last part.”
“Mrs. Bennett?” I couldn’t identify the voice as it bounced off the side of the worn brick building, until Steph Parker came around the corner carrying a pink and white umbrella. She was wearing a pale pink raincoat and matching rain boots. When she saw me, she smiled and rushed toward where we were standing. “I’ve been calling all afternoon. Is Caroline inside?”
“She just went in. Go on up.” She thanked me and squeezed between us, closing her umbrella and disappearing on the other side of the door. Ryan Drisi and I stood there for a moment, looking down at our feet. I began fidgeting with my zipper; my head snapped up suddenly. “Your jacket.” I began peeling it off slowly, getting tangled and confused about halfway through the process. It had been a long day.
“Here, let me help.” I didn’t really want his help—I was a big girl, old enough to be able to figure out how to take off a jacket without getting stuck. But I let him help me anyway, because I was tired and hungry and wet (like the no-longer-adorable baby, only I wasn’t screaming). I dropped my purse onto the concrete, thankful that it landed right side up, and let him attempt to untangle me. He moved his hands slowly down my arms as he separated the sleeves of his coat from my skin. When I was free, I turned to face him.
“Thanks. I owe you.” I didn’t really mean the last part. It was just one of those automatic responses, something you said whenever you couldn’t think of anything more clever. Even still, the words seemed to spark something deep within him. When he looked down at me, I shivered. He dropped his jacket on the ground next to my purse and placed his warm hands on my arms to make the goosebumps go away, and we were all of a sudden so close that our damp noses were almost touching. I tried to tell myself I didn’t want this, that I couldn’t have this—
The door next to us burst open, almost slamming into Ryan Drisi’s right shoulder. A blur of pale pink ran past, the door slamming behind her.
“Thanks, Mrs. Bennett!” She called over her shoulder, hugging something tightly against her as she went. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”
We watched her go, disappearing around the corner from which she had appeared. We listened for more sounds—the water dripping from the trees once the floodgates had closed; cars moving slowly down the slippery dark roads. Neither of us wanted to be the first to speak, or the first to move, or the first to end this. But it had to be one of us, and I somehow knew that it wasn’t going to be him.
“I—I should probably get inside. You know, just to make sure Caroline hasn’t fallen asleep on the floor again or anything.” I bent down and picked up my purse, gripping it tightly in my hands as I tried to narrow my gaze away from his eyes. I knew that this was the only way we could do things right—there were no alternatives.
“Again?” I picked up his jacket, too, and handed it to him without our hands actually touching.
“Goodnight, Mr. Drisi.” I flashed him a warm, friendly smile as I pulled open the door and slipped inside. My shoes squeaked on the stairs, and on the carpet in the hallway as I made my way to our apartment. The door was sitting wide open, light spilling out into the darkness like my straws onto the pavement. I approached slowly. “Caroline?” I poked my head in and saw her standing in the middle of the room, her back to me. She was still. I entered slowly, a little more than worried. “Caroline?”
“Hm?” She whirled around at the sound of my voice, startled. “Sorry. I was just thinking.”
“Are you okay?” I asked, not entirely sure I wanted to know the answer to that question. My stomach growled, making me sigh in temporary frustration. She nodded and sat down at the counter, looking even more exhausted than I felt. “Okay. If you’re sure.” I set my purse down on the counter and went on the hunt for a late evening meal. “What did Steph want?”
“She left some stuff here last night that she needed for a project she’s working on.” She yawned, stifling it only slightly with the sleeve of my jacket. “She’s always working on some kind of project. It’s really inspiring.” She lay her head down on the countertop and closed her eyes, sighing sleepily.
“She’s working on another project?” I found a box of the kind of macaroni and cheese that I hated, the kind you add water to and pour the powdered cheese on top of after it sits in the microwave. I pulled out the last two packages and the two glass bowls in the cabinet, laying it all out next to the sink. “Does that girl ever take a break? All I ever see her doing is homework.” I honestly couldn’t remember ever having that much homework in high school, not even during my senior year.
“And what’s so terrible about that?” I stopped mid noodle dump and looked over my shoulder at Caroline, who had slid off of her stool and was now glaring at me, her face looking even redder than before. “You do realize that Steph is the only friend I’ve ever had, don’t you? And I’ve never met anybody who likes the same stuff I do, and it really means a lot to me.” There were tears glistening in her eyes. “I hate Easy Mac!”
She turned and stormed out of the kitchen, into her room, and slammed the door before clicking the light on. I bit my lip, turning back to the instant macaroni and cheese and thinking hard about my priorities. I dropped what I was doing, floated into the bathroom, and tried to soothe all my confusion with a shower hot enough to burn the top layer of skin right off of my body. I emerged in my robe and slippers, opened the door to Caroline’s bedroom, and looked inside. She was fast asleep underneath her covers, letting everything melt away into darkness as I shut the door again.
As I floated back into the kitchen, still hungry but not really sure I wanted macaroni and cheese anymore, I heard a ping from inside my purse. I dug through a plethora of IM SORRY straws until I found my phone, laying flat at the bottom of the bag. I flipped it open, almost not believing what I saw.
DINNER & MOVIE TMRW? 6.00? AS FRIENDS?? IM OFF WORK.
It wasn’t the text itself that made my mouth run dry, nor was it the invitation the sender had extended toward me, daring to venture out onto a limb that could potentially snap under his weight. It was the sender himself, a name popping up on the screen that I hadn’t communicated with in this way for over nine years. Cell phones weren’t as common back then, bigger and a whole lot less efficient than they were now. But some things hadn’t changed, including Ryan Drisi’s number. I texted back right away, not even trying to hide the smile on my face.
CU@6. U PICK DINNER & ILL PICK MOVIE.
I felt silly, sitting there at the counter and waiting for him to text back. It was like we were in high school again, barely sleeping some nights because we didn’t want the conversations to stop. My parents were always poking their heads into my bedroom at midnight, telling me to get off the phone and go to sleep. I rarely ever listened, sneaking downstairs to the finished basement and basking in the slap happiness as we talked about nothing and everything for hours on end.
I told myself this was dangerous, letting the joy swirl around my insides like glitter in the air. These feelings were supposed to be stuffed away; I’d left them in my box of Ryan Drisi treasures and sealed the lid with duct tape. I felt like a little girl again, giddy and obsessive over a crush who shared my interests. Except Ryan Drisi had never been just a crush, not during times that mattered. I knew it was wrong to wait for a response, counting the seconds.
And yet, when my phone made that ping noise again, I flipped it open immediately.
>24 HOURS :)
I sat there for a long time, staring at the words. Why had he kept my number in the first place? He’d purposely let me fade out of his life that summer—why hadn’t he made it permanent? Somehow, I knew I couldn’t just let this conversation die where it stood. If we were ever going to tie up these loose ends, we couldn’t just pretend like they didn’t exist.
DONT BOTHER COUNTING THE MINUTES…
I was daydreaming now, running pieces of Life Number Three through my mind almost too quickly for my emotions to keep up. Those three years I’d spent wishing Ryan Drisi would notice me were the easy part. It was during our year-long friendship, as the dreams of us together solidified into realistic, outlined plans, that were the hardest. How is someone supposed to refrain from confessing their love to someone they care about without dreaming about the moment he would say it first?
Y NOT? He wanted to know. I smiled.
B/C THATS MY JOB.
And that was how it went, until we fell asleep.

As soon as she came through the door, I knew I’d been wrong.
Patty Hogan, Angela Hogan’s mother, had called at eleven o’clock in the morning asking if Caroline wanted to come over and play. I’d accepted without a second thought, scribbling down their address and telling them I’d drop her off within the half hour. As soon as I hung up the phone, I burst into Caroline’s room without knocking. She was still sound asleep where I’d left her the night before.
“Care, wake up! You have a play date!” I shook her awake and ignored her moaning and groaning as I rushed around the room, pulling a pair of jeans and T-shirt out of two separate drawers and laying them out at her feet. When she refused to get up, I pulled the covers off one by one and tickled her feet with the end of her favorite pen. “Wake up, sleepyhead!”
She didn’t want to go. She complained about already having plans with Stephanie Parker, and saw it fit to remind me that canceling plans with someone because you decided to make plans with someone else instead was rude. But I wouldn’t have it—after all, this was the first time she’d ever gotten invited over to play with someone relatively close to her age. She could do geometry with Steph another time.
She pulled on more layers than necessary before we left and leaned her head back against the seat during our drive to the Hogans’ home (which, I was happy to note, was surprisingly close to the street where Ryan Drisi, his wife, and Nattie the golden retriever Wonder Dog lived). Patty offered to drop Caroline off at five o’clock—an offer that I graciously accepted before climbing back into the car and heading home.
I was dressed in a pair of jeans like the ones I’d worn on Friday night, only grey. My sandals matched my tank top, which I’d thrown a thin black sweater over just before Caroline walked in. I started to ask her how her play date went, until I looked up from my phone and let it slam against the counter, having slipped easily from my grip.
“Caroline.” I rushed to her side, kneeling and swallowing the wad of mixed emotions that was preventing me from breathing properly. I gazed into her face, frozen with fear and anxiety and twenty different kinds of despair. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
I reached out with my hands and grasped her shoulders as gently as I could, quickly realizing that it was to steady her. She didn’t answer me, but instead leaned into me and stayed there, her burning forehead resting against my chest. Suddenly I was holding her in my arms, shaking harder than I ever had before.
“Caroline!”
She still didn’t answer me, and panic numbed every nere in my trembling body.
When the person you love the most isn’t functioning the way she’s supposed to function and after you carry her into her room and take off her shoes and everything else that’s making her sweat abnormally there’s a five second period of time in which everything stops and even then you still can’t think straight and the next thing you know you’re dialing the number of the best doctor in training you ever knew and begging him to come figure out what’s wrong with the person you love the most in the whole entire world and trying not to cry and all of a sudden he’s bursting through the door of your apartment and you’re pointing to her room and you don’t even care that he didn’t bother to knock because all you care about is everything getting back to normal because you can’t take any more of this insanity.
And as I sat there on the couch, my back facing the door, I realized that I didn’t even know what normal was anymore. All my plans, all my routines and outlines and familiarities, were falling apart. And even worse was knowing that I couldn’t put them back together again, not even if I tried. This Life was being shaken, turned inside out and upside down, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
All five times that this had happened before, I’d been strong enough to declare the beginning of a new era.
This time, all I could do was sit.
As my ex-husband tended to his daughter in a way only he knew how to go about successfully, I waited, my hands folded neatly in my lap. I called Steph Parker and told her I didn’t need to babysit tonight, or tomorrow. In fact, I told her, I would call as soon as I needed her to come over again.
I waited impatiently for him to ask me for help. I could get him anything and everything he needed—towels, water, whatever. I wanted more than anything to be able to assist in the healing process, or at least to be able to walk into my daughter’s room and determine for myself whether or not everything was going to be okay.
But he didn’t ask. So I just continued sitting. And that was all I could do.
“She’s gonna be okay.” I turned my head slowly in the direction of his voice, still waiting for the numbness in my fingertips to go away. He dropped his things by the door and came toward me slowly, his eyes tired and his face pale. He wouldn’t look at me, as if the result of last time we’d talked was still in effect. I didn’t really blame him; I felt the same way.
“I’m glad,” I said gently, because I was. I could feel the relief starting to thaw out my fingers, though the chaos I still hadn’t recovered from was still making my head hurt. He reached the edge of the couch and leaned against it, looking down in my general direction and sighing his usual heavy, impatient sigh.
“It’s just your basic flu—high fever, chills, etcetera. I gave her medicine and put a cold rag on her forehead to cool her down.” Now he wasn’t even telling me these things as the father of my daughter, but as a doctor with credentials and all the basic medical knowledge that I would never learn. “You should check her temperature every hour on the hour—starting at seven—and give her medicine every four hours. Make sure she keeps fluids and food in her. If there are any problems, just call me.”
I knew how to take care of my own kid; I’d just panicked. But I didn’t even have the energy to say either of those things out loud. I just sat there for a few seconds, staring at him through my equally tired eyes. Something told me I shouldn’t just sit there staring like an idiot—so I stood up and prepared to walk my ex-husband to the door, just across the room.
“Thank you so much,” I said, because that’s the kind of thing you’re supposed to say when someone steps in and saves the night. I knew he wouldn’t utter a word in return, or a phrase that reflected his willingness to squeeze into our world for a half hour and graciously help the helpless. I found myself stepping forward and hugging him, an attempt at a peace offering that I knew would never stick. To my surprise, his hands left his pockets.
He hugged me back.
I’m not sure how long we stood there, stuck in a hug we weren’t quite sure how to break. I wanted him to know that I was grateful. I wanted him to know how much his coming to our rescue meant to me. I wanted him to know that, if anything had dared to take her away from me, we would still grieve together.
He held onto me as I tried to pull away from him. His grip on my shoulders was firm, yet gentle and affectionate somehow. In that moment, all the anger we’d been harboring toward each other melted away. He kissed me, and I let him. I even kissed him back, because I wanted to remember back to the times when we were happy and he was honest and the only tears I cried sparkled with joy.
We were young and fell in love slowly. We were married and our lives moved quickly. Time went on, and we were happy. And then we weren’t, all of a sudden. I stood in the living room and cried and begged him to tell me why—why was he never as happy as he used to be? He thrust all the blame on me, and had the nerve to try and convince Caroline that I was the one at fault, not him. She came to me for answers, and I gave them to her straight. She didn’t talk to him for three days, but I couldn’t stay silent.
And in remembering all of this—what I’d worked so hard to tuck away in places where it wouldn’t hurt, not even a little—I separated myself from him and started to walk away, toward the only thing in this apartment that I loved. He grabbed for my hand and barely touched the tips of my burning fingers.
“Michelle.”
“Just go away, Nicholas.” I could feel myself falling apart, the pieces crashing to the floor where he could see them. I’d told myself that I would never let anything like this occur between us. I’d promised myself that I would never seek his assistance, no matter how dire and/or dangerous the situation became. And here we were, kissing in my apartment. My apartment, one of many places in my life where he didn’t belong.
“Caroline wrote me a letter.” I stopped in front of the closed door leading to my daughter’s bedroom, turning to stare at him like I had all those nights I’d tried so hard to understand him, but couldn’t. He pulled something out of his pants pocket, a folded envelope with pink stationary sticking out of the top. “It didn’t get to my mail box until Friday morning. That was why I had to cancel. I needed time to think.” He held it out to me.
I shook my head. “That’s between you and your daughter. It’s not any of my business.” I reached for the doorknob. He wouldn’t accept that answer.
“I know I hurt you, Michelle. I’ve always known I hurt you.” I shook my head in disgust, wishing I wouldn’t have to hear this. But if I went any further, I realized, Caroline would wake up. I couldn’t do that to her—not this time. “She talked about you. Half of the letter was just her telling me how much she resents me for destroying you.”
“You did not destroy me.” I moved away from the bedroom so she wouldn’t hear us from the other side, into the kitchen and toward the half empty refrigerator. “Does it look like I’m destroyed? For your information, I’m doing better now than I ever was when I was with you.” I thought that he would go away then, leaving me to bask in the cool air radiating from the open door of the fridge.
“She says you never cry.” His voice was authoritative, controlling and hard. I stood with my back to him and stared at the carton of orange juice next to the milk. I would not respond to the accusations that I could happily confirm weren’t true. There was no way Caroline could have written that, even out of anger and confusion and maybe even a pinch of leftover hatred. “You can’t never cry. That’s what’s destroying you.”
“You know what, Nicholas?” I slammed the refrigerator door, jars rattling as I did so. I’d thought that we could get through this night without fighting, that our mutual daughter’s sickness would somehow make us forget all of the bad things that had happened. But I couldn’t pretend that everything between us was okay, especially when it wasn’t. “I really don’t care what Caroline wrote. What goes on when you’re not around is none. Of your. Business.” I crossed my arms.
“I want you to forgive me.” He looked desperate enough to make me want to gag. I’d never thought I would hear those words from him again. Having them pierce my eardrums in that moment opened up a string of wounds I hadn’t even known were still there. “No. Michelle—I need you to forgive me.”
“Oh, did your girlfriend dump you already?” I stood there with my arms folded across my chest, suddenly no longer wishing we could get along—glad that all these opportunities were swirling around our heads, easy to grab. “Can you just get out of my apartment, please?” And yet, I was so, so tired.
“Michelle, I think—”
“Don’t you dare.” We’d been apart long enough, but he was a hard specimen to forget. When he had his mind made up, there was only one way to stop him before he got on a roll. “You hurt me. And you know what else? You hurt Caroline, too. But I guess you already knew that.” He didn’t say anything, both to my surprise and satisfactory relief. “If you think I would ever be stupid enough to give you a second chance, then you don’t deserve one.”
“Please.” He grabbed my left hand with both of his, desperate for someone he still trusted to listen to what he had to say. Then he stopped, looking down at the hand he held in his, and the ring wrapped around the wrong finger. Or the right one, depending on how you were willing to look at the situation. “Well, I guess you’ve already moved on. So, never mind.”
Oh, no. “Nicholas, it’s—”
“I’ll see you on Friday. No. You know what? Why don’t you just have Caroline stand out on the corner? I’ll pick her up there.” He pulled his coat and bag up off of the floor with one hand and reached for the doorknob with the other. Thrusting the door open, he suddenly stared Ryan Drisi right in the face. He glanced at the items in his hand, muttered a meaningless “Congratulations,” and stormed off. I just stood there, silent.
“I um. I heard yelling—so I didn’t knock.” He looked back in the direction in which Nicholas Archer II had gone. He only had his head turned for a second, but it gave me just enough time to slip his wedding ring off of my finger and grasp it tightly in the palm of my hand. I wouldn’t dare let him find out how natural it had felt resting there, and slipping it on and of accordingly throughout the day. He turned back around. “Was that—?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” I said quickly. I looked down at his hands. “What’s with the box?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, honestly.
“Oh. This?” He held up the only box he was holding, trying to hide a mischievous grin. He wasn’t very good at doing that. “It’s a surprise. For you.” He walked over to the counter, opened the box, and dumped out its contents. They spilled out in a heap, making me gasp inwardly. Every kind of store-bought candy ever invented stared up at me, sharing his boyish smile. “I couldn’t remember your favorite. So I bought one pack of everything I could find.”
I hadn’t eaten candy since—“You bought me chocolate.”
“Not just chocolate.” He began sifting through the pile, naming off trademark candies as he came to them. “There’s Skittles, and Twizzlers, and that pixie sugar stuff—”
“You bought me candy.” He looked up at me, like he couldn’t figure out what was so wrong with this fact. After all, my purse was almost big enough that we could have snuck most of it into the theatre with us. Could have. I just shook my head in protest, migrating to the other side of the kitchen again. There weren’t many places to run in this tiny enclosed space. “You can have it. I—I don’t want it.”
He looked taken aback. “But I—”
“Just take it back to your wife. She’ll love it.” I stood at the sink with my back to him for a moment, my shoulders tense and my heart pounding. I’d had enough sense to call off Stephanie Parker, but I hadn’t remembered to call him? I turned back around, slowly, and folded my arms gently across my chest. Leaning against the counter, I sighed. “You can’t be here, Ryan. Caroline’s sick—I can’t go to the movie with you. Or dinner. I—I can’t go out with you. Ever.” I held out my hand. “Here. Here’s your stupid ring back.”
He took it from me and nodded, pressing his lips together and bowing his head slightly as he slid the ring back onto the correct finger. He carefully gathered all of the candy back into the box and closed it, turning to walk toward the door once he was finished. A few baby steps later, he turned back around. He hesitated or a moment, like he was afraid that whatever he was about to say would only make things worse than they already were. “Are you—?” He looked at me, blinking rapidly, looking puzzled. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I spun around, yanked open a drawer next to my hip, and pulled out a rag. I wet it under the faucet and began wiping down the now empty countertop—both to avoid looking into Ryan Drisi’s hypnotizing hazel eyes and to wash away the lingering presence of my ex-husband. I was determined to scrub until I could see my reflection.
“No, you’re not.” It amazed me how all the men in my life thought they knew everything about me, when in reality they knew virtually nothing about anything at all. I moved the rag in circles on one particular spot, a random one I’d picked in order to make the time go by faster; only one more hour until I needed to check Caroline’s temperature. I watched him out of the corner of my eye. He set the overstuffed box of candy down on a stool, reached across the counter, and grabbed my wrist. I didn’t look up. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Michelle.” He held on a little tighter, squeezing a little harder, his fingers closing around my forearm.
“Nothing’s wrong with me, okay? I’m fine. We’re fine. Everything is fine!” I freed my wrist from his grip, turned around, and took one step toward the sink. I dropped the rag into the emptiness and stood there silently. I gripped the edge so hard that my fingertips started going numb again, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything anymore.
We stood there for a long time, unmoving. I heard him pick up the box and sit down on top of the stool he’d put it on before; I knew he wouldn’t leave until he knew. Maybe this was wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t tell him what was eating away at my sanity. After all, he was the one keeping secrets about him and his wife from me—his wife, who he was still officially married to, if that was her title. Maybe we were getting too close, too personal with one another. Maybe this was one of those friendships that could get us both in deep trouble.
Maybe that was the case. But I still didn’t care.
“He cheated on me.” I didn’t turn around. Standing there, staring at the shimmering faucet? That was the easy part. I couldn’t make out much of my reflection, distorted and small and stretched far beyond its limits. He didn’t move, not one bit. “It was with a med intern. She was pretty and brilliant and everything he always wanted.”
I sniffled, but the tears didn’t come. I couldn’t even let a single one slide down my cheek. Once I started, I would never be able to stop. And breaking promises was the worst crime I’d ever committed, the only sin I’d ever flaunted that I couldn’t control. All the lists were pointless. I couldn’t do this anymore, hurt like heck and start over again only to be disappointed further down the road—again and again and again.
“I was so clueless. I mean, I really had no idea, not even any suspicions.” I shook my head, just as ashamed now as I’d been the night she showed up at the front door. “She didn’t even know he was married. She showed up and tried to apologize and she was so nice—” I had to stop; I had to stop this now. I dragged myself to the other side of the counter and sat in the stool at the opposite end of the counter as his, staring at my damp hands.
I couldn’t figure out why I was telling him this. It wasn’t any of his business, no matter how many secrets we’d told each other in the past. He didn’t care about my life—why should he? He was supposed to be teaching my daughter how to expand her horizons and better herself as both an individual and a young member of society. It wasn’t part of his job description to teach me to handle my devastating losses.
I sat there on top of that stool completely stunned. It was at that very moment that I understood why I’d been so wrong to try and shake secrets out of him without his permission. It wasn’t my business whether he and his wife were together or not, or whether they were splitting up or working things out or even if she was still around—no matter how many things I’d told him when we were still in high school, I had no right to ask. Why should I care about his personal life? He was my daughter’s teacher, and any connection we had other than that had been lost a long time ago. Wherever it had gone, it wasn’t coming back. This was why keeping every single life separate, past and present, worked.
“I still loved him. I—I really thought things were gonna be okay. I really did.” And that was the last thing I said regarding Nicholas Archer II. I could see that he was struggling internally with something much more complicated than I could ever hope to fathom, and backed off immediately. “I’m sorry. You didn’t need to hear all that.”
“I’m sorry, too.” He stood up, gripping the box tightly in his hands as he headed straight for the door. It wasn’t an apology; he had nothing to apologize for. He was sorry for what had happened to me, for what would happen to me in the future, and for how I was carrying myself now. But maybe, I thought, he was sorry for something else, too.
At the last possible second, having already found the doorknob, twisted it, and opened the door just wide enough for him to slip out—probably, most likely, for good—he turned back around, reached out with his long arms, and slid the box full of candy onto the surface of the counter. He waited, hesitant.
“I’m gonna need that book back.” I nodded without saying a word, an I’ll-have-Caroline-bring-it-to-you-as-soon-as-possible nod. He still stood there in the doorway, unmoving, like he was waiting for me to actually say something. But I was done wasting my time with him, done letting all those memories flood in and done thinking (stupidly) that I could possibly still have him after all these years. I wasn’t about to become the “other woman” who showed up at the Drisi household to ever so innocently say she was sorry, and mean it. Ryan Drisi stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked right at me, one last time. “Bye, Michelle.”
All I did was wave. It was small, and barely noticeable, but it was good enough for him. He turned and slipped out of the apartment, pulling the door shut gently behind him. I sat there just long enough for him to be able to walk down the hallway, descend the stairs, and get halfway to his car. I rushed after him, hoping I’d timed everything right. But he was driving away as I burst out into the evening, too focused on hitting buttons on his radio to notice that I was even there.
I went back inside, back up the stairs and back into the apartment. I went into Caroline’s room, where the lamp beside her was still dimly lit and she was still soundly sleeping. I sat down on the edge of her bed, flipping the rag over so that the cold side was touching her warm forehead. I went over to the other side of the room, where our rocking chair sat, and climbed into it with a heart much too heavy to bear comfortably. Caroline had her Beanie Babies over her head to keep watch over her. And so I closed my eyes, forgot all the rules and promises and goals I’d ever bothered to make, and let myself cry.
It wasn’t a soft, gentle, quiet cry, either; there was wailing and bucketloads of snot involved. And once I let loose, there wasn’t any way for me to stop. All the tears I’d held in since June were free to spill from my eyelids and slide nonstop down my face. Everything was wrong. Everything was blurry. And the one person I wanted to talk to the most was laying on her back, completely unaware of my presence.
I still hadn’t stopped crying by the time I decided I couldn’t handle this alone. I went in a half blind search for my phone, scrolled through my address book, and clicked the call button. When he answered, sounding a disastrous combination of surprised, panicked, and even a little bit amused, I started crying even harder. This, of course, immediately added “worry” to the list of combined emotions in his soothing voice.
“Daddy.” I couldn’t stop; I couldn’t. “I need you.”
And within the hour, he was there.

“Do you remember when you caught pneumonia, and the doctors kept you out of school for two weeks?”

We were sitting at the counter, him directly across from me. My hands were warm, curled around one of two mugs he’d grabbed on his way scrambling out the door to come to my rescue. Somehow he’d known that I wouldn’t have coffee either, and most of it was in the coffee pot we’d found hidden in the back of one of the cabinets in the kitchen, in our cups, and in our bloodstreams.

“I think you were eight. It must’ve been the third grade, then.” He brought the mug to his lips and gulped. I’d never understood how anyone could do anything more than sip hot coffee, let alone gulp it down like chocolate milk. I sipped mine daintily, though it was more out of habit then actually to taste something warm on my tongue.

“It was,” I said with a smile, my eyes wide open. “I remember because I was so angry, Mom had to give me Benadryl to shut me up. I missed our class field trip to the science museum and the book fair.” It was almost four o’clock in the morning now—almost time for me to try and stick a thermometer in Caroline’s ear without waking her up like I had the past three times I’d tried to perform the act successfully.

“But I came home from work that day with a bag from Barnes and Noble, remember? Your mother tried to convince you that all that was in there was a bunch of textbooks for the new semester at the community college, but you wouldn’t have it. I must’ve bought you fifteen books that day.” He took another big gulp of hot coffee, satisfied.

“I remember that!” And then I laughed—one of those tired, small laughs, but it was still a display of my happiness. Him being here was what had turned my entire day around. Knowing that it was true—that no matter what I said or did, he would still love me just the same—warmed my heart in a way that not even a mug of coffee could do. “You had to help me do all my make-up work because Mom was the one who had to take care of me all day, every day.”

“But she was happy to do it.” I pursed my lips and stared down into my almost empty cup, thinking about nothing and everything all at once. Nattie the golden retriever ran across my mind, happily panting and rolling onto her back for a belly rub. I quickly and effectively shooed her away, shifting slightly in my seat. “She still loves you, you know.”

“Nattie?” I wouldn’t believe that in a million years.

His eyes widened. “No. I was talking about your mother.”

“Oh. Sorry.” I brought the lukewarm mug to my lips again to fill the empty space in conversation. I couldn’t take silence anymore, or the unbearable feeling that I was the only one living here anymore. I glanced at the clock; four more minutes. “Did you tell her why I called? I mean, she knows where you went, doesn’t she?”

“We were just getting back from the airport when the phone rang.” He lifted his mug to gulp down more coffee, but stopped about halfway to his mouth and set it down again. He started fidgeting with the zipper on his jacket, twisting it one way as far as it would go and then the other way, repeating the process several times over before he set his hands down on the countertop and looked at me. “I haven’t told her about what you said.”

“What’d I say?” Two minutes, ten seconds. I couldn’t really remember.

“You said you and Caroline didn’t want to come live with us.” He spoke these words casually, as if they didn’t really matter to him much at all. I watched him gulp down the rest of the coffee in his mug, tipping his head back and making it all disappear. He got up to pour himself more, and then sat back down again. “It’s all right with me. Your mother’s the one who insisted I come over here and propose the idea.”

“But—” I watched him gulp down more coffee like a madman. This was all starting to come out at the wrong time, with less than a minute until I had to check Caroline’s temperature and a million and two questions rising to the surface. “You sounded like you agreed with her when you said you thought we couldn’t take care of ourselves.”

He hesitated, setting the coffee mug down gently; slowly. “Your mother—” He scratched the top of his head, scrunching his nose and thinking too hard for someone too stubborn to retire and too full of life to sleep past six in the morning. “Let’s not talk about this now, okay? We were getting along so well.”

“I know we were.” And it was a good thing to know. All of a sudden, I forgot all about the strict schedule my ex-husband had put us on. I forgot about everything for the time being, and took in the moment with an unbreakable smile on my face. “Everything’s been different since Nicholas and I split up. Especially between us.” I shoved the coffee away, wanting to get out what was rolling off my tongue before the moment was lost. “It got weird after you gave me the money. I—I always felt like you wanted something from me, after that.”

“But I did want something from you, Shelly.” The way he looked at me, the way the childhood nickname I’d shed after my second life floated from his lips like he’d been waiting for just the right moment to set it free, made me tear up all over again. I’d lost count of how many hours it had been since I’d finally stopped sobbing on his shoulder. We hadn’t really said anything; he’d just held me. “I wanted you to let me hold you. And it was worth the wait.” I could see tears glistening in his eyes, enhanced by the dim light over the kitchen counter.

“Dad—”

“It was almost like you became a completely different person after your divorce.” I didn’t want to say anything, not even to tell him that he was right—I had changed, and it wasn’t fair to him. More tears began making their way down my cheeks, suddenly making me remember Caroline again. “We’ve really missed you. And Caroline.”

“Speaking of Caroline.” I hated to end this perfect moment, to crush any hopes my father had been holding close to his heart of repairing every broken thing that Nicholas had caused in our relationship. But sometimes, those things could wait—even for just a little longer. I stood up. “It’s time for her medicine.”

“No—let me do it.” He left his mug on the counter as he stood up and began heading toward Caroline’s bedroom. I started to protest, to tell him that I would gladly take care of her until it was time for me to go to work. He just shook his head, waving me off with the back of his hand. “It’s what I’m here for, Michelle. Get used to it.”

I smiled, grabbing my mug and holding it close. “Her temperature—”

“I know. I’ll let you know if anything’s changed.”

I carried what remained of my coffee over to the couch and sat down. I hadn’t even bothered to pull the bed back out since I’d cleaned up for Ryan Drisi’s arrival the day before, while Caroline was having the worst play date of her entire life across town. My father and I had gotten so caught up in the holding and crying and reminiscing that time had slipped away quickly enough that I hadn’t even noticed I was even tired—until now.

I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and checked to see if I had any new messages, just to keep me awake a little longer; nothing. I slid it back into the tiny pocket of my jeans, leaning back against the pillows and closing my eyes, pictures of Ryan Drisi’s face as he’d said goodbye instantly filling my head. I snapped them back open, gulping down the rest of my coffee and going back to the coffee pot to get more. Sleeping, apparently, was not an option.

Sinking back into the couch, listening in case there was gentle conversation in the bedroom and hearing nothing, I reached toward the coffee table and picked up Not Expecting Much, remembering that Ryan Drisi had asked for it back. I was almost surprised that I’d found it so easily. Ever since Caroline had finished her paper, it had been moved from the counter to the coffee table, to her backpack and back onto the counter, etcetera. It had even spent a good day on top of the refrigerator, though I still wasn’t sure how exactly it had gotten up there—or if I even wanted to know at all.

I stared at it for a long time, not really sure what I’d do with it. It was just something to hold so that both of my hands were occupied—coffee in one hand, mysterious reading material in the other. I had just started reading the first page (looking closer at the cover, something about the beautiful blurred face underneath the block letters of the title intrigued me more than I knew was possible) when my father came back into the room. He grabbed his coffee cup from on top of the counter where he’d left it and sat down on the next cushion over.

“How’s the patient?” I asked, closing the book and setting it down to rest in my lap. He took another large sip of coffee, swallowing unnoticeably somehow before he answered me. His tone was light and casual, his expression content and comforting. Calling him, I realized, had been the best idea I’d ever had in this life. Throwing him out of my apartment on Friday night had been the worst thing I could have done.

“She’s just fine, Shell. There’s nothing you need to worry about.” I glared his way as he continued downing his coffee. He looked into my eyes and instantly realized the mistake of his nonchalant attitude, clearing his throat to pave over the quiet hovering about the room. “Her temperature was one hundred point four. I re-wetted the rag and put it back on her forehead. She stirred a little bit, but I sat with her until she fell back asleep.”

“Thank you.” I finished off the last of the coffee in my mug and set it down empty on the coffee table. My father got up, asking me if I wanted any more. “Oh, no. If I drink any more I’ll never sleep again.” I stared down at the cover of the book in my lap until he came back. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what exactly it was about it that was grabbing my attention so intensely. But I had to know…

“What are you reading?” I looked up.

“Oh. Nothing. It’s just, um—Caroline’s teacher gave her an assignment at the beginning of the year, just to challenge her, you know?” He didn’t respond; he just waited. “Well, part of the assignment was to read this book. I haven’t actually started it yet, technically. I think it’s about death.” I handed it over. He read the summary on the back, a sin.

“Sounds interesting,” he commented, flipping the book back over to the front cover. I should have known that putting a book in the hands of an English professor could only lead to trouble. “Would you mind if I took a quick read through it? It should only take me an afternoon or so. And if I’m just sitting in with Caroline—”

“Go ahead.” I’d been planning to read it, too, both while I had nothing else to do and so I could get it back to Ryan Drisi as soon as possible. But really, who had time to read anything anymore? I hadn’t sat down and read a book since early into the Nicholas era. Not for fun, anyway. “Just don’t dog ear the corners of the pages. He hates that.”

“Who hates that?” Oops.

“Um. Caroline’s teacher. He warned her not to do that when he let her borrow it. I’m pretty sure it’s his pet peeve.” Either that, or his wife had gladly taken over that role.

“Wait a second.” He had that thoughtful look on his face, the one he always got whenever he put two and two together to solve a mystery. Though, I would admit, you could hardly call this a mystery. “Isn’t Drisi Caroline’s teacher? That is why she kept calling him Mr. Drisi all night, isn’t it? Shelly—” I’d hoped with all my heart that we would never, ever have this conversation. The second Ryan Drisi’s name came up, my father was going to start implying that he thought he knew what was going on without me having to tell him. He looked at me a little too intensely. “What’s going on between you and Drisi?”

He was trying to be friendly, like my mother back when she’d first dared to ask about my growing relationship with my high school’s star soccer player. But like back then—when all I’d interpreted from her continuous questions was that she was trying to pry into my personal business when it really wasn’t her place—that was so not how he was coming off.

“Nothing’s going on. He’s Caroline’s teacher.”

“Then why did he show up here the other night?” Realization struck his expression, making my stomach churn. “He was planning on taking you to dinner, wasn’t he? Oh, now I feel bad for ruining your night.”

Now you apologize. Almost. “I promise you, nothing is going on between me and Ryan Drisi. We were friends once, a long time ago, but we aren’t friends anymore. He’s Caroline’s teacher. That’s all he is and all he will ever be to me.” And I left it at that, looking down at my hands and admiring the sudden length of my fingernails. They’d grown out without my noticing, since I’d stopped chewing on them during intense moments of concentration and silence.

“That’s a shame.” He opened to the first page of the book and started reading. He replaced his coffee addiction with the intrigue of the novel for the time being, his focus narrowed to one tangible thing at a time, as it usually was. “He’s a very bright young man. You two were close.” So had the two of them been, especially after Ryan Drisi brought me back from the lake in one piece. But I didn’t find it very fit to mention that, at that point.

He began reading as I leaned back against the couch cushions and closed my eyes. There were no dreams this time,, no pictures of old friends or old friends’ obedient pets. I woke up on my own at seven o’clock, and got ready for work slower than I ever had before. When I set two bowls, a carton of milk, and a box of Frosted Cheerios out on the counter, he was still reading on the couch. I went to check on Caroline, and then came back.

“Dad?” He looked up from the page, seeming a little disoriented. The only time he ever found himself completely lost in a story was when it was, by his exceptionally high standards, a good one. “Do you want breakfast? It’s on the table.”

He temporarily abandoned the book and came to the counter to eat breakfast with me. I hadn’t gone to the store; we had no other breakfast food. He didn’t appear to enjoy the taste of the cheerios piled into his bowl very much. But I could tell that he didn’t mind sitting with his only daughter. After a few minutes, I cleared my throat.

“I have to leave in fifteen minutes. Caroline needs her medicine at ten and two, but she can’t take it without food. When she wakes up, make her toast with butter and no crust—there’s just enough bread left in the bag for breakfast and lunch. I’ll be home no later than five, okay?” He finished chewing his mouthful of cereal and nodded slowly.

“And as soon as you get home, I’ll go out and get us some real food for dinner. How does that sound?” He wasn’t jabbing at my sides with the end of a stick. The usual meals consumed at the McArthur household did not include milk and cereal or macaroni and cheese that came in a box with step-by-step instructions.

“Dad…” I dumped my dishes into the sink and sat back down across from him. I pressed my lips together, not at all ready for what this day would surely thrust mercilessly upon my shoulders. “You don’t have to stay here. After I get home, you can go back to Mom, and the two of you can have a nice dinner together and—”

“I called her this morning, Shelly.” He swirled his spoon around the rest of the cereal in his bowl, drowning it in the milk. “She says she would much rather me stay here until Caroline is well enough to go back to school, or at least until the weekend. She doesn’t want me driving back and forth so much.” He hesitated; I hoped she would be feeling better by then. “She also told me to tell you that she’s sorry Caroline isn’t feeling well. She hopes you won’t stress yourself out too much, taking care of her and working and all that.”

“Not possible.” I gathered all of my things together as quickly as I could, checking my phone one last time and slipping it into my coat pocket on my way out the door. I felt more relaxed and carefree somehow, opting to walk to Starbucks and then to work from there. But that was how things always seemed to be when transitioning (slowly) from one life to the next. I stepped up to the counter and looked “Taylor” straight in the eye. “Vanilla latte, please.”

“Let’s play the question game.” I looked up from my computer and eyed Caroline, wrapped I a blanket and standing in the middle of the room. It looked like she’d tried to fix her hair, with little success. She pulled a stool around to the other side of the counter and sat down directly across from me. “You start.”

“What bizarre shift in the globe’s atmosphere has driven you to decide we’re gonna play this game?” I was in the middle of typing up one of Mr. Hensley’s many business proposals. This time, he wanted to buy out another company for more money than I would ever see at once—at least, in this lifetime. She folded her hands neatly on the counter top, grinning.

“Because asking you straight questions never works. You always think there’s a bigger question underneath all the little ones.” She thought for a moment. “Do you wanna go over the rules, or should I?”

“I will.” I saved the document I’d been working so hard on and shut down my computer, pushing it (along with all of my papers and file folders and things) gently aside. A thought struck me. “If both of us already know the rules, then why do we have to keep going over them every time we play?”

“I’m not sure.” She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Time limit?”

“Unlimited. Question limit?”

“Unlimited. One legal pass, or two?”

“One. It’s more fun that way. Limitations?”

“No question is illegal and has to be answered if you’ve already used your pass. Your answer has to be more than one word and can’t be a circular answer. I’ll start?”

“It was your idea. Your question?”

“Why are there a bunch of Starbucks straws stuffed into your purse?”

No matter how many times she proposed we play this game—and no matter how many times I agreed to play it with her—I always got asked the tough questions. She was smart enough (of course) to figure out a way to make sure I had to answer them. Unless, of course, it was the very first one. “Pass.”

“Fine. You lose a turn.” She was silent, closing her eyes and pressing her fingers lightly against her temples. Without fail, she was always the one who walked away from the question game victorious. She opened her eyes and dropped her hands, smiling. “What did you and Mr. Drisi talk about the other night?”

Aha! “Disappointment and heartache. How did you know Mr. Drisi was here the other night if you were sleeping?”

“I heard you and Dad yelling in the kitchen, and when he left I heard Mr. Drisi come in. It’s all a blur after that.” She rested her head in her hands, her signature thinking pose. “Did Dad tell you about the letter?”

I pressed my lips tightly together, wishing I didn’t have to remember anything more about the night that had changed everything all over again. “Yes, he told me about the letter.” I looked down at her, noticing the uncertain look that flashed across her face. “Why did you write him a letter, Caroline?”

“Because there were a million things I never got to say. And after what happened with me and his girlfriend, I just felt like he needed to hear it all.” She wasn’t ready to ask another question. She shifted uneasily in her chair, not sure if she really wanted to go further. “You guys got divorced, and we moved out, and that was it. Whenever I saw him, we just always tried to make things like they used to be.” She blinked. “Is that why he canceled last weekend, because of the letter?”

“I think so,” I said, nodding. I had so much more work to do, and so little time to get it all done. Mr. and Mrs. Hensley were holding back-to-back meetings in the morning; they were counting on me. But these moments with my daughter were so much more precious and important than getting a good night sleep. “How did you know I never cry?”

She didn’t answer this question in her own words—technically not a violation of any stated or unwritten rules of the game. Instead, she came around to my side of the counter, sorted quickly through my organized mess of papers and folders and things, pulled out my overused planner, and flipped to the inside cover. She pointed with her index finger to the first thing on the list: “Do not cry. Ever” was written in neat, tiny letters on the top line. She looked at me, looking a little bit more than sad. “Why?”

I’d known that was coming. But even so, I still wasn’t prepared. Maybe part of me had hoped that her mind’s focus would shift, that she would lose interest and come up with a completely unrelated query. But this was Caroline Scarlett Archer the first. She didn’t let a topic drop until she either had all the answers she wanted or you told her with words that you didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

There was only one way that I could get her to drop it at this point. Honestly, I would have much rather talked about Ryan Drisi than talk about the rules I’d been stupid enough to write down for Life Number Six. I sighed heavily, looking down at her with a look that she could only interpret one way. “Pass.”

“Yes! Victory!” She leapt from her chair and did a victory dance, waving her arms and moving her head from side to side. It was a variation of the dance she always performed when this game was over, with a few additional gestures added in here and there. After spinning around and losing her blanket, she stumbled and held onto the edge of the counter for support. “Ow.” She rubbed the side of her head, gazing at me warily as she did so. “That was a bad idea.”

I chuckled, sliding off of my stool and bending down to retrieve her fuzzy purple blanket from its temporary place in a pile on the floor. “Maybe you should go lay down until Grandpa comes back with dinner. Watch the Discovery Channel or something.” She’d loved watching the Discovery Channel during the Nicholas era, when days were spent surrounded by walls and air conditioning and nice things.

“Good idea.” I draped the blanket back over her shoulders as she headed toward the television we rarely ever watched and began a search for the remote. It was an older TV—one my parents had gladly given to us as we were leaving to come back home after our week-long stay with them last month. While she began watching, I went back to my bucketloads of work. Before I could get very far, the door swung open.

“Dinner is served.” My father floated confidently into the room, carrying a stack of Styrofoam restaurant containers. He set them on the counter top and took off his coat. As soon as he hung it on the hook next to the door, he started talking. “You’re gonna love the steak. The baked potato might be a little much, though, so you and Caroline can split it.”

“Caroline, are you eating with me?” I waited for a response, but all I heard was the announcer on the commercial that was playing on TV. “Caroline?” I went to the couch, where I found her propped up against the matching couch pillows, sound asleep. I went back to the counter. “We can save it for later.”

I ate quickly, barely tasting the potentially delicious food I was shoving into my mouth. I didn’t have time for all of these unnecessary interruptions and breaks. I wasn’t ever going to get everything done before the meetings tomorrow. I’d been moving back-and-forth all week between restoring routine to our lives and making a brand-new list. For now, I was trying to bring things back to the way they were supposed to be. A recovering Caroline and my father’s presence were making that very difficult.

“The service at the restaurant was excellent. I barely had to wait fifteen minutes for my food, which was even better than the service.” I finished my baked potato half and flashed him a polite smile. He didn’t quite get the whole concept of nodding as a signal to keep talking. “I should take you and Caroline there the next time I come to visit. What do you think?”

“That sounds fine.” I dumped my garbage into the trash can and put the leftover food into the refrigerator, all while half-listening to him marvel abut a place I’d never been, and most likely a place I would never be able to afford to eat at in the first place. He kept talking as I started typing again; this time it was an assignment from Mrs. Hensley’s list.

He sat there for awhile, not saying a word. The sound of the Discovery Channel and my vigorous typing filled the room; I knew he was watching me. I tried to pretend like I was concentrating, like I didn’t notice my father’s careful eyes zeroed in on every move I made. But I did the same, glancing his way every now and then. I wished I could read his mind to figure out what it was he wanted to say. He was holding back again, like he always did. Whatever he had to say would surely shake the foundation I’d just started rebuilding.

“You need to read this,” he said, pulling Not Expecting Much from his pocket and sliding it across the glossy countertop. I reached out with my right hand and caught it just before it sailed over the edge. I set it down next to my laptop.

“I will, eventually.” I figured that would be enough to keep him off my back about the whole thing. I had a hard time understanding the sudden necessity to read a book by an author I hadn’t ever heard of before if I didn’t have to. And I didn’t have to. “I have a lot of work to do right now. Maybe I’ll read it this weekend, or next weekend.”

“You’re gonna have to trust me with this one, Michelle.” I looked up, my fingers still glued to the keys of my computer. He sounded serious enough to make me lose my train of thought—if I was ever going to be able to sleep again, it would be a miracle. His expression made me catch my breath, silently. “I’m not suggesting it. I’m insisting.”

“It’s just a book, Dad.” But I wasn’t completely sure that even I was willing to believe that anymore. He had been known for making recommendations from time to time, having plenty of free time on his hands and spending money on books like they were expensive groceries. But never in the many years that I’d known him had he ever insisted that I read something he had enjoyed. I looked at him and his head bow of disappointment. “I’ll get to it. I promise.”

He didn’t nod or thank me, or even acknowledge that I’d made a promise, for that matter. He was a man of promises, never breaking them and always managing to keep the ones he made to himself. I’d never been good at learning from him, at least in the ways of promise-keeping. People that made and kept them were forever on his good side. Those who made and broke them could never be forgiven.

I went back to my work when he didn’t say anything, putting all of my concentration back into my current task. I would be a hero for getting all of this done on time, after wasting an entire weekend skipping happily around with a former friend from a past life and taking care of Caroline. If I finished everything on these lists before the morning, it was more than likely that I would have a completely relaxing weekend—no cares; no worries.

“So tell me about this new job of yours.” I tried very hard to hide my feelings of sudden resentment for insisting he stay one more night and head out in the morning. I knew what he wanted out of this—to repair the moments of silence in which he had most likely thought I wasn’t paying any sort of attention to him. “This is the first job you’ve had since Caroline was born, isn’t it?”

I bit down hard on the words that wanted so desperately to come out. “No. I worked at a café for a year and a half twice a week and weekends during the evenings so I could spend time with her during the day and not have to get a babysitter when Nicholas was home.” I hesitated. “I was a hostess. I was the one who had to tell people how long they were going to have to wait for an empty table.” Quitting had been the best day of my life during the hard months, the last few before Life Number Five came to an end.

“What do you do now?” I gave up trying to do anything productive at that point, sighing internally.

“I’m an administrative assistant. My bosses give me lists of things to file and organize and do, and I do them.” And that was all I wanted to say about the job that no one could ever make me quit. I typed up the last few sentences of the letter and hit the save button with an enthusiastic click, gladly moving on to the next task without a word.

“Whatever happened to journalism?” I looked up and forgot to hold back the “hm?” that trickled through my lips. I wished there was a class I could take—a way to figure out how to interpret where exactly a conversation would twist and turn and morph into something completely different before it actually got there. I never seemed to know peoples’ subtle intentions, not until it was too late. “You were the editor of your high school newspaper. All you talked about for months was how much you wanted to be a journalist.”

“I was co-editor,” I corrected confidently, as if this made any sort of difference whatsoever. “It just—I wasn’t really cut out for it. It wasn’t a very practical dream, you know?” I wouldn’t dare tell him the real reason that I hadn’t applied for any internships. Being a journalist just didn’t fit into the plan anymore, once I knew Nicholas and I were going to spend the rest of our lives together. At least, that’s what I’d thought at the time.

“That’s true, I suppose.” But it was obvious that he didn’t agree. After all, he’d spent more nights than most tucking me in and being sure to remind me that I could do whatever I set my mind to do, no matter what anyone else said. That’s what he’d told me at graduation, too, after Ryan Drisi had walked away. “I’m proud of you. You know that, don’t you?”

He’d said that, too. “I know.” I also knew that he couldn’t fathom the concept—why would someone spend so much time and energy and effort to major in something that they weren’t going to pursue a career in as soon as they got their degree? He’d always been able to pick out every student he taught that wasn’t going to follow through with their major, as well as the ones that would but wouldn’t go for a job in that field immediately following graduation. “I’m happy with the way things are. I want you to know that.”

He smiled warily. “I just don’t want you to feel like you’re taking too much on at once. It’s like when you started high school, remember? We had to pry you away from your books just so we could tell you to stop putting so much pressure on yourself. I don’t know what would’ve happened if we wouldn’t have.”

“This job makes me happy, Dad.” When I hadn’t fallen dangerously behind. “Besides, it makes me feel like I’m doing the right thing, letting Caroline push through all the work her teacher is giving her. If I just sat around and did nothing while she worked, I would feel like a terrible mother.”

“It’s a good thing you aren’t.” He smiled and rose from his place across from me, squeezing my shoulder as he left the room. I heard movement behind me, and turned around just in time to see the TV click off and a lump covered in purple fuzz rise from its place on the couch and move slowly in the direction of my daughter’s bedroom.

“Hey. You going to school tomorrow, or what?”

The fuzzy purple blob stopped moving and turned its fuzzy purple head to look in my general direction. Somehow, even with her face hidden underneath her favorite blanket, I knew that she was smiling. She continued her slow journey to her bedroom door and muttered something meant for me to hear before disappearing inside. “Pass.”

I smiled and went right back to my work, quickly losing track of time even as my father came back into the room with a book he’d borrowed from one of the shelves in Caroline’s bedroom. We sat on opposite sides of the room in complete silence for hours, forgetting about each other and allowing our minds to plunge deeply into the faraway depths of our own tasks. The clock kept ticking, but we forgot how to listen.

Finally, after he’d already dozed off and woken up again several times while I remained perched on top of my stool, typing away, he asked me if I was planning on getting any sleep tonight. I chewed on the inside of my bottom lip, trying desperately not to lose my concentration as I realized I hadn’t even bothered to stop for five minutes to tuck Caroline in, or make sure none of her Beanie Babies were slouching, or make coffee.

“Coffee,” I said, my fingers leaping eagerly across the keys. I didn’t bother looking up.

He walked up behind me and began reading over my shoulder, though he got bored quickly and immediately became my caffeine provider, much to my gratitude. “You know, it’s okay to take a break every once in awhile. The world won’t end if you don’t get this stuff done tonight.” He’d bought the coffee already ground; he poured it into the pot.

“Meh.” It was all I really had the energy to force out of my mouth—a groan of disagreement and exhaustion and a even a little bit of unlit frustration with how long all of this work was taking me. I forgot the microwave had a clock, and sat there wondering how long I’d been melting my brain until I looked up. “When does the sun come up?”

“When you should still be sleeping.” We’d had this conversation before, a long time ago, when I’d first taken an interest in science and the world and reality. That interest had faded fairly quickly, especially after I’d missed the third grade trip to the museum. With it had gone all memory of ever learning about the sun’s tight schedule.

He insisted on helping me get everything done faster so I wouldn’t fall asleep at work that fast-approaching morning. He read things off to me as I typed, just quickly enough for him to still be able to catch up and filed the messy written copies away in the appropriate folders. And by the time morning came, when Caroline came into the room looking more alive than she had all week, we were finishing up. My head hurt—but that was the price I would have to pay, I knew, to become an unrecognized hero.

“I wanna go to school,” she said, letting the fuzzy purple blanket still hanging around her shoulders fall to the floor. “If I don’t, I’ll never catch up.”

“Hey, now.” I handed my laptop over to my father, who began checking over my work with a careful eye. I stood up from my place on the couch, struggling to bend my knees as I began staggering slowly toward her. “Don’t worry about your make-up work just yet. Are you sure you don’t wanna stay home for one more day, just in case?”

“I don’t think I could stand to spend another day lying on the couch doing nothing. Even reading all day was starting to get kind of old. I’m gonna take a shower.” And off she went, leaving her blanket on the floor for me to pick up and stuff into the laundry hamper later. I went into the kitchen and let out a there’s-no-more –coffee-in-here moan.

“Don’t worry, Shell. You lost another good night’s sleep, but you’re all caught up.” He closed my laptop and set it down carefully on the coffee table before rising from his place atop the couch cushions and beginning to make his way toward me. “We should all go out for breakfast before I go. Something quick—McDonald’s, maybe, or—”

I slid the almost-empty box of Frosted Cheerios across the counter toward him, along with the milk and bowls and two rinsed-off spoons. My stomach growled, but there were only enough supplies for two people to eat that morning—I would have to grab something on the way, as long as it wouldn’t make me late. I went back to my laptop and began a third proofing run-through until it was my turn to make myself look presentable.

“Why don’t I take Caroline to school on my way out?” We were standing in front of the door, both Caroline and I feeling crowded and uneasy at the abnormal nature of how this morning was starting out. I was going to fall asleep standing up, if we didn’t hurry up and get out of here soon. “That way you can get to work early. A little less pressure.”

“Fine. Good.” I kissed Caroline lightly on the forehead and sent her on her way, frowning when my father held back, turning around in the doorway and staring down at me like I’d done something wrong. I waited for him to speak, for time to move faster so I could just get this day over with already.

A smile crept onto his face as he held onto the doorknob. “Thank you for having me,” he said.

“Thank you for coming.” Despite my desperate need to get to Starbucks and my intense burning desire to make this moment a quick goodbye, I slung my bag over my shoulder and fell into his affectionate embrace. I was so thankful for his help, and grateful for his selflessness. I couldn’t even form the right words; I was so happy. I pulled away, straightening my ponytail. I swallowed hard. “I—”

“No, Michelle. The only thing you owe me is more weekly phone calls.” And with that, he was gone, out the door and down the hall and into his car and away. There was nothing wrong with calling more often than we had been, giving him updates at important milestones in our lives. As long as he was the one who answered the phone.

By the time five o’clock rolled around, I was ready to sleep for a hundred years.

My scone and latte from Starbucks had still been sitting on top of my desk by the end of the workday, untouched, along with the lunch I’d purchased from the faculty cafeteria on the ground floor of the building. By the third straight meeting, I’d lost complete focus and interest in and on whatever was being discussed around me. I’d completed my necessary tasks for the day, and chose to daydream instead.

I’m not quite sure what I was thinking, stopping in at the coffee shop when I knew for a fact that Ryan Drisi would be there—uniform and old beat up dark green Mustang and all. I was cold, I wanted hot chocolate, and that was pretty much the only thing on my mind. After that would come warmth, and familiarity—and sleep. Glorious, fabulous sleep.

I waited patiently in line, my mind wandering to far off, uncharted lands. I thought about the way both Mr. and Mrs. Hensley had seemed pleased when I presented them with my promised stacks of files and electronic documents. They’d even been just grateful enough to thank me—a first, since I’d started working for them two long weeks ago. They’d given me some suggestions of things I could get ahead on over the long weekend, but nothing urgent. That meant that I didn’t have to feel guilty about the relaxation I so desperately needed.

I thought about my father, and how pleased he’d seemed when he had left that morning. I hadn’t seen him that happy since my wedding day, since he danced with me and whispered in my ear how thrilled he was that I had found someone who would be there to take care of me when he couldn’t. After the Nicholas era came to an end, that joy seemed to fade. But after all, so had my efforts to keep in frequent touch with both of my parents.

And then I thought about how much things had really changed since June, when our new lives had begun. I hadn’t ever stopped to think about it—not until that moment. I was on my own, not dependent on a set of parents or the security of a male romantic interest for the first time in my entire life. Having Caroline live this exciting, solely feminine life with me was what had gotten us through the summer.

Maybe, I decided, that was why things between Ryan Drisi and I hadn’t worked out. I mean, besides the fact that he was (possibly) married to another woman. It was clear, especially in that moment standing in line or order hot chocolate, that we weren’t meant to try and become friends again. We had lived separate lives for nearly a decade for a reason, and we’d done just fine without each other. Him buying me every single kind of candy currently known to man was borderline ridiculous. So was agreeing to let him take me to dinner, and to a movie. But I had to admit, I’d thoroughly enjoyed the indoor soccer game.

“Ma’am?” I looked up, staring at the face of a man I’d never seen before. He was standing behind the counter, very far away from me. “Are you ready to order?”

“Um.” And suddenly, I forgot why I’d come here in the first place. I was supposed to be home already, to greet Caroline when she came home from Steph’s house at quarter after five. I wasn’t even thirsty anymore, if that was what I’d come here to satisfy. Maybe I’d been secretly trying to catch a glimpse of Ryan Drisi, to see if the disappointment I’d caused him had left him scarred. I shook my head, deciding against all of it. “Never mind.”

I walked past the stranger, past the cash register and toward the door. I heard my name, quiet and close and curious, and spun around to see who wanted me. I slammed right into Ryan Drisi’s chest, probably because I’d been moving so fast and hadn’t given any warning as to when exactly I was planning on stopping to turn around. He reached out his arms and touched my shoulders to steady me.

“What’s the matter?” It bothered me, really, how everyone always had to assume that there was something wrong with me. Just because I wasn’t good at making up my mind as quickly as other people didn’t mean I was crazy. And even if it did, what was so wrong with being insane? Some of the most brilliant people in history lost their minds. “Michelle?”

“I want hot chocolate.” I moved to get away from him—away from the disaster that I was a thousand times more than sure was about to unfold in the middle of Starbucks. We’d left things in the wrong place, a place I didn’t want to go back to even if it meant delaying my arrival at home even further. Caroline could wait outside the door for a few minutes, no problem.

He wouldn’t let go of my arm. “You don’t want hot chocolate. Come on.”

I wanted to yell at him; he couldn’t tell me what I did and didn’t want, nor did he (nor would he ever) have any right to try and decide how things in my life were going to go. Never again was I going to let a man have any sort of control over what I did or the decisions that I made. Not even someone I may have possibly once loved in a past life.

But I just let him lead me out the door, and to my car, and I gave him my keys and let him drive me home. The extremely short drive was silent and dark, with eyes closed and mind far from the present. He walked me up to my apartment. We went inside. And the next thing I knew, I was staring at the ceiling, on top of overstuffed couch cushions. I heard the door of the apartment open and slam; my ears started ringing.

“I can not believe you made me go to school today.” I heard a thump, Caroline throwing down her back-breaking backpack. “Mr. Drisi?” He shushed her, silently yet firmly. I stopped trying to listen, and felt a gentle hand on my forehead; it was cold. “How long have you guys been here?” There was a pause; hesitation.

“Ten minutes?”

“Shoo. I don’t wanna have to deal with a substitute teacher on Tuesday. I hate substitute teachers.” A few quiet words were exchanged between teacher and all-knowing student; the door opened and closed, and it was the two of us alone like always. I wanted to be relieved for the lack of testosterone in the room, but forgot how to smile about all the things that made me happy. She draped a wet rag over my forehead, and stuck the digital thermometer in each ear. “Way to go. You caught the bug.”

“Not my fault,” I muttered with a sigh. We unfolded the pull-out couch and made it appear as comfortable as possible, though it could never be as comfortable to sleep on as it looked. I sat down, my head spinning. “Are you all ready for your dad to pick you up?”

“I’m gonna call him and tell him I need to stay here and take care of you. Where’s your cell phone?” I called her back before she could reach it, wherever it had gone. “What?”

“I’m a big girl.” She didn’t seem to understand how this had anything to do with her wanting to avoid a second weekend in a row spent with Nicholas Archer II. “Your dad misses you, and you need to spend the weekend with him like he and I agreed you would. I can take care of myself while you’re gone.” I coughed. “Just call him and make sure you know which side of the building he’s picking you up on before you leave.”

“If you’re sure.” She kissed me gently on the forehead and went to call my ex-husband. When I opened my eyes again, she was gone.

They say you can’t ever catch up on lost sleep.
But that night, I did.

I didn’t wake up until fourteen hours later, when the cell phone Caroline had left sitting on the counter the day before rang loud enough to wake up everyone in the building. It wasn’t my ringtone, though, telling me there was someone waiting to hear the sound of my voice. It was my text message ringer, the one I’d forgotten to turn off the night Ryan Drisi had texted me.

I slid out from under my blankets, slipping my arms into my fuzzy pink robe and my feet into the matching slippers. The walk from the couch to the counter was one of the longest, most unsteady walks I had ever taken. I picked up the phone, migrated back to the couch, and lay flat on my back as I flipped it open.

FEELING BETTER? –R

I smiled through my fever, writing back with over eager thumbs. It was eight o’clock in the morning, the time at which point I would usually start on my work for the day. I was determined to make up for lost time, though, sleeping on and off and maybe even getting to that book both Caroline and Todd McArthur had recommended. And texting, of course.

A LITTLE. THANKS 4 YESTERDAY!

Because who could really predict what would have happened if I hadn’t ran into him—literally—at Starbucks? I could have fried my brain and forgotten where I lived, who I was and where (if any place) I belonged. Of course, it was likely that I would have made it home just fine without help—but I would have had hot chocolate to balance. And he probably wouldn’t be texting me right now. He would probably still be giving me the silent treatment.

NO PROB. CAN I CALL U?

I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to his question. If I said “no,” wouldn’t that just provoke him to dial my number regardless? And if I said yes, that would mean he would actually call me. And I wasn’t sure if I was ready to talk to him in full sentences again—not after the last time we’d tried that. So I called him before he could mess anything up.

“You longed for my voice to soothe your ears?”

“Well, at least you aren’t mumbling to me in fragments.” I heard movement in the background; someone talking loudly to someone else, a probably-most-likely-not-very-adorable-baby crying for a hundred reasons and none, and excessive and unidentifiable beeping. I tried as hard as I could to drown out all sounds other than his voice.

“Shouldn’t you be working?” After all, when was he not? He let out a questionable “mmm” before the background noise shifted, the talking and crying and beeping disappearing almost immediately. There was a short moment of silence before a gust of wind drowned out what he was trying to say in response to my question. He tried again.

“I think I’ll take my break now. Besides, talking to you is more fun.” Another gust of air swirled around him, making me pull the phone a few inches away from the side of my head. I heard keys jingling, and a car door opening and closing. And then it was quiet again; he didn’t have to talk so loud in my ear. “You sound a little better this morning,” he commented.

“I feel a little better this morning.” I didn’t bother to note that we’d already had this conversation, sort of, only in text message form. Did repeating the same conversation topics in a pathetic span of less than ten minutes mean we would give up halfway through the dinner portion of a strictly friends, dinner/movie combination? “You didn’t have to check up on me. I can take care of myself most of the time, you know.” Extra emphasis on “most of the time.”

“I wasn’t ‘checking up on’ you. I was just making sure you didn’t need anything. That’s all.” I’d never known him to act like this before, so concerned and selfless and spotted with worries. “Besides, I know Caroline isn’t there to take care of you this weekend. And honestly, that scares me a little. Just a little.”

“Please don’t come over here,” I begged, suddenly fearing that to be his master plan. “Not unless you want Caroline to teach your class all next week. I’m not too sure if that would go over too well with the school board, though.” I put a hand over my forehead and lay my head back down on the pillows. I was going to fall asleep before this was all over. “Hey. How did you know Caroline isn’t here?”

“Her father picked her up here last night. He came in and ordered a coffee and a hot chocolate. She came in, they sat down and talked, and then they left. They drove away in the other direction.” He said all of this as if it were some sort of bizarre routine that he had the displeasure of witnessing over and over again on a tri weekly basis. For all I knew, he did. But—

“Wait. You don’t work on Fridays after…work.” Yesterday lacked a worthy explanation.

“I do when I’m not working any shifts on Labor Day.” He turned on the radio in his car, loud enough that I could almost make out what was playing but soft enough that I could still hear what he was saying. “I’m working all day today, pretty much. Nobody wants to spend their long weekend with their eyes glued to their schoolbooks. Nor should they.”

“Tell that to Caroline,” I said, remembering catching something during her short phone conversation with Nicholas Archer II the evening before about planning to spend all of today working on homework while he spent the day on his laptop. “So, you’ll be home all day on Monday?” Awkward. “I mean—maybe if I’m feeling okay by then, I could drop off your book. I mean, if you still want it back.”

“Maybe. Have you read it yet?” He was flipping through stations on his radio, or tracks on one of his ancient CDs. It was hard to tell which from over the phone. I closed my eyes, and then decided against the danger and opened them again.

“How’d you know I wanted to read it?” I began looking around the room for the book, sitting up slowly and eyeballing all of the various places it could have been, and had been known to be, hiding. I spotted it sitting on top of the counter, right where I’d been standing not fifteen minutes earlier. Go figure. “I mean, I probably will this weekend. I don’t have anything else to do.” A true statement, sadly.

“I just had a feeling you would.” I could tell he was smiling. You could always tell which facial expression he was wearing without looking at him, just by the tone of voice that he used when talking to you. When he was smiling, his words were sprinkled with a satisfactory glee even I couldn’t describe with real words. “Remember that time I got sick before the Homecoming dance, and you took care of me?”

As out of the blue as this reminiscence was, I couldn’t help but feel intensely drawn to the memory. It had been three days after Valentine’s Day, the day I had been waiting for ever since we’d decided we didn’t want to go to Turnabout in a group or by ourselves. He hadn’t asked me, and I never asked him. It was a casual conversation turned almost romantic, though I’d known that wasn’t what he was thinking.

He’d called me when I was already dressed in my floor length pink dress barn bargain, my hair already done and my makeup almost finished. I could feel my heart slowly breaking into tiny little pieces as he told me he wouldn’t be able to take me to the dance, that he was sick and had hoped it would subside before it was time to pick me up.

When he said he was going to try and find one of his soccer friends for me so I wouldn’t have to go alone, I told him I didn’t think that was a very good idea and hung up. I was walking through his front door less than fifteen minutes later, still dressed in my formal attire and missing an entire layer of mascara on one eye. I ignored his parents’ questioning stares and marched right down to the basement where I knew he would be, and stayed with him even after he’d fallen asleep watching Bambi.

It was so much better than a dance would have been.

“It was—it was Turnabout,” I corrected, snapping out of my trance and slipping quickly back into the present. I’d never thought he would ever remember that night like I’d known I always would. I lost count of how many times he said he was sorry that night; I wasn’t sorry, not one bit. My lips curled upward. “And yeah. I remember.”

The only thing I heard on the other end of the line was the song playing in the background. I stopped counting the seconds after ten, quickly drifting off into another dream-like sequence that I didn’t want to end. When he finally spoke, I could tell he wasn’t smiling anymore. While I’d been thinking about our past, he’d been thinking about something completely different. And it was a little bit more than likely that what he was going to say didn’t have anything to do with the out-of-the-blue remark he had made earlier. Or maybe, knowing my ability to interpret, it did.

“I want you to know something, Michelle.” I waited patiently for him to go on, my heart beginning to pound and my throat running drier than it had been before. I knew this would be something I wouldn’t have been able to predict even with semi-psychic powers, the real reason behind his call. I closed my eyes. “My wife would want us to be friends, okay? She would like you, if she knew you.”

“She could know me,” I argued, tired of every conversation we ever had seeming to circle back to mysterious Mrs. Drisi, “if you would just let me meet her.” I wanted to see this beautiful woman in person, to see if it was really worth thrusting my heart back into the game I’d promised myself I would never play again. Did she make him happy, like I had always dreamed would be my job? Did she take care of him when he wasn’t feeling well and try not to make fun of him when Bambi’s mother’s death brought tears to his eyes—just like I’d done? Was she really everything he had ever wanted, plus more?

I knew I’d gone too far even before the words came out of my mouth. But by the time realization hit me in the face with an overwhelming smack, they were already spoken. I wanted to apologize, remembering what had dawned on me last weekend—that it wasn’t any of my business, that it would be best if I kept my nose out of his personal life. But in my defense, my sickness made me forget that I had no right to ask if he was ever going to introduce a former almost love interest to a life long companion.

He hung up.

I got up to return the phone to its former place on the counter, dragging my slipper-protected feet and mentally kicking myself for every inch I moved forward. Maybe, I thought as I slammed the phone down on the countertop, I was jealous. Maybe the only reason I wanted to shake hands with Mrs. Drisi was so I could come home later and write up an entire list of noticeable flaws. Maybe he didn’t deserve her. Maybe he did.

I buried my head in my hands and groaned; the sound bounced off the walls and rattled my eardrums. Looking up, I remembered Not Expecting Much and, picking it up from on top of the counter, shuffled back to the couch. Not only did I suddenly long to remove all thoughts of Ryan Drisi and our conversation from my mind; I was also overly curious as to why everyone I knew was begging me to memorize the contents of this book.

I opened to the first page and started reading, my second attempt at this grand task. It started out just as I had expected that it would, an entertaining opening scene of the star couples’ very first encounter on an overly busy college campus. I didn’t like it at first; it seemed familiar and thus boring to me, despite the unique informal writing style and back-and-forth dialogue that actually managed to make me laugh a few times. It did its job, taking my mind off of both Ryan Drisi and my quickly fading sickness.

My curiosity kept me reading, making it a personal page-turner. I read, slept, and ate Frosted Cheerios out of the box until Caroline arrived home at six o’clock on Sunday evening, heavy backpack and all. It surprised me that the book had managed to draw me in like it had, since I hadn’t read a good book in over two years, if not more. The books I read aloud to Caroline at bedtime didn’t exactly count.

“You’re home early,” I said with a smile as she threw her bag down and sank into the couch next to me. I put the book down on the coffee table, estimating that there had to be at least thirty pages left—and that was all. I didn’t want to admit that I liked it. I didn’t want to admit that this mysterious author was slowly but truly becoming one of my favorites. I put an arm around Caroline’s shoulders, not wanting to admit that everyone who had told me I would love it had been right.

“Yeah.” She shifted uneasily on the cushion next to mine, then looked up at me with a nervous look clouding her beautiful face. “Dad’s outside. I, um—I told him you caught what I had, probably a weaker strain of the virus I caught, but whatever. He wanted to make sure you didn’t need anything before he and Carrie went out for dinner.”

“Carrie?” I repeated, my eyes widening.

“Yeah, his girlfriend, the one who told me the sun wouldn’t make my whole face peel.” She rolled her eyes at the memory and let the resentment drop almost immediately. “She’s okay though, I guess. She was only with us for a few hours, and all we did was sit around and talk about politics. I hate politics.” She leaned against me, closing her eyes.

“Me too,” I said with a smile, kissing the top of her head and hugging her tight. We lay back on the cushions, sighing simultaneously and laughing at the jinx. “At least tell me you got your homework done,” I said as I looked down at her with weary eyes. “I wanna stay up late tonight. Maybe we could watch that movie you were talking about last week. We could walk to the video rental place, and stop for hot chocolate on the way back—”

“Freeze.” I closed my mouth, already feeling disappointed. She glared at me the way I did toward her every now and again. “You’re just getting over the flu. You can’t go out. I’ll go.” She stood up, a confident and determined look on her face that only a push back down onto the couch cushions could wipe away immediately.

“You can’t go. Not by yourself.” We sat there in silence for a moment, until she nodded in understanding and sighed in equal disappointment.

“So what do we do? Do we have any DVDs in here?” She rose from her place and began searching, to no avail.

“They’re all at your dad’s,” I said, noticing the way her mouth twitched at the honest words that I spoke. She sat back down next to me and looked around, like she was really expecting to spot something on the counter that she’d never seen before in the four months we’d lived in this apartment. “You never answered my question.”

“Which question?” She was usually good at this.

“I asked you if you finished your homework.” I waited, staring into her bright blue eyes until she shook her head slowly. I could see the regret making its way onto her face, into her expression and toward her conscience. She never had homework left to do on Sunday night, even with a Monday off. “So what did you and your dad do all day yesterday?” Instead of the homework you were supposed to have done by now?

“We went to the museum first. It was cool I guess, but it was an interactive museum for kids—because he still thinks I’m a kid or something, I guess—so the whole cool factor wore off when we’d already looked at everything and kind of figured out that I wasn’t really learning anything like he’d hoped I would, or something. So we went to the zoo after that, and I actually learned some stuff I didn’t already know. Like, did you know that owls are the only birds that can see the color blue? I didn’t know that.” She grinned happily.

“I didn’t know that.” I pulled her close to me, forgetting about everything and wanting so much to spend a stress-free evening with the person I loved most in the whole entire world. She let out a terrified sounding gasp and tore away from my grip, despite my efforts to keep her in my arms. She was already halfway across the room before I managed to put an abrupt stop to her mad dash for the door. “Where are you going?”

“I was supposed to go back down and tell dad you don’t need him.” She reached for the doorknob, but I wasn’t about to let her get away that easily.

“Wait a second. Come back here a minute.” She came back to where I sat, looking like she regretted it. “You can call him in a minute. Sit down.” She did. And as she did, I suddenly found myself wondering where all of this emotion was coming from. Out of nowhere, I was suddenly terrified. “You know—you might just be the most brilliant person I’ve ever known. But—I mean, Caroline…you’re still a little girl, my little girl. It’s okay to be a kid every once in awhile. You know?”

She just stared at me for a long time, like I was completely insane—or something along those lines.

“Stop worrying about me, okay?” She wasn’t angry—not frustrated, annoyed or trying desperately to turn away from my compassionate gaze. I wanted more than anything to remind her that it was hard not to, that it was a mother’s job to long for the best for her daughter. But it was obvious, just by the way she stared back at me, that this fact was one of many things in this world that she already knew. “I know how to be a kid. I’m trying really hard to learn from them, like how to have fun at recess and talk about stuff that doesn’t really matter. But there’s a time and place for all that, you know?”

It took me until that very moment to realize just how much more than me she had already learned in so little time. That was why she always asked the tough questions, and why she chose to present them in a way in which she knew I couldn’t dare back down. She’d spent her first years studying me, watching my every move from behind her many books. She listened to and quickly processed every word I spoke. And as a result of all of these careful observations, Caroline Scarlett Archer knew me better than I would ever know myself.

“You know what? You’re right,” I said finally, still marveling at her wisdom. Maybe there really was a time and place for everything. Maybe that was why I only ever scolded Caroline when we were alone together in the car, or why, on the night the other woman showed up at my front door with a heart full of apologies, I’d waited until Nicholas got home to tell him he’d had a special visitor. I could have called him on the phone or marched into the hospital to begin a wanted search for his soon-to-be divorced body, interrupting his concentration and causing things to spiral in that much more chaos.
But for some reason, I’d waited. I’d known that his relationship with me no longer had a place in his life during his actual—as well as his supposed—work hours.

“I’ve been thinking about something,” she said suddenly, bringing me back to the present where I belonged. This was an unusual thing for her to say out loud, since she was almost always thinking about something and hated when people raised their hands in class and said, “Mr. Drisi, I have a question” after he’d already called on them. I just nodded. “Is most of our stuff still at Dad’s because you didn’t wanna have to think about him anymore?” I bowed my head and sighed. I’d hoped she would always keep these kinds of questions about my relationship with Nicholas to herself. She didn’t wait for my response, but chose to interpret my silence instead, the way she often did. “I knew it.”

“It was only an attempt, Caroline.” I didn’t want her to go through life thinking she could rid her memory of every bad relationship she ever had just by throwing out everything that reminded her of him. “I remember him everywhere I go. He bought me the car I drive everywhere. He sat in that rocking chair, the one in your room, every night to rock you to sleep.” I swallowed a lump in my throat, still trying to be brave. “I see him in you, and the way you’re always so determined to succeed. And I still have to trust him to take care of you every weekend.”

“That’s the part I don’t get.” She clasped her hands together and pursed her lips, what she always did whenever there was something sitting right in front of her nose that she couldn’t seem to figure out. “If you wanted to forget him, or at least forget how much he hurt you—which is understandable—why did you agree to let him take me away on the weekends? I mean, doesn’t that just make it harder for you?”

I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. This was the one question I had known she would ask before long. This was the question I’d thought about many times while I sat on the couch alone on Saturday nights in early July. I’d wondered why I did it, why I insisted on keeping the hurt lingering in the nearly unreachable depths of my heart. Maybe forgetting would have been easier if I’d kept her all to myself. Maybe starting over wouldn’t have felt so fake. But I had the answer ready—the right answer, the one I’d never spoken aloud.

“Just because somebody makes a mistake,” I said, grabbing one of her hands and squeezing it almost too tightly, “doesn’t mean he has a right to stop spending time with someone he really cares about.” She looked up at me, her eyes full of both wonder and understanding. “Just because he hurt me doesn’t mean he meant to hurt you, even if he did. Why would I take you away from him? He wouldn’t have anything else to live for.”

And as if he’d been listening to our entire conversation—from start to finish, plus all the intervals in between—my ex-husband knocked on the door of our apartment lightly, bringing the two of us quickly out of our lighthearted moment and reminding us that we’d left him hanging, though not on purpose. Caroline insisted on answering it, and I listened to her tell him that I was doing just fine.

Watching her work so vigorously on her truckloads of make-up work was even more fascinating than the end of Not Expecting Much, which managed to both bring me to tears and also to remind me why it was so easy to admire the people in this world that did nothing with their lives except give; never take. Not even when they couldn’t give anything anymore.

She started working after Nicholas bid her good night and left with sun-won’t-burn-you Carrie at his side and worked harder than I’d ever seen her until seven minutes after midnight, when she fell asleep on my laptop looking for Google images of pretty blue and purple butterflies to resize, print, and glue onto her nature poster. She insisted on completing a week’s worth of assignments in less than twenty-four hours, and wouldn’t even stop to eat a bowl of cereal until I offered to feed it to her without a complaint.

And even despite the late night she had, and how she’d woken up after I carried her into her room and started reciting everything she already knew about butterflies and caterpillars and pretty much every possible thing related for at least five or ten minutes, she was still up and about by the time my eyes fluttered open around nine o’clock.

“Steph is gonna let me use her printer to print out my pictures, so I’ll probably ride my bike over there around noon. I can’t go over there any earlier because she has somebody coming over to copy the notes they missed last week in health. I should be able to finish the poster while I’m there, and my paper, too, and I can start reading the chapters in the book this morning and finish when I get home.”

She was moving around too fast for me to keep track of her, brushing past me as she went in search of something in her room, then past me again as she went to the counter and poured some of the coffee in the pot my dad had insisted on leaving here with me into a Styrofoam cup. I was confused, standing there in the middle of the room with my robe and slippers and messy hair until she handed the cup to me on her way back into her room. I sat down at the counter and tried waking up a little faster.

“Caroline?” I knew she was listening, somehow. “How long have you been up?”

“I’ve been up since six,” she replied as she came back into the room, a stack of binders balanced in her tiny arms. “I couldn’t stop thinking about all the stuff I had to do. I couldn’t watch the documentary Mr. Drisi gave me, though, because I couldn’t find my headphones and you were still sleeping. I cleaned a little, after I finished everything else. I put everything back where it’s supposed to be.”

I continued watching her as she flew around, stacking things and organizing papers into separate folders and sifting through documents on her USB drive. I drank the coffee in my cup, and felt myself starting to emerge from the fog of post-sleep, and drank more coffee. She was still moving at full speed when it was all gone, much to my dismay.

I watched her dive into the text of her science book, almost awestruck at how frequently she turned the pages. It was the first time so far this year I had seen her with her nose in a textbook and no notebook full of notes to go along with it, and therefore the first time I had seen her read page after page at her normal speed without having to stop every fifteen seconds to write something down.
For some reason, there was something about observing her in that moment, seeing her on the couch with a giant college biology textbook in her tiny little lap, that made reality morph into something completely different and unknown.

I hated to interrupt her; I really did. She seemed so content in her element, a satisfaction I’d rarely ever taken the time to notice before. But there was something about knowing she’d only seemed to have the time to read for leisure when she was confined to a mattress with sheets and blankets and a pillow underneath her head—about having been there when she’d finished the Frosted Cheerios the night before and not seeing, as I craned my neck to look, any new dishes in the sink or paper plates in the garbage can—that bothered me.

“So,” I said, making my way across the room and setting myself down gently on the soft cushion beside her. She kept her head down for a moment, as if she were memorizing where she’d been before I dared to interrupt her. And then she lifted her head, slowly, and turned her attention and gaze toward me. “Is that all you missed? Just the poster and the chapters?”

“He gave the rest of the class the whole week to do their ‘research’ and start on their posters, so they could finish them over the weekend and turn them in tomorrow.” She slid her planner out from under her book and skimmed the notes she’d made in pen on the neatly spaced lines. “He would’ve given me all week to do it, too, plus the paper, if I’d been there. And he would’ve given me the stuff to read anyway, even if I had been there.”

“You were sick. It isn’t like you could help it.” She just rolled her eyes at this, otherwise ignoring the comment altogether and going back to her reading. I would have left it at that, leaving her to her work and worrying about my own life. But I’d missed her all weekend, and most of yesterday evening, and the lack in conversation was beginning to drive me crazy—that is, if I wasn’t completely insane already. “That seems like a lot of work he gave you. I mean, just for missing four days. After all, he knew you were sick, and that—”

“He’s just trying to challenge me, mother.” I flinched at this, knowing I’d struck a very sensitive and potentially emotional nerve. I held my breath, wondering what was wrong with me—why I always seemed to say the wrong things, to the wrong people, for all sorts of wrong and terrible reasons. “Isn’t that what you want, for me to challenge myself? You’re the one who put me in his stupid class.”

“Excuse me? And what’s that supposed to mean?” If there was any place or time for an argument, it was apparently here—and now.

“It means, I know you’re holding me back and keeping me in a room full of seven-year-olds who don’t know anything about anything and it isn’t fair!”

“I’m just trying to make sure—”

“I know you had a parent-teacher conference with Mr. Drisi last Friday,” she said, sounding proud that she’d been able to hold in such a juicy secret for so long. She sounded like Ryan Drisi’s old high school girlfriend, Sammie Kaine—she was always eavesdropping on peoples’ conversations and spilling their secrets in front of the whole world whenever they did something she didn’t like. (At least, I think they dated for a few weeks at one point. It was always hard to tell whether or not the girls that were always hanging around him were anything more than not-so-secret admirers, until I came along.) When I didn’t say anything in response, she found it fit to go on. “I know what you guys talked about. He told me.”

“He told you because he had every right to tell you, Caroline. You’re wrong if you think we were keeping something from you, and you know it.”

“You made me stay in the second grade a week longer than I had to, because you didn’t tell me there were any other options, because you kept them from me. Do you know how much more work it must be for him, having to make up all these separate assignments and stuff for me? Why can’t I just go to high school?”

“We’re not discussing this right now.” I stood up and headed toward her room and toward my closet, so I wouldn’t have to shuffle around in my pajamas one more day in a row. I didn’t want to talk about this, especially when she was in a bad mood and hadn’t eaten since last night and wasn’t going to agree with what I had to say on the subject—not a chance.

“Fine.” I turned around and saw her stuffing papers into books and books into her backpack. She grabbed a sweatshirt from the hook by the door, her unfinished poster from on top of the counter, her flash drive from my laptop, and swung her backpack over her shoulder. “I’m going over to Steph’s early. I’ll see you whenever.”

And before I could stop her she was gone, slamming the door behind her and disappearing out of sight. I didn’t bother going after her, knowing it wouldn’t do the situation any sort of good whatsoever. Instead I showered, got dressed, and stuffed Not Expecting Much into my purse before heading out the door.

I was sure I knew how to get to his house—at least, I knew the general direction of his neighborhood compared to my apartment building, and could remember a few of the street names as landmarks along the way. I drove slowly past house after house, past street lights and stop signs until all the houses started to look the same, and it appeared from where I sat in the driver’s seat and inched slowly forward that I was the only one on the road.

I recognized his street as soon as I came to it. All of the houses on both sides were either brick or covered in light grey siding, all one story high and all relatively the same size. They were all spaced further apart than the houses in Steph Parker’s neighborhood. The yards were green and flat and kept as neatly as could be—all except one.

As I was turning left onto Ryan Drisi’s street, something caught my eye. Since the only thing I’d seen moving since I’d turned off of the last busy intersection, besides flags blowing in the wind, the sight of something darting through a yard across the street from where I was made my curiosity soar.

Making sure there weren’t any cars coming from either direction (there weren’t), I stopped mine in the middle of the road and got out, leaving the engine running and immediately looking around for what I’d seen. I heard something behind me, and whirled around to see Nattie bounding toward me, panting happily. I knelt down on the ground as she approached and let her lick my face in an affectionate greeting.

“Hey, there.” I scratched her behind the ears and looked into her dark puppy eyes with the sternest glare I could bear to give a dog. “Natalie Drisi. What are you doing out here all by yourself? Where’s Ryan?” She barked, as if to answer me eagerly. I heard footsteps behind me, and turned around to see if it was him standing there. It wasn’t.

“Thanks for catching her.” She came forward slowly, clasping the end of the bright pink leash in her hands to Nattie’s matching collar and stepping back a little after straightening again. “I saw her wandering around the neighborhood and went inside to get the leash.” She extended a friendly hand toward me as I stood politely. “I’m Karen.”

Karen was barely five feet tall; I felt like a giant standing next to her, Nattie sitting patiently at my side and failing to make a sound. Her hair was the exact same color as the dog’s fur, golden and short and perfect. She looked at me with her somber blue eyes and smiled, showing off her dimples. But she was young—way too young for him.

I shook her hand firmly. “I’m Michelle. I was just dropping a book off that my daughter borrowed from Ryan a few weeks ago.” I moved to pull it out, so that she could take it back to him and I could go crawl under a rock somewhere. But Nattie nudged my elbow as I reached into my bag, and I rubbed the top of her head with my knuckles instead.

“I’ll walk back with you,” she said, turning toward the house a little ways down the street. “I’m not even sure if he’s home, but I have a key.” She held it up to show me, as if I really needed proof. Then she looked at my car, the door still hanging wide open and the engine still running. “Or you could follow us. I mean, it doesn’t matter.”

“Why don’t you just hop in? It’s only down the street.”
So the three of us climbed into my car—Karen in the front seat and Nattie happily exploring the back—and rolled slowly toward Ryan Drisi’s house, stopping as we pulled into the driveway. Karen got out first, followed by Nattie. I climbed out slowly, my head spinning.

“Oh, I guess he’s home,” she said as we walked a little further up the driveway. I looked in the direction she was pointing and saw his dark green Mustang sitting in front of the garage, looking a little cleaner than usual. We stood there for a moment, neither of us really sure what to do. “Look, I gotta get back. My dad’s probably wondering where I went. I was supposed to be getting something out of the garage—Pepsi, I think.”

“Oh. Okay.” I was ashamed, standing there and realizing that I’d spent the entire time alone with Karen thinking that I’d finally stumbled across Mrs. Drisi’s path, that I hadn’t had to ask him any more questions—that I’d finally found her, all on my own, without going out of my way to discover where she’d been hiding. I shook off the truth, taking Nattie’s leash from her hand. “It was really nice to meet you.”

“You, too. Hey, could you do me a favor?”

“Sure,” I said, starting to feel a little used. She went on.

“Could you tell Ryan I’ll come by Starbucks Saturday morning so he can give me my last paycheck before I leave? I mentioned it to him a few days ago, but he’s so busy all the time—I know he forgot already. He’s not very good about checking his phone messages, either. Oh, and tell him he can just keep the leash here from now on.”

“Oh. Um—sure. Okay.” I bit my lip. “So…he pays you to walk Nattie?”

“Oh, not just to walk her. That man—he’s gone so much doing all five thousand of his jobs, he needs somebody to make sure she’s walked, fed, played with, etcetera. He pays me a lot to do all that, but it’s definitely worth it. I’m leaving for school on Saturday, though, so I’m not sure what he’s gonna do once I’m gone, to be honest.”

“Who knows,” I said, trying to flash her my kindest smile. She bid me goodbye with a final wave and started walking back in the direction we had come. I looked down at Nattie, who was sitting patiently at my side again, like the time we’d spent together outnumbered the years she’d spent being loved by Ryan Drisi and his wife. “You’re in big trouble, missy.” We walked toward the back door, climbing the concrete steps and knocking on the door. And then we waited, patiently, to be noticed.

The door opened, and he stuck his head out. “Michelle?”

“Don’t forget Nattie.” I pointed to the golden retriever next to me, who looked up at Ryan Drisi with a compassionate gaze only a dog could give her caretaker.

“Oh come on, Nat. You promised you wouldn’t do that again.” He looked down at her; she didn’t stop panting. “Um, come in. Just—hang on a sec, okay?”

His head disappeared behind the door, and I heard quick footsteps on the tile floor of the kitchen as he walked away. I stood there confused for a second, then pushed the door the rest of the way open and went inside (loyal Nattie followed me). Shutting the door gently behind me, I unclipped the leash from Nattie’s collar and set it down on the counter beside me. She didn’t move.

“Okay. You can come in now.” He came around the corner, dressed in a T-shirt and an old pair of soccer shorts. He looked surprised to find me standing there, looking around the kitchen to see if anything had changed since I’d been here last (nothing had). “Oh, you’re already in. Well—” he looked around, seeming anxious. His hair was damp. “What’s up?”

“I came to drop off your book, like I said I would. Remember?” I reached into my purse and pulled out Not Expecting Much. Nattie left my elbow alone this time, seeming a little more distracted in the comfort of her own home yet refusing to leave my side. “I found Nattie running around the neighborhood on my way. I brought her back.”

“I can see that. Yeah—she’s been doing that a lot lately. I think she figured out how to unlatch the back door with her paws. I mean, usually she stays in the yard when she gets out of the house like that. She’s been wandering off a lot lately, though; I don’t know what’s up with her. Thanks.” He took the book from my outstretched hand. “What’d you think?”

“It was surprisingly really good,” I said. I sat down in a kitchen chair, already tired of standing. He pulled a chair out next to me and sat down. Nattie lay down on the floor in front of me and rested her head on top of my foot. “I mean, I actually laughed at the dialogue. And the end made me cry.” I didn’t want to admit the rarity of that fact.

“What, you didn’t think it would be good?” He shuffled the book from one hand to the other, slowly, as if he couldn’t decide which one to hold it in. He chose the right. “Didn’t the way Caroline raved about it in her paper heighten your expectations, even a little?” He smiled.

“I don’t even remember her paper. I mean, it would probably be different if I went back and read it now, knowing what the book is about and everything. It’s just, I hadn’t ever heard of the author before or anything. And that always makes me kind of nervous. Besides, the plot seemed extremely overdone, I mean, from what Caroline told me.”

“But it’s not,” he said, seeming satisfied with this. “Not the way Liz wrote it.”

“Definitely not.” I thought back through what I’d read over the past few days, the back-and-forth banter between Sarah and Carter, intensifying as they fell deeper and faster in love; the location of their first kiss, an empty auditorium, each holding flickering flashlights so they wouldn’t fall off of the edge of the stage; it was all so intriguing. I still couldn’t believe it. “My favorite part was when he got her the puppy.”

“For Christmas, you mean?”

“Yeah. It was a poodle or something like that, I don’t remember. It made me laugh, how he put it in a box and put the lid on top, but the little thing was so freaked out that it wouldn’t stop barking. And then how she treated it like her baby? That was so adorable.” Nattie barked from underneath the table, making me jump a little in my chair. She settled back down again, her head resting right back down on my foot where it’d been before.

“Or when they got engaged the morning she graduated,” he said. The thought came back to me, making me smile. “She held her diploma up in the air in her right hand and showed off the ring with the other. That was so classic Sarah.”

“The end, though.” I could feel the mood in the room suddenly shift. Even Nattie seemed uneasy, whimpering at my feet. He nodded sadly; I really wanted to ask him if he’d cried like I had. I mean, it wasn’t Bambi’s mother or anything, but still. “I mean, I guess it was kind of encouraging, like a feel-good kind of thing. But it didn’t have to end with Sarah dying.”

“You would have written it differently?” He didn’t seem impressed; not at all.

“Well, I guess so. I mean, it would have made me feel better if it just ended with the two of them talking about it. Like, her telling him about how she felt like she’d already accomplished everything in her life that she wanted to, or something like that.” I brushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear nervous. I wasn’t, nor would I ever be, a romance novelist. “I mean, it just—it ended. She ‘breathed her last breath full of love’ and that was it.”

“It didn’t say that,” he said, smiling.

“Same difference. Why does it always have to end with the person everybody adores dying some kind of tragic death? It’s never the person everybody hates, because nobody ever feels sorry for someone who probably brought it upon themselves. It’s never the jealous ex-girlfriend who gets chemotherapy.”

“Good question.” And that was the end of that discussion. No rebuttal, giddy statement of agreement, or even a nod. He just got up, taking the book with him into another room. I was about to follow him, moving my foot a little and making Nattie raise her head in confusion. But then he came back, his hands free, and sat down again. We didn’t say anything for a good thirty seconds. And then, just like that, we’d moved on comfortably. “I’ve never seen her like this before.”

“She’s just being friendly,” I said in her defense, looking down with a smile.

“Too friendly,” he corrected, looking under the table curiously. “I’ve never seen her so comfortable around somebody she doesn’t really know, except me and my wife. She’s not even this well behaved around Karen.”

“Your dog sitter,” I remembered, nodding.

“You’ve met her?” I nodded, pressing my lips together in case he planned on asking how. He didn’t, much to my relief. “She’s been really great taking care of Nattie while I’ve been so busy. I honestly don’t know what I’m gonna do without her when she leaves for school on Saturday. She’s going to Harvard.”

“Wow.” I never would have known that.

“Yeah. I mean, ever since—” He seemed to catch himself, like whatever had been ready to pour from his lips would poison and kill me instantly. His mouth became a thin line between his nose and chin, and his eyes squinted closed. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say—if I was even supposed to say anything. But I couldn’t keep quiet, not for long.

“What?” He didn’t answer. “Ever since…what?”

Things got so quiet in the room after my echoing question that it scared me. I grew instantly cold, like his apparent mistake made all of the blood pumping through my veins freeze underneath my layers of skin. The way he told me the truth made it feel like this still wasn’t my business; it made me want to leave. “I’m not married. Okay?”

I could feel my heart pounding in my ears. “Okay,” I said gently, ready to let the subject drop. But he wasn’t ready to let it go, not just yet.

“Things didn’t work out the way we wanted them to,” he said, sounding hurt and angry and frustrated all packed into one giant ball of emotion. It broke my heart, hearing this. I didn’t care if Mrs. Drisi stayed invisible to me, or if I never got to make a list of all the reasons he could do better. I wanted him to be happy, with her. And they weren’t. “She left about a year ago. I haven’t heard from her since.”

“She just—” I wanted to reach out, to grab his hand, to hold it. “She just, left?”

“I knew it was coming,” he said, clearly trying to shake it off as best he could. “But yeah, she just left. She didn’t take anything with her. I just woke up one day, and she was gone.”

“I’m—” I shook my head. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” he insisted, though it stung a little that he wouldn’t take my internal and real sorrow seriously. I swallowed tears, though I wasn’t sure why this was upsetting me so much. Maybe underneath the thin layer of jealousy was happiness. Maybe I really had been happy that he’d found someone to spend the rest of his life with. But now—now he was like me, divorced and alone and healing, slowly. “It was probably for the best. I mean, I’m doing okay without her. No big deal.”

“Oh. Um—okay.” I couldn’t talk about pain anymore—not this kind. So I waited, until I lost count of how many minutes we’d been sitting there and not saying anything. And then we moved on again, just like that. “Caroline—she’s, um. She’s kind of mad at me, I think.”

“What’d you do now?” And there it was, that smile that I’d been starting to miss.

“Nothing. It’s just—” I shifted a little in my seat, disturbing Nattie’s slumber until I uncrossed and then re-crossed my legs, putting one foot back on the ground for her to use as her pillow. “She’s mad because of what you and I talked about at the parent-teacher thing. She thinks we were hiding it from her or something.”

“Well, weren’t we?” He rested his elbows on the table top with a soft thump.

“No. I mean, we said we would wait another week to see if anything changed—that doesn’t really count as hiding it from her. Besides, she hasn’t even been in school for another full week. So we would have had to wait until Friday to discuss it any further, anyway.” I folded my arms across my chest, waiting.

“Hey now. Don’t go blaming this on me.” He didn’t look too hurt upon interpreting my implications—that this fight between me and my daughter was his fault—and it was. He seemed to be enjoying where this conversation was going, at least better than he’d been feeling about our earlier discussion. “I just thought I would bring it up. I didn’t know she would already have her mind made up by now.”

“This is Caroline we’re talking about,” I reminded him, somehow expecting him to know her backwards and forwards after only a few weeks as her teacher. Maybe I expected him to know her like I did, or like I knew him. Or like how he’d known me, all those years ago, when we were young. “She feels like I’m holding her back. It—it isn’t obvious when she’s around all the other kids that she’s miserable?”

“No. It isn’t.” He scratched the top of his head, pondering. “She’s miserable?”

“She doesn’t want you to have to do all the extra work. She’s tired of hanging around a room full of seven-year-olds. She’s just throwing out excuses, that’s all it is. She loves the challenge, and she loves doing things under extreme pressure. But she’s tired of never having anybody to do it with.”

“But you don’t want her to go to high school,” he reminded me. I thought back to our conference, to how honest I’d been willing to be with him. No; I didn’t want her in high school. But I also didn’t want her to be miserable for the rest of her elementary and secondary education. I sighed, shaking my head. “I don’t know, Michelle. I think we’re gonna have to sit down and really talk about this. Both with Caroline there and without her.”

“You’re right. Now—now isn’t a good time.” He shook his head in acknowledgement, agreeing with me wholeheartedly. I sat there and, noticing him watching me (but trying not to), looked down at my hands. I thought about Caroline, the way her hurt had almost leapt right out at me and threatened to eat my face off. I thought about our earlier conversation, no matter how confused it had left both of us. I looked up at him; he’d been studying the fruit basket in the middle of the table in concentrated, mock interest. “When we were talking last night—I don’t know. She said something that really got me thinking.”

“So she confused you,” he said, looking back at me. “She tends to do that sometimes.”

“She didn’t confuse me. She just—” I hesitated, not wanting to say the wrong thing in front of him again. We were just starting to recover from the words that could have easily ruined everything between us all over again. I took a deep breath, not really knowing where this would lead. But I took the chance anyway—because last time, I hadn’t. “Do you think there’s a time and place for everything?”

“A what?” He didn’t want me to repeat what I’d said. When Ryan Drisi heard something he had to process, he always gave himself time. He scratched his head again, not really sure how to respond to this. I’d pushed him into a few of these corners before; he’d made it out alive every time, amazingly. “I mean—I guess so. Yes?”

I’d had a feeling he would need some sort of elaboration. “Like, there’s a time and place to clip your fingernails—at home, at night, when nobody else is around. You wouldn’t sit down at your desk while your kids were working on a group project and start clipping your fingernails. That would be gross.”

“I think you lost me,” he admitted. “And…yes. That would be gross.”

“And then there’s a time and place for a peanut butter sandwich. I wouldn’t eat a peanut butter sandwich for lunch and then go make a bunch of calls for my bosses. I’d still have peanut butter stuck to my mouth. It would just sound like I was trying to make conversation with my mouth wired shut or something.”

“Now I’m curious,” he said, sitting up a little straighter.

“And there’s a time and place for romance.” He raised an eyebrow at this, but managed to keep his mouth closed while I enjoyed the moments of comfortable silence before I most likely made things all awkward again. Still, I couldn’t just leave him hanging without explaining my point—if there was one. “It might be weird if two people who nobody thought could ever belong together fell in love. But alone—you know. They could be in love all they wanted.”

“So what you’re saying is,” he said, pretending like he was catching on to my game when it was likely he still had no idea whatsoever what was going on (or maybe he did—and it was a possibility), “it would be weird—kind of unacceptable, really—for Romeo and Juliet to confess their undying love for each other anywhere other than the privacy they made for themselves.”

“Um.” I hadn’t read Shakespeare since college, freshman year. “I guess. Sure.”

“Go in the living room,” Ryan Drisi said suddenly. He stood up from his chair so fast that Nattie sat up and barked, alarmed. I started to protest—I’d always hated it when he dragged me from room to room just so we would end up in the same place we’d started to finish an otherwise awkward conversation. But he reached out and covered my mouth with his finger, shushing me. “Just go. And turn around—just look at the fireplace. I have something for you.”

“I hate surprises,” I complained when he dropped his hand. You’d think he would remember.

“You won’t hate this one, I swear. Now go.” So I went into the living room and stared at the fireplace just like he wanted me to, Nattie following close behind me and laying down right next to my feet. I got bored quickly, and dared to look at the picture of Ryan Drisi and his former wife on the mantle. I studied her face, wracking my brain as a result of its familiarity. It was so pretty, and so full of love. Maybe it wasn’t like looking into a mirror after all. But one thing was for sure; it looked nothing like Karen the dog sitter. His voice startled me, but I didn’t move. “Okay, are you ready? Turn around when I count to three.” And I waited as he counted—one, two, three. I turned around.

He kissed me.

I wouldn’t have been able to move, even if he wasn’t holding onto me so tightly that the rest of me seemed to be going numb in his arms. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to—or why I wanted to, if I did, or why we were even doing this. But I kissed him back, because I knew that right now, this moment, might be my last chance. In all the years I’d spent my life dreaming of being with him, the fact that it all might someday come true was almost too much to take in all at once. I closed my eyes, letting my heart soar in a way I hadn’t allowed it to do in a very long time. Everything about the moment was perfect. Everything.

“Hey, Juliet,” he whispered in my ear.

I couldn’t think of a comeback. And I knew I wouldn’t think of one until the moment had passed, until I was out of this neighborhood and on my way home and laughing at nothing and everything all at the same time (because he kissed me!). So I just hugged him and lay my head down on his shoulder and sighed. “I should go soon.”

“Is Caroline waiting for you?” He let me go; I felt cold.

“No,” I said, glancing at the clock on the wall above our heads. “I just—she doesn’t know I’m here.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want her to know. If the situation would have been any different, I probably would have run straight home to tell her. But I knew what she would say if I did. “It’ll just give her another reason to try and convince me why she doesn’t belong in your class. It—it would be less weird if I wasn’t dating her teacher.”

“So we’re dating now?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest and smiling.

“I mean—I guess so. No. You just kissed me, Ryan.”

“You kissed me back.”

“I’m going home,” I said confidently, slipping past him and heading back toward the kitchen. I could hear both him and Nattie following me, both of them equally curious as to why I was so eager to get out of this house. I stopped just in front of the door and turned back around. “I’m really sorry, by the way,” I said.

He looked a little annoyed. “About what?”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt your shower.”

He didn’t say anything; he just smiled. He had to hold onto Nattie’s bright pink collar as I walked out the door so she wouldn’t follow me out to my car. I drove home in silence, my heart still fluttering rapidly in my chest as I pulled into the small parking lot behind the building. As I was walking down the hallway, fumbling around in my purse for my keys, I spotted Caroline sitting in front of the door, leaning against it with her eyes closed. She opened them and lifted her head as I approached.

“They made fun of me. Okay?”

I put a shaking yet firm arm around her as she stood up, and we went inside.

The only other time Ryan Drisi had even come close to kissing me was when I dragged him along on a spring break trip to North Carolina with my parents.

He and my father got along so well that they sat in the front seat together the whole way there, while my mom and I sat in back crammed in-between everything that wouldn’t fit in the trunk. I drowned out their ecstatic conversation somehow, while we passed cornfields and cows and tried to decide (as a “family,” which he had all of a sudden been dubbed an important part of) what we were going to do as soon as we got to the beach house we were renting. We all wanted to do different things.

By the time we finally did get there, after an entire day of being stuck inside the same stuffy car and eating McDonalds twice in the same day, it was dark. All my parents really felt like doing at that point was unpacking their things and going to sleep. Ryan Drisi and I decided to go for a walk on the beach.

It was too dark to do anything else but talk, so that was what we did. We talked about the success of the school paper and we talked about the girls’ soccer team (and how their record was just about tied with the varsity boys’ team). We talked about how my parents always ended up unintentionally ordering the same thing whenever we went out to eat, even at McDonalds. And we talked about how there were only two months left before we would be out of high school for the rest of our lives.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me close to him just when we were about to turn around to head back to the beach house. It would have been so romantic, to have our first kiss on the shoreline like that, under the moonlight, my hair dancing in the cool ocean breeze. We were too caught up in staring at each other to notice the water, and it came up around our ankles and buried our feet just as he was leaning toward me. It was cold and wet and sudden, and I pulled away, not even considering slipping back into his arms.

We didn’t talk the rest of the walk back to where we were staying for the week. And by the time morning came, and we sat across from each other at the breakfast table, the could-have-been relationship determinant was no longer a subject of our conversation. Things got back to the way they had always been, and we never mentioned it again. Nor did he ever try to kiss me again—not even at our goodbye dinner, or after graduation.

Not until now.

I sat at my desk when there was no one else around, too excited to eat and far too distracted to be able to get much of anything productive done while the rest of the world was enjoying lunch happily. I pulled my cell phone out of my bag, found his name, and waited eagerly as it rang.

“You’d better be glad I didn’t have lunchroom duty today,” he said in place of a proper greeting. I finally pulled an apple out of the brown paper bag in the middle of my desk and bit into it silently. The sound of his voice was just satisfying enough to bring back my hunger.

“Good afternoon, Michelle. Oh, how I’ve missed you ever so much since our lips met in an uncontrollable burst of passion just yesterday…”

“Good afternoon, Michelle,” he said just to make my day. No matter how hard I tried—and I did try, ever so hard—I couldn’t wipe the smile off of my face. It was the same heart-in-throat glee that I’d felt the first time Nicholas had flirted with me in gen-ed English. Except this time, it wasn’t because of any pre-made plans following themselves through. “You’d better be glad I didn’t have lunchroom duty today.”

“You forgot the last part,” I reminded him.

“Work on your accent. Then I’ll say the last part.”

“Were you supposed to have lunchroom duty today?” I asked, not really sure I could picture him being the crabby old lunch monitor everyone always hated. Actually, I still had a hard time picturing him around kids at all. He always used to turn down offers to coach junior soccer teams in the park district league for extra cash.

“I was supposed to, until I switched with one of the other teachers, today for Thursday.” I thought I heard voices around the corner as he was finishing up his sentence, and listened carefully as he paused before speaking again. Personal phone calls were a bad idea during work hours. “I knew you would call.”

“Ha,” I protested happily, the voices having disappeared. “You did not.”

“I did so,” he defended, sounding a little like a five-year-old—a normal five-year-old, one that didn’t study from college textbooks or write brilliant analyses of novels I hardly remembered ever reading way back when. He still didn’t like anyone to try and prove him wrong. “Caroline told me.”

“Oh,” I said, a little disappointed.

“Yeah. Actually, I think that’s all she’s said to me all day. Usually I can’t get her to shut up.” I smiled, remembering how she’d taken the time to explain to me one afternoon why a continuous raising of the hand in class was only annoying if you were pessimistic enough to perceive it that way, which she apparently wasn’t. “Is she still mad at you?”

“No, she isn’t.” I set my apple back down on the desktop, suddenly not very hungry anymore. Maybe part of me had known the conversation would actually get this far. It would definitely have been a first. “That’s—that’s one of the reasons why I called.”

“Other than to say you miss me?” This was no time for lighthearted banter.

“Have you been listening to those kids, Ryan? Have you been listening to what they’re saying when you’re not standing in front of them with flashcards in your hand?” I didn’t want to be making a big deal out of this. But what else was I supposed to do? Wasn’t it part of my job description, to point these things out to people who (for whatever reason) couldn’t see them?

“I don’t really know what you’re getting at,” he admitted.

“They’re making fun of her—Caroline. They’re making fun of MY Caroline. To her face.” Repeating the words aloud that she’d already been brave enough to dictate to me once in the past twenty-four hours proved to be a lot harder than I had originally anticipated. I had to bite down hard on the inside of my cheek to make the anger subside long enough to ask one last question. “Why aren’t you doing anything about it? You’re supposed to be there for her. You’re supposed to protect her.”

“I’m supposed to be here to teach her, not to help her dodge sticks and stones.” I sighed, still angry—still hurt. I wished he could see this, that he could somehow sense through our intangible connection how hard this was for me to try and swallow all by myself. “And for the record, I didn’t know about this. Okay? I would have told you if I did.”

“I think that’s why she’s been pushing herself so hard,” I said, trying out the words as if they had never crossed my mind before. But they had, a thousand times over as I tried to fall asleep the night before. They’d brought tears to my eyes then, angry ones that burned as they slid down my face. Now, they didn’t come; I wouldn’t let them. “She wants to prove to somebody that she doesn’t need to stay where she is.”

“There isn’t anything I can do about it—any of it.” He grew very quiet, almost quiet enough that for a second I feared we’d lost our invisible bond. I appreciated his honesty, more than he would ever know. But I longed for some sort of encouragement, or at least for him to tell me what I could do about it (there had to be something). “When she asks for extra work, I can’t really say no. And I can’t make seven-year-olds mature twenty years in one day.”

“But you could try,” I ventured—a final attempt to fix what I somehow already knew I couldn’t. At least, not the way I wanted to. I could picture him shaking his head slowly, the way he’d taught himself to say without words that he was right, and my pleading for things to be otherwise did not necessarily (or ever) mean that this would change. I just sighed, giving up and feeling my heart sink even lower than it had been hovering before.

“How about you and me and Caroline sit down and talk about this during lunch sometime this week. Do you think that would help?” I wasn’t sure. And honestly, I didn’t even really want to think about it anymore. If there wasn’t a solution to be found, then I wasn’t going to bother looking for one. Maybe she’d been right—maybe I’d been holding her back. And look where that had led. “Come see me at school on Friday. Maybe she just needs to feel like we’re there for her, even if we can’t fix this.”

“You’re not gonna ask me out again, are you?” I asked him with the slightest hint of a smile, even though I could have easily gone either way. The two of us had made plans to have a friendly, private dinner twice already, both times having been shot down like they weren’t meant to be. Maybe now that things were different—now that he was single, and I was single, and we were both lonely and hungry and looking for a way to spend our hard earned money—the next outing we planned would be an overall success, at least compared to the others.

“Let’s just focus on Caroline this time,” he said, even though I knew he hated to drop the subject just as much as, if not plenty more than, I did. You could hear it in his voice, and the way he had hesitated before the words he’d wanted so badly to say were swallowed and immediately replaced. This was driving him crazy, and I was loving every minute of it. “I’ll see you on Friday, okay? The kids are due back soon.”

“Okay. But—there’s another reason that I called.” I should have called him earlier and left a message; why I’d been putting it off, I’ll never know. I never made plans like this at the last minute—it was embarrassing and rude and made me want to tear something up into a million tiny pieces. But I was desperate, to put it simply. “The girl that usually watches Caroline can’t walk her home from school today. Do you think—” Swallow. “Do you think you could drive her home? I mean, she’ll be fine by herself, as long as she’s not walking all that way—”

“It’s no problem. Really. She can just hang around the classroom until I leave, and then I’ll just drop her off on my way to work. She can even go with me, if she wants. I’ll clear a table for her and she can sit and do homework until you pick her up.”

“You’re so awesome,” I said happily—but only because that’s just what you say, when you doubt someone’s willingness to help you and then they surprise you and offer to assist you without so much as a millisecond of hesitation. “I mean—thank you. Seriously, I don’t know what I would have done if you’d said no.” Cried, probably.

“I’m a yes man,” he replied. “I’ll see you tonight, then.”

“Okay. Um—one more thing.” All I got in response was a curious yet laid-back “mm-hmm.” It was like he still knew everything about me—like he still remembered everything I’d ever told him. “It’s been bugging me ever since we talked about it. I just—” I couldn’t even believe that I was bringing this up. “We were talking about Turnabout, how we didn’t go because you were sick and I came and took care of you. I—I just didn’t think you would remember that.”

“Why wouldn’t I? I remember a lot of things.”

“Like what ‘things’?” I wasn’t sure I believed him.

“How about you just let me show you?” And then he hung up, just like that.

It was just like Ryan Drisi to leave me hanging like that. Even as lunch ended and I thrust everything I had into my last four hours of steady work, the curiosity swam this way and that in the back of my mind like it wasn’t quite sure where exactly it belonged. He knew I didn’t like surprises—not even pleasant ones like hugs and kisses. He was already planning to wow me somehow, if he hadn’t finished all of the details already. I was almost scared. And yet, I could hardly bear to contain my excitement.

I was out of the office the second the clock struck five, my things already packed and my heart already soaring. I tapped my foot in the elevator and almost ran (but kind of sort of jogged a little) to my designated spot in the parking lot. I hit every stop light on the way to Starbucks, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel and chewing anxiously on my lip in unbearable and almost childlike anticipation.

Starbucks looked the same on the outside as I pulled up. No balloons tied to the sign above the door or “I love Michelle Bennett” in lights on top of the roof. His old dark green Mustang looked the same, though the duct tape had mostly peeled off of the disobedient driver side window. I went inside, holding my breath.

The coffee shop was a lot more crowded at five o’clock in the afternoon than at eight in the morning. I searched frantically for Ryan Drisi behind the counter and spotted him by the espresso machine. He didn’t turn toward me or even act like he remembered that I was supposed to be showing up. I began looking around for an empty table and spotted Caroline in the far corner, having moved on to the fifth Harry Potter book now.

“Whatever happened to ‘homework first’?” I asked her as I sat down in the chair across from her. She barely looked up, peeking over the top of the book to see who it was that had dared to disturb her peace. When she saw that it was me, her curiosity faded, and she turned another page and kept reading.

“I don’t have that much. I’ll do it when we get home.”

I nodded, hoping this was true. I wasn’t sure how much more homework drama I would be able to deal with, especially in the next few days to come. “So…” I drew out the word as long as I could. She didn’t look up, knowing I was doing this to bug her. At least it was working. “Mr. Drisi got you here okay and everything, I’m assuming?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” She wasn’t in the mood to talk, especially to me. And suddenly, I wasn’t so fond of conversing with her, either. So I left her with my purse, slipped a five-dollar bill into my pocket, and strode up to the counter. There was no line, despite the crowds gathered around the various tables around the shop, and I stepped up to order with a strange feeling of authority over everyone in the room.

I opened my mouth—“Strawberry banana vivanno.”

But it wasn’t me who said it.

I saw his face before I saw the smoothie sitting at the end of the counter. There wasn’t anyone else in front of me, and no one came to claim its excellence. So I strode toward my prize, resting my hand on the lid with one hand and grabbing a straw from the container with the other. He was still standing there, leaning against the counter and trying not to smile.

“I am supposed to pay for this,” I wondered aloud.

“Considering how many strawberry banana vivannos and vanilla lattes you consume on a regular basis, Starbucks and its many restaurants around the world are never going to go out of business. I think they can afford giving away at least one smoothie without the who company going up in flames.”

“You’ve been watching me.” I ignored his teasing.

“Come here.” Before I could protest, he came out from behind the counter and grabbed my hand, pulling me in a completely different direction than I’d been planning to go to meet back up with Caroline. He almost dragged me into an employees only supply room, where he turned on an overhead light before proceeding to close the door behind us and lock it from the inside. Then he kissed me. Just like that. Again.

“Why?” I asked gently as he pulled away. Was this what he had to show me?

“No reason,” he said, squeezing my shoulders and then thrusting his hands behind his back. “I just wanted to make sure I didn’t imagine what happened yesterday.” And then he began pacing the length of the tiny room, like he had news on the tip of his tongue that he didn’t want to share—but he had to, just the same. Finally he turned back toward me, still standing all the way across the room. “Remember when Samantha Kaine spread that rumor about me during finals week senior year?”

I hesitated. “Um. You mean the one where she told everybody that you hadn’t asked me out yet because you were gay? Yeah, I remember.” But even though I remembered (and wished I didn’t, for that matter), I couldn’t put two and two together. I still had my mind on what he was supposed to be showing me, whatever that meant. I didn’t really know what else to do, so I sipped my smoothie and waited.

“Well that wasn’t the reason.” And with that he pulled a box of Junior Mints from his back pocket and held it out to me. I took it, a little confused and dumbfounded and oh my God he bought me chocolate again! I started to ask the one question now remaining on my mind, but he shushed me. “Don’t ask any questions yet.” And then he pushed past me, unlocked the door, and held it open for me.

I didn’t know what to say. I just went back to Caroline, holding my free box of chocolate and my free strawberry banana Vivanno and wearing a look on my face that probably scared her more than a detailed description of Lord Voldemort. I sat down at the table, forgetting how to make words with my mouth.

“I called Erin Geller Adolf Hitler today.”

Junior Mints and strawberry banana smoothies don’t taste very well together. So I slipped the candy into my purse beneath the IM SORRY straws and sipped my smoothie while she read, as content as could be, across from me. I lost count of how many times I caught Ryan Drisi looking at me. Whenever I gave him a sideways glance, he always seemed to be doing the exact same thing to me. And every time, my heart lurched.

Finally, we went home. I waved goodbye when I was sure he was looking and we drove to the apartment, completely silent (though neither of us really seemed to mind). Caroline hoisted her backpack over her shoulder as we got out of the car, almost knocking herself completely over in the process. When we finally did reach our destination, she dropped the bag at my feet and began running in the opposite direction.

“I forgot something in the car!” She claimed.

“Keys!” She stopped before rounding the corner and waited while I unlocked the door. As I tossed them to her, she bid me a temporary goodbye with a wave of her hand and scampered off. I picked up her bag, carrying inside along with mine, which was almost as heavy as hers was. I flipped the light on, and then proceeded to drop both bags onto the carpet with a thud.

My apartment was covered in boxes of Junior Mints.

They were everywhere—in stacks against the walls; on the couch; even scattered all over the floor. I just stood there, pretty much feeling like I’d walked into the wrong apartment. I checked the number; I hadn’t. There had to be at least a hundred boxes just sitting there, staring at me. They’d been waiting for my arrival. But for how long?

There was a folded piece of paper at my feet, labeled “read me” in neat block letters. I had memorized his handwriting even before we were friends, because of all the post-it notes he’d stick onto my computer in the news room junior year, reminding me to do things (even if he already knew I didn’t need reminding). I picked it up off of the floor, still trying to figure out what I was supposed to do with my boxes upon boxes of surprises, and read the words he’d written in the same block letters.

I remember your favorite candy.

I folded it neatly and slid it into the pocket of my coat, a grin spreading from ear to ear. I’d given up on him actually coming through with a surprise that took my breath away. All he’d done to “surprise” me the day I turned seventeen was show up at my house with a cupcake (and then proceeded to eat half of it while sitting at my kitchen table). It was things like this that reminded me how pointless giving up really was.

I turned toward the counter and examined the message Ryan Drisi had spelled out for me with the individual chocolates, grinning all the while.

IVE MISSED YOU MICHELLE BENNETT

I just left them there, delighted.

“So, tell me again why you’re meeting with my teacher during school hours. Again.”

We were sitting in the parking lot, the fog hovering around us and making the morning seem a little less uplifting. I never thought I would hear these words come out of her mouth—words that implied she wasn’t too fond of the idea of having to see me during the day, in her so-called territory.

“It’s like a parent-teacher conference, plus you. A parent-teacher-student conference.” She just continued looking straight ahead, neither acknowledging nor ignoring the fact that I’d done my best to answer any questions she’d indirectly asked since I’d mentioned the whole idea to her, over cereal and a bagel with peanut butter. “We just wanna make sure—”

“No.” The word was short, firm, and steady. In her mind, taking it back was the equivalent of a crime that would land you in jail for life. I sighed, tapping my fingertips on the steering wheel. “We already know what my decision’s gonna be. There isn’t even a decision to make. I don’t wanna stay here.”

“We have to look at our options. And we can’t do that when you’re not in the room with us, or we’ll probably end up deciding things that you won’t agree with.” I pressed my lips together; I hadn’t wanted it to come down to this. “No matter what you decide you wanna do, Caroline, the final decision is still up to me. So unless you want me to walk in there and tell him you’re not going anywhere, suck it up. I’ll see you at twelve.”

She didn’t say goodbye. She just slid out of the car, slammed the door behind her, and started toward the building’s main entrance. I waited until she disappeared inside before I drove off, my head spinning as I navigated minimal traffic and parked in my designated employee spot.

My head wasn’t in my work. I tried to concentrate on the important things, like getting both lists done before the weekend came, but all I could think about was Caroline. The things we would decide at our parent-teacher-student conference would be permanent. They would determine how the rest of Life Number Six would go, and how Life Number Seven would begin. And honestly, I wasn’t quite sure if I was ready for that.

My bosses set their employees free at lunchtime that day. I stuffed over half of my desk into my bag (since I had accomplished exactly three things out of the dozen that I should have, not including the spontaneous scheduling and phone calls that had been demanded priority) and headed out the door, almost glad to be rid of this chaos until the weekend had passed. And then, I knew, the cycle would just repeat itself.

The drive to Caroline’s elementary school was short and easy—no traffic, all green lights, and weather warm enough to sail through the streets with both windows rolled down. Finding a parking spot in the school parking lot, however, was a completely different experience entirely. At least I knew where all of the traffic had gone.

I parked in visitor parking in the very back of the building and began making my way toward the front entrance, thankful for the pair of non-dangerous footwear I’d thrown in the back seat of my car earlier that morning. On my way, gliding down the paved pathway that ran parallel to the building, I glanced in the windows to my right to pass the time. The back of Ryan Drisi’s head was the first thing that I saw.

He was writing something on the white board and talking, gesturing with emphasis toward the globe sitting on the empty desk in front of him. I slowed down a little, dodging a bike whose rider probably couldn’t have cared less if he just so happened to run me over (ending my wonderful life right then and there, of course). He turned around to grab something off of the edge of his desk and saw me moseying on by the windows. He said something to Caroline and her classmates, and they all began writing.

I watched him carefully, stopping completely and adjusting the bag on my shoulder. He bent down, scribbled something on the back of a piece of paper with his maker, and held it up to me with a smile. I glanced at the words he’d written there, and then back at his kids. None of them were paying attention to anything other than their work.

WILL YOU HAVE DINNER WITH ME TONIGHT? 7:00? PICK YOU UP?

I saw a hand go up on the other side of the room. He whirled around like he had forgotten there was anyone behind him, setting the paper down and gesturing for me to hold on as he went over to answer Angela’s question. He was just coming back toward his desk when my phone started ringing and threw off my focus completely. I was starting to get frustrated, having to dig through all those IM SORRY straws to find it. “Hello?”

“You’re probably going to kill me.”

“That is not a good way to start a conversation with someone, Nicholas.” I walked off, away from the windows of Room 23 and back in the direction I had come. There was a bench around the corner; I sat down and waited for him to continue.

“Fine, then. Hello, Michelle. How are you this afternoon? Hey, listen. You’re probably going to kill me.”

“Immediately, or within a potentially reasonable time frame? Would you like a running start, or would you rather me take you by surprise?” He always called at the wrong times. Always. And the fact that I’d even expected him to have some sort of good news to give me for a change was almost disgraceful beyond forgiveness.

“I can’t pick up Caroline tonight.”

The tension in my jaw almost hurt. “How does Monday sound? Monday seems like a good enough day to murder somebody, don’t you think?”

“Just listen to me, all right? I have a legit excuse this time.” I just started shaking my head back-and-forth as I sat there, clenching my left hand into a fist and digging my dangerously long nails into my palm. Believing him would be the stupidest thing I could have done, even in the moments that would follow. I’d believed him before, when he said he loved me and swore he meant it. I’d believed him when he promised I was and would always be his one and only. “It’s Carrie’s birthday today. I’m taking her to dinner. I already made reservations.”

“So take Caroline with you. I have plans and no sitter.”

“That’s not how this works, Michelle—listen to me for a second, okay?” I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to listen to him throw excuse after excuse into my face, whether they were legitimate ones or not. This was just like before. A list of reasons why didn’t make the situation any better. “Look, I know I screwed things up with you, and I know you’ll never forgive me. But if I’m gonna get a second chance at this, I just wanna do it right.”

I didn’t say anything in response to his words. I knew what he was doing, trying to get me to understand and so obviously seeking empathy that it almost hurt, and it wasn’t moving me. I would still have to check Monday’s schedule, to make sure I could get away for lunch and take care of business. And he knew it, too.

“I’ll, um—I’ll pick Caroline up tomorrow at eleven. Okay? Unless you want me to come earlier—”

“I’ll see you then,” I said, and hung up. With the time the seemingly pointless conversation had taken up, plus the ridiculous amount of time it took to sign into the office and have my visitor’s pass examined, I still failed to show up early. I still walked into Room 23 at five after twelve, marched over to Ryan Drisi’s desk, and said, with confidence, “Yes.”

“That could work,” he said, his back to me. He spun around in his chair, pointed to the cell phone pressed against his ear, and mouthed something quick that I didn’t catch. “Just stay with her awhile and make sure she’s okay and everything. I’ll call you as soon as I get home and let you know.” He hung up, set the phone down on top of his desk, and looked up at me with a smile. There was something about the way he still held onto the phone that made me a little nervous. “What was that?”

“I said yes. As in, yes, Ryan Drisi, I will go to dinner with you at seven o’clock. If the offer still stands.” I couldn’t sit on top of the desk behind me, since it was covered in basic geography worksheets. The room was also empty, I noticed as I looked around, other than the two of us. He didn’t seem to mind.

“It does,” he said, looking a little distracted. I tried to change the subject.

“Where’s Caroline?” I asked him, hoping that she hadn’t somehow managed to ditch our previously scheduled parent-teacher-student meeting. Our conversation in the car earlier that morning didn’t do a very good job of convincing me otherwise. “She didn’t talk you out of making her come or anything, did she? She’s very persuasive.”

“I told her she could eat her lunch in the cafeteria and then come back here instead of going to recess.” And that was all he said. He looked down at his phone again and pressed a few buttons. His focus, for the first time since we’d reunited, was not on me. For whatever reason, that was bothering me—and not because I particularly wanted all of his attention on me, either.

“Oh, okay.” The subject was now closed, and this was the usual time in which he had become very recently fond of reciting all of the things he’d managed to keep carved into his memory about me. He not only knew my favorite candy (Junior Mints, of course), but also what color I’d been wearing the first day of honors economics that first summer (blue), what I’d dressed up as for the Halloween costume party we threw for all the staff on the paper, yearbook, and literary magazine (a librarian), and who had asked me to Homecoming (Alex Tenor—and I’d said no). But he didn’t say anything this time. So it only seemed like the right time to ask. “Who were you talking to?”

“Karen,” he replied, finally looking back up at me. I felt awkward, just standing there looking down at him like that. He just had to make those kids work all the way up until the lunch bell, didn’t he? “She was in the yard with Nattie, and unhooked the leash so they could play. But she took off running as soon as Karen let her go. She caught her eventually, a few blocks away. I guess she was just kind of freaked out. She’s never run away from her like that before, not once.”

“Yeah—what’s going on with her lately?” I asked solely out of curiosity, remembering the short trip she’d attempted to embark on away from Ryan Drisi’s house before Karen and I had willingly stepped in. “I mean, she’s okay, isn’t she?”

“She should be. I, um. I think she really misses my wife.” This really hadn’t been what I’d expected to come out of his mouth right here, right now. But who was I to try and predict anything anymore? “If she didn’t tell her otherwise, Nattie would literally follow her everywhere. She kind of flipped out a little the first few weeks—that was just kind of normal, I guess. But she’s been fine ever since, until now.”

“Maybe she just misses you,” I ventured, feeling a smile coming on. “It’s not very hard, when you’re so busy all the time.”

“I know.” He thought for a moment, knowing there was a solution out there somewhere just waiting to be found. “How about we take her for a walk, after we go to dinner? We don’t have to eat anywhere fancy or anything. We could go to the park and play Frisbee. She really loves that. It could be like the time we went and played Frisbee after we were done with our econ final, and I almost broke your nose.”

And just like that, he was back.

“That sounds like fun,” I said honestly. I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear and pressed my lips tightly together, trying to think of what it was that was making me so happy all of a sudden. I had known he would ask me to dinner (again) sooner or later—why was I all of a sudden so ready for seven o’clock to roll around? “There’s a park right near where Nicholas lives—it’s not far from here. It’s mostly hills and grass and…stuff.”

“Perfect.” He finally slid his phone back into his pocket and folded his hands neatly on top of his desk. It was a good thing that the very next moment was the one Caroline chose to enter our territory; I wouldn’t have known how to respond to that. “Here she is. Pull up a chair—both of you. It’s time to talk business.”

“Thanks for getting me out of recess, Mr. Drisi,” she said (completely ignoring me, of course) as she crossed the room and dragged two chairs across the floor. I sat down slowly, feeling a little better now that I was the one looking up. “Just sitting against the wall reading is getting kind of old.”

“No problem,” he said after we exchanged an equally concerned look that my daughter didn’t appear to notice. “I have to give your mom credit, though. It was her idea.” Caroline’s head turned to look at me, her expression full of surprise. There was no way I was going to let him get away with this; I opened my mouth to correct him, but he just kept talking. “Look, let’s just be straight here. We all know how you feel about being stuck here.”

“I don’t wanna deal with these kids anymore. You get that, don’t you?” She was looking at him, but talking to me. I could hear it in her voice, how she wanted to apologize as well as prove to me that her imaginary pro-con lists were reliable. “They don’t wanna learn like I do, I know it. Most of them don’t even get why they’re here.”

“You know, Care,” Ryan Drisi began, gripping a pen tightly in both hands, still fidgeting, “high school isn’t that much different. If you started going to high school, people would still find a thousand reasons why they think they’re better than you. Only, they’ll be older, and meaner. Are you sure—?”

“Or, they could just ignore me,” she shot back quickly, her face reddening gradually with frustration. “I don’t care what those people think about me. I care about having seven different classes that challenge me, and teachers whose only job is to teach me the stuff, not hand me assignments and teach twenty-two other kids how to add and subtract.”

I just sat there, not really sure why he was all of a sudden determined to keep her in a Caroline Archer-sized box with bullet proof casing. It was my job to keep her cuddled up against me for as long as I could hold her. It was my job to speak up and spit out all of the reasons why she was meant to remain a second-grader.

“High school isn’t like it is here.” I could tell he was running out of words. And that was what convinced me that he was still on her side, that I was still up against both of them in my belief that keeping her in this box would only benefit her in the long run. But I kept quiet, folding my hands comfortably in my lap and listening. “You can’t just go up to your teacher and tell them you’re being picked on.”

“I’m not stupid,” she muttered.

“Caroline.”

“No, I know you’re not stupid. That’s why I’ve done some research over the past few days. I’m not sure how your mom will feel about this”—he looked at me, just to make sure I knew he remembered that I was still in the room—“but there might be a way you could skip all that, and go right to—”

“College?” She finished for him, sounding awestruck.

“Maybe. If you wanted to.” He looked at me again, possibly seeking some sort of response from my end of this argument. But I just sat there, speechless and unmoving and maybe even a little horrified. I wished it was just me and him still sitting here alone, so I could beg him not to go any further. Please, please don’t go any further. “All you would need is the equivalent of a diploma. If you took the test and passed, you’d be set.”

I had to put a stop to this, and now. “You have to be at least sixteen or older to test for a GED, Mr. Drisi,” I informed him, folding my arms across my chest and basking in the satisfaction. He wasn’t the only one who knew how to type questions into Google. “She’s too young. She’ll have to wait.”

“But there are always exceptions to every rule, Miss Bennett,” he said, taking my pride and smashing it into countless shards of glass on the floor. “There are ways around the sixteen-and-over rule. It’ll take a lot of time, phone calls and meetings, faxing, and begging. But if we tried hard enough, we could probably get permission—”

“No.”

“—and she could potentially register for the spring semester at the community college.”

“No.” I was determined to stand firm in my decision. There was nothing that either of them could say that would convince me otherwise. I was angry at the world, mad at myself, and furious with the man sitting in front of me. I just shook my head back-and-forth as they both stared at me, waiting for me to say more. But I didn’t.

“Come on,” Caroline wasn’t going to let this go; not a chance. “Can’t I at least try?”

“And what happens if you don’t pass, Caroline? I know you; you’ll get your hopes up. And then, when you don’t get what you want, you’ll mope around and blame me for letting you take the test in the first place.”

“Are you saying you don’t think I’ll pass?”

“I don’t know what would happen. I’m just saying, if there’s a chance that you’ll just end up staying here anyway, then why bother taking the test?” I could feel my heart pounding in my ears. No matter how great my hunger was to win, I knew it wasn’t possible. I was sinking. “It would just mean more stress for you, Care. You don’t need that.”

“Mother.” It grew so quiet between the three of us that I could hear Ryan Drisi breathing from the other side of his desk. I knew she was ticked off beyond repair. All I could really do at that point was brace myself and prepare for the worst. “I know what I need and don’t need. I know I can’t stand it here anymore. I know I wanna take this test. What I don’t know is why you won’t leave the decision up to me.”

“We already talked about this.” My head hurt. “The final decision is not up to you.”

“Time.” Ryan Drisi held up his hands, quieting us both. We turned to look at him, the tension that had been rising between us already seeming to thin out into the air around us. “How about we compromise before we start pulling each other’s hair out. Let’s start working on getting Caroline permission to take the test. If we can get it, then we’ll go from there. If we can’t, then we’ll sit down and come up with something else. How does that sound?”

I still didn’t understand why he would want to take up all of the little free time he possessed to get my daughter permission to do something I wasn’t going to agree to anyway. But I knew why he wanted this for her; he knew it would make her happy. And that, in the long run, would only make me happy, too.

“Okay,” I said, clearing my throat. “I’m in.”

“Yes!” Caroline leapt from her chair and into my lap, almost tipping the chair over completely. I hugged her back, letting her happiness fill my heart for the moment. He’d gotten what he wanted; her satisfaction would be long-lasting and full. It would take longer for mine to catch up, though. And once it got to that point, no one could possibly know if anything else would ever measure up to the way I would feel.

“I’ll start working on it, then,” he said, standing up as if to signal that this surprisingly short meeting was officially over. “If I need anything, I’ll call you.” And then he looked down at Caroline, who was now standing next to me with a grin running straight from one ear to the other. “This might take longer than you’re expecting.”

“I can deal with that,” she said confidently.

I took a deep breath and asked her if she wanted to skip out on the rest of the school day and come home with me, already knowing that the answer would be yes. She gathered her things eagerly and quickly, stuffing two textbooks, a binder, three notebooks, and several lengthy-looking novels into her backpack and struggling to get the zipper closed. I told her to start heading down to the office so I could sign her out. And then I hung back, stuffing my nervous hands into my coat pocket.

“What’s up?” Ryan Drisi asked me. He’d been flipping through a binder he’d pulled out from the bottom drawer of his desk, looking determined to find whatever he was so frantically searching for. Now he was looking at me; standing up; forgetting his priorities all over again. He came toward me slowly, so that the distance between us wasn’t so great.

“Nothing. It’s just—” I knew that I couldn’t be anything other than honest with him, especially right now. There was no fear of a reddening face, or of him turning away from me forever and never looking back. Really, it wasn’t fear at all that made me hesitate. It was the fact that I knew he was thinking the exact same thing that I was about to say. “Honestly? I don’t know what I’m gonna do with myself if anything messes this night up.”

He smiled. “Well, third time’s a charm, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I guess so. I hope so.”

“I hope so, too.” And then we just stood there, breathing in the honesty and trying not to smile. There was something about second chances that grasped dead hope by the throat and poured life into it again. For as long as I could remember, the hope of Ryan Drisi ever making me feel this way again had been crushed under the weight of reality. Now it was here again, sending waves of happiness through my bloodstream. And it was obvious, just by looking into his wonderful hazel eyes, that he could tell.

The grocery store was crowded at one o’clock on a Friday afternoon. We found a parking space that couldn’t have been further from the entrance, making me twice as glad for my comfy shoes and producing a groan of protest from the back seat. I pulled out the list, skimmed it to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything, and held it out in her direction. She took it, reluctantly.

“Whose turn is it to do the top half?” She asked as we climbed out of the car and began the treacherous journey toward the front entrance. I lost count of how many fellow shoppers we passed, pushing carts to who-knew-where filled with things I would never even dream of buying. None of them bid us good afternoon; I didn’t mind.

I hesitated. “I don’t remember.” It made sense, since our weekly routine trips to buy food for us to survive off of had shifted to just me, shuffling into the store whenever we were out of things we needed. And though I had missed this sort of bonding time that we shared together, I couldn’t dig far enough back into my brain to recall who was responsible for which part of the grocery list. That, if not anything else, was depressing.

“That’s depressing,” she said as we kept on, reading my mind once again.

We didn’t say another word. We just kept trudging through the parking lot, through the automatic doors and into the store. I was almost overwhelmed, looking for a basket and finding none. There was a single lone cart sitting abandoned against the wall, which Caroline made a mad dash for and grabbed before anyone else could.

“What do we do?” I asked, looking around frantically.

“I don’t know.” She loosened her grip on the edge of the cart, seeming suddenly to lose as much faith in the natural order of things as I already had. She looked sad, almost like the lack of two available baskets was breaking her heart. “I guess we could do the list together. You know, instead of splitting it up.”

We both seemed to ponder this for a moment, standing there in the middle of everything and wishing this was all a dream. Maybe we’d known that this day would come, despite the fact that we’d thought it wouldn’t be for another thousand years. We couldn’t do things the way we wanted anymore. That was just how this life was turning out.

“Sure. Let’s try it.” And so we rolled our cart down the aisles, plucking this and that from the shelves and piling them up as best as we could. We stopped in the cereal aisle as she pondered her various choices, finally settling on a box of Fruit Loops and tossing them in among the rest of our soon-to-be customary purchases.

“Are Dad and I having dinner with Carrie tonight?” She asked as we turned into the bread aisle, our halfway point. Her question caught me off-guard, as I’d spent most of the trip thinking about the first time we’d encountered Ryan Drisi outside of Room 23, which made me think of Not Expecting Much, which for some reason made me think of Karen. And so on. “I mean, he called you to confirm, didn’t he?”

“Yeah he, um. He called.” I knew she wouldn’t let me off the hook with four words and nervous filler. But it was the truth—he had called, no matter what the circumstances. She waited, tossing a loaf of bread into the cart. “He can’t pick you up tonight. But he’s coming to get you tomorrow morning, which I guess is better than nothing, right?”

We just kept walking. “What was his excuse this time?”

“It’s Carrie’s birthday today—today or tomorrow, I can’t remember which.” She didn’t seem to see the significance of this, or how it could possibly connect to her father’s inability to spend a normal amount of time with her. But she was trying to understand, as she was always trying to figure out the things that didn’t make sense to her. “I guess he wants to take her out to dinner, just the two of them.”

“Of course he does,” she muttered as we rounded the corner. I half expected Ryan Drisi to be there, buying more hot dogs than a normal-sized freezer could hold. But I shook off the fantasy, deeming it officially impossible. “Can’t he just take her out on Sunday when I’m already gone? I hate how he keeps making her his priority.”

“I know it doesn’t seem fair.” And on the outside, it didn’t. But despite all that had happened between us, I still knew Nicholas. I’d given him my whole heart, and in return he’d gladly given me his. Still, I couldn’t believe I was about to stick up for him—especially if he only had a few more days to live. “I think he just wants to make sure she knows that he cares about her, and that she can trust him.”

“But it’s not like she’ll be around forever. And I will. Shouldn’t he consider me more important than his stupid girlfriend?” We passed the hot dogs, a thousand frozen meals and windows with unwanted ice cream staring at us from behind them. We kept shopping, even if neither of us really wanted to.

It was just one of those things; it had to be done.

“I think it goes a little deeper than that,” I said, hoping she would shed her stubbornness long enough to hear what I was about to try and explain to her. We stopped in an empty aisle (a miracle, in my mind), and I folded my arms across my chest and looked down into her eyes. “You’re his kid. He already knows you trust him, and he knows you know he cares about you. No matter what he does, you’ll always love him. It’s not the same with Carrie, you know? He really wants to take advantage of this second chance. I really think he deserves it.” Because everyone, no matter who they are, deserves to be happy.

“I guess so.” And that was the end of that, until we got to the checkout counter. She seemed distracted as we piled things onto the conveyor belt, one after the other until the basket was empty. As the cashier swiped my debit card, my daughter asked me the question that would completely rock my world. “Do you still love him? Like, ‘love him’ love him?”

I knew she knew I’d heard her, even as she waited patiently while our bags were quickly loaded back into our cart. I didn’t even answer until we were halfway to the car, rolling our cart over the pavement and passing people without greeting them politely. Most of the time, it was hard to predict what anyone really wanted from me. But in that moment, it was more than clear to me what Caroline wanted to hear, and that was the answer that came straight from my heart. I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, my words following.

“You know what?” I said finally, my grip on the handle tightening until my knuckles turned ghostly white. “I think I’ll always love your dad. I loved him for a long time. I just—I don’t have feelings for him the way I used to. It’s almost more like I would love a best friend. I care about him and about his well-being, but I wouldn’t ever want to go on another date with him. Does—does that make sense?”

“No,” she said as we approached the car. I unlocked the trunk, pulling it open with my left hand. I used my right to keep the cart from rolling away, out into the street (a disaster-prone event, surely—I didn’t have any more grocery money). “But I guess I kind of have to believe you. I don’t really get this stuff.”

“What stuff?” We started transferring the bags from the cart to the trunk.

“You know, love stuff. Romance.” As ironic as it was, we’d never had this conversation before. Even if it had come up at some point in time over the past few years, I couldn’t remember trying to explain its complicated nature to her. Books couldn’t teach you how to love someone, no matter how hard they tried. “Like you and Mr. Drisi. I mean, it’s obvious there’s something going on there, but it’s too complex to analyze.”

“Elaborate,” I requested.

“You’re trying to keep your public displays of affection to a minimum, I get that part. And I know you’re trying not to expose me to the chaos, just in case it doesn’t work out or something like that. Honestly, I don’t really care either way. But you’re so shy about it. I mean, I just thought you wouldn’t be so secretive about what goes on when I’m not around.”

I closed the trunk, all of the groceries packed and stacked neatly inside.

“And what was with the whole window thing? Angela said she saw you standing outside while we were doing our geography stuff. Other people could have seen you, you know. And that would only give them more of an excuse to pick on me, at least until I do that GED thing and get the heck out of there.”

I handed my cart off to a passing empty-handed grocery seeker. “You know, there are people who go their entire lives never understanding what it means to love somebody. And even if you do love someone, like I loved your dad, it’s still too complex for anybody to get, really. You just love someone. There doesn’t have to be a list of reasons why.”

“But there could be,” she said as we climbed into the car.

“Sure. There could be.”

“Did you have a boyfriend in high school?” I backed out of our parking space and waited for traffic to clear before we began our drive toward home. “I mean, I know you and Dad met in college and dated and everything. But what about before that? Did you ever fall in love with anybody else?” I wanted to ask where all of this sudden curiosity was coming from. But at the same time, I wasn’t really sure I wanted to know.

“I didn’t have any boyfriends. But I did have a crush--a secret admirer, really. Only I was the one doing the admiring.”

“Name, please. Why did you love him?”

I thought for a moment, stopping at a red light just like the law said. “Andrew. Names have been changed to protect privacy.” She rolled her eyes, not saying a word. “And I don’t know if I loved him. I just really liked him; there’s a difference.” I should have known that the end was far from near.

“Fine. Why did you ‘really like him’?”

“It wasn’t hard.” Because it hadn’t been; it really hadn’t. “I really, honestly thought he was perfect. That was what it looked like whenever you saw him. He was nice to everyone, no matter who you were. He was on student government and in choir and really smart, too. And he played soccer. And he was the best co-editor of the school newspaper we’d ever had up to that point. He was—pretty much everything a girl could ever want.”

“What happened to him?” she asked. I bit my lip.

“He probably went to college and followed his dreams. He wanted to be a musician, but it doesn’t look like that worked out. I mean, I probably would have heard of him or something.” She nodded slowly. I went on eagerly, starting to enjoy this more than I’d ever thought possible. “He’s probably married now, with kids and a dog.”

“And a white picket fence?”

“Maybe he’s a rich CEO with lots of money. Maybe he owns his own store, in a suburb—”

“Where all the houses look the same and everybody knows everybody.”

“Maybe they live on a lake, and own a boat. That would have been a cool life to live.”

“There was no Andrew, was there?”
She sounded so sure, like her quick analyses had proved once and for all that I was the best liar (or fiction writer) in the whole entire world—no, the universe. I didn’t want to be the one to crush her confidence; that was always the hardest part of the job. But I couldn’t lie, not about this.

“There was,” I said as we rounded a corner. “He almost broke my nose once.”

The rest of the drive seemed to take longer than usual. We wove through the usual early afternoon traffic, though time seemed to slow down as we sat in silence and tried to get home. I thought hard about the things she’d said in the parking lot. It all made me wonder how closely she’d been watching Ryan Drisi as he courted me stubbornly.

“So you wanna know what’s been going on between me and your teacher,” I said, breaking the silence so abruptly that it startled her. She’d been sitting in the back seat with a book in her lap, gifted at birth with a motion sickness immunity that I had always envied. She looked up, marking her page simultaneously.

“Yes please.” She slid her book back into the bag at her feet, grinning.

I started talking before I gave myself a chance to change my mind. If there was a good time to let her in on these secrets, it was now. “He’s taking me out to dinner tonight, for real this time. He’s trying to prove to me that he’s boyfriend worthy, or something like that. That was why he gave us all those Junior Mints. I thought he was married, but he isn’t.”

“If he isn’t married,” she said, leaning forward a little in her seat, “then why does he still wear a wedding ring?”

“I don’t know,” I said after thinking about it for a few seconds. Maybe he missed her, more than he was willing to let on, even to me. We pulled into the apartment parking lot and divided up the bags in the trunk; we would still have to make two trips each. As we were climbing the stairs, I spoke again. “Is it weird? Me and Mr. Drisi, I mean?”

“It would be weird if kids at school knew. But they don’t.” And that was our silent agreement, our invisible handshake—that no one would ever know, that this was a secret meant to be kept between the three of us. I suddenly felt closer to her somehow, having let her in on a secret that I didn’t plan on sharing with anyone else. At least, not right now.

“So,” I began after we’d lined all of the grocery bags up on the glossy countertop. “Since your dad won’t be picking you up until tomorrow, I’m gonna have to find someone to watch you while I go on my—out to dinner.” I couldn’t say “date.” The word literally wouldn’t roll off of my tongue like all the rest of them had. “Is Stephanie still sick? Do you want me to call Angela Hogan’s mom and see if you can go over there for a little while?”

“Or I could stay here by myself, while you and Mr. Drisi go on your date.” I flinched at the word, still for reasons unknown. I turned to look at her, glaring in a way no one had ever really taught me—I’d just figured it out somehow, a sort of I-am-the-mother-therefore-I-have-the-power glare. “Yes, Steph is still sick. And Angela went to her grandparents’ house for the weekend or something, I don’t know. I’ll be fine by myself.”

“Is Steph okay?” I asked, curious.

“Yeah, she’s fine. I mean, she’s been e-mailing me, so I’m assuming she’s getting better. She just stresses herself out so much that her immune system can’t fight off all the stuff that keeps going around. I keep telling her to chill out every once in awhile, so that won’t keep happening. She’s a workaholic, I swear.” She handed me the box of Fruit Loops. “Really. I can stay here by myself for a few hours. Unless, of course, you plan on being gone for more than a few hours. Then I might need backup.”

I whacked her in the arm with Toucan Sam’s face.

“We’re not going anywhere fancy, probably Olive Garden—something like that. Then we’re going to the park to play with Nattie—that’s his dog. She’s so adorable. And then I’m coming back home, alone, where I’ll expect you to be waiting for me. And then we’ll watch a stupid show on TV while I tell you all about it. How does that sound?”

“I like the telling me all about it part. And you don’t have to worry about me going somewhere while you’re not here. I only have two friends, remember? And neither of them are currently available to whisk me away on an eight o’clock joyride. I’ll probably just sit here and do homework until you get back.”

“Good enough for me.” I smiled and shoved the orange juice into the refrigerator.

“Here’s the thing,” she said suddenly, cradling jug of milk in her arms. I took it from her, a little suspicious. “I’ll let you go on your date, no problem. On one condition.” I turned around, the refrigerator still hanging wide open behind me. The cold air sent chills up and down my spine as we stood there in silence. I waited patiently for her to propose whatever it was I would have to do in exchange for an evening alone with Ryan Drisi. “You have to let me take the GED test.”

“Caroline—”

“Mom, relax! I’m kidding. It’s not like you would listen, anyway, even if I had power over you.” It was true; I thought about it as she laughed, while I smiled to be polite. There was no law that stated my daughter could keep me from going on a—out to dinner just because of extreme conditions that I couldn’t promise to abide by. “I just wanna help you pick out your outfit.”

We put the last of the groceries away and stacked the folded paper bags in the corner of the room, behind the garbage can. We counted how many hours until he would hopefully show up at the door (five). And then I let her plow through my closet while I sat on her bed trying to understand the latest novel Ryan Drisi had instructed her to read. The next thing I knew, I was standing in front of a mirror—jeans, a T-shirt, and tennis shoes.

“You don’t think it’s too casual?” I asked her, turning this way and that.

“I may not know much about relationships. Okay, I know absolutely nothing about relationships.” Admitting this, at least, satisfied me a little. “But I do know that if Mr. Drisi likes you, or loves you, or however he’s supposed to be feeling about you, he won’t care what you wear. And in my opinion, you look fantastic. That shirt fits you perfectly.”

“Well if you—” I stopped twisting and turning and really looked at my reflection in the mirror. I studied the outfit Caroline had been brave enough to pick out for me. And that was when I began my own brief analysis of the potentially dangerous situation I was surely putting myself into. “Oh no.”

“What? Why ‘oh no’?” She hated feeling out of a two-person loop, obviously.

“Jeans are bad luck. They have to be!” I turned around and looked her straight in the eye, my own panic rising to abnormal heights. She just started shaking her head, like the rant I was about to embark on possessed no logic whatsoever. But it did—and I had proof. “Think about it, Care. Every time Mr. Drisi and I have been supposed to go out, it hasn’t happened. And every time we were supposed to go out but didn’t, I was wearing jeans.”

“Jeans aren’t bad luck.” She was so confident that she would be able to convince me; she was wrong. “You were wearing jeans when you dragged me to his soccer game, and nothing bad happened then.”

“It rained on us. No—it poured. The drive was horrible. And he almost kissed me. On the lips.”

“And kissing him in the rain would have been a bad thing? Sarah and Carter kissed in the rain, and then he proposed.”

“I walked in the door and I thought you were dying. Jeans are bad luck. Help me pick something else.” And so we settled on a dark purple made-for-fall dress and experimented with never attempted before hairstyles. I was determined to do everything virtually possible to make this night perfect. I would stop at nothing to make sure that there was nothing on my body resembling bad luck, karma, or vibes.

“There. Are you happy now?” Caroline folded her arms across her chest, waiting.

“I would be happier if I knew for sure that you were gonna be okay by yourself. I’ve never left you alone before. And I don’t think I want to.” I would cancel my dinner plans with Ryan Drisi in order to ensure her safety; that was how much I cared. We sat down on the couch together, with four-and-a-half hours left to wait. And wait. And wait.

“Could you stop worrying about me? Please? I won’t answer the door. I’ll push the couch in front of it so nobody can get in. I know what to do. You can’t spend your whole date worrying about me and checking up on me every five minutes. You won’t have a good time that way, and you know it.”

“I just want tonight to be perfect,” I admitted, closing my eyes and leaning my head back gently onto the couch cushions. “I keep getting my hopes up that we’ll have dinner and talk and laugh and all, and then we don’t. This is our last chance. If tonight doesn’t work out, then I’ll know we aren’t meant to be together. I know it probably doesn’t make sense to you, but that’s the philosophy I’m sticking with. If he’s not here at seven, I’m calling it quits. For good.”

I opened my eyes when she didn’t say anything in response. The look on her face was indescribable. “You mean, like, forever?” She asked.

“Just until I find the right guy, I guess. And who knows? Maybe the right guy is sitting in a room full of second-graders reviewing for a test on basic metamorphosis. But even if he isn’t the right guy, there has to be one out there for me. It wasn’t Andrew what’s-his-name in high school, and it obviously wasn’t your dad. But there’s someone. I know there is.”

“I just want you to be happy.” The words sounded as if they hurt her, a pain she couldn’t determine and an ache she wanted to push away but couldn’t on her own. I put an arm around her, pulling her close. “I know you haven’t been happy since what happened with dad. You’ve been trying to trick me into thinking you’re okay with everything, but you’re not. I know Mr. Drisi makes you happy. I can tell.”

I just hugged her, not wanting to ruin the moment. We didn’t say anything else; instead we went and did our separate things, both working on paperwork to pass the time. I stopped after about five minutes, knowing I wasn’t going to get anything done until this perfect night was over, and cleaned the apartment. The vacuum didn’t even seem to bother Caroline that much, in the midst of her biology notes.

And before we knew it, the time had come. I slipped on my almost-tolerable shoes and my coat and sat at the counter, my hands folded neatly on the countertop to contain my excitement. The digital clock read seven; I waited. Caroline stopped doing her homework and climbed onto the stool next to me; we waited. Minutes passed slower than they had the night I waited for a dishonest Nicholas to come home. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the numbers.

He didn’t come.

By the time a half hour had passed, I had given up. I didn’t even have enough energy to be angry—not at him; not at myself; not at anyone. I dragged myself away from the counter and back over to the couch, where I lowered myself down onto the cushions and stared at my knees. I should have known that getting my hopes up like this would only tear everything apart. I should have known that patterns in life never stay the same.

Caroline sat down next to me and tried to apologize, even though neither of us really knew what she was saying sorry for. She was the guardian angel in this situation, watching over me and doing everything in her power to protect me from getting hurt. If she had been determined enough, she would have stopped Ryan Drisi from holding up his homemade sign. I wouldn’t have said yes. This wouldn’t have happened.

I didn’t want to answer my phone when it rang. I knew it was probably Nicholas, either telling me he’d changed his mind about Carrie (and was on his way to temporarily take my daughter away from me) or bitterly informing me that he would not, after all, be picking Caroline up tomorrow morning. I didn’t care; maybe I never really had. Maybe I’d agreed to let him take her on weekends simply because I had known that he wouldn’t be able to live up to such an important commitment.

I answered it anyway, knowing I would forget to check my voicemail later. Whatever he had to say, I was just going to have to suck it up and listen. It was quite possible (I knew from experience) that the pain I would have to endure in listening to him verbally betray me would erase the pain of being stood up by another man I had loved once, in a life when all things were easy and I was young and my responsibilities were minimal.

“Hello?” I tried not to sound disappointed. The last thing I wanted in that moment was my ex-husband prying into my personal business.

“Michelle?” I could feel the anger rising inside me, reaching an invisible boiling point as I sat there on the couch, pressing the phone against my ear. As hard as it was to talk to Nicholas Archer II on a semi-regular basis, I would have much rather spoken with (and taken my anger out on) him than listen to a traitor mutter in my ear. “Michelle? Are you there?”

I didn’t want to listen to his worthless apologies. I wouldn’t even dare let the IM SORRY straws speak for him this time around. I knew there would be an excuse, a reason why he had to back out of his promise. And this was the exact reason why I had known I shouldn’t ever trust another man, not ever again. There was no such thing as a second chance. If things didn’t work out the first time around, then it just wasn’t meant to be.

“Yes, Ryan. I’m here. Waiting for you.” There were so many things I could have said, so many words I could have spoken to let him know that I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. And at the same time, wanting to hear every word, I waited. I pressed the phone to my ear and listened to him heave a heavy, shaking sigh.

“I can’t pick you up,” he said flatly.

“Okay.” And that was all I was going to say to him. Ever.

“I—” I’d never heard him like this before, not even way back when. He was always calm, always in full control of every situation—good or bad. I listened to him sigh again, his breaths full of emotion. And my blood ran cold as my anger immediately drained away, replaced with crippling fear. I couldn’t even speak. “I need you to come to me.”

“Where are you?” I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to know. The thought scared me even more.

He told me. I hung up.

I plugged the directions into my GPS and started driving, my hands shaking as I tried gripping the steering wheel in front of me as firmly as I could manage. Caroline was still in the apartment, desperately longing for the answers I would give her upon my return home. I was alone, obeying a voice I’d promised myself a long time ago that I never would. The sky was dark with ugly rain clouds; it always had to rain when things went wrong.

There was a lump in my throat where the tears were gathering, their growing numbers determined to overpower the control I was trying so hard to maintain as I drove toward the highway. I had never driven through the blinding blur of tears, but I knew better than to try. I held it all in, because I honestly wasn’t sure what I was supposed to feel. I didn’t know why I was making this trip. Then again, maybe I did.

There was an accident on the main road I needed to drive down to get to the highway, which would then take me to Ryan Drisi. I had to turn around and ignore the instructions my GPS was spitting at me, not realizing that the route I was now choosing to take included driving down a street I had vowed never to set my gaze on again. Not ever.

There were cars lined up all the way down the right side of the street, since it was apparently the simplest detour the traffic cops could direct. I moved slowly, wishing with all of my heart that I wasn’t putting myself in this situation. I wanted to get to where he was, more than anything. But getting there was proving to be twenty times more stressful than the reason for my late-evening traveling itself.

I tried desperately to look away as I rolled slowly past the house, but I couldn’t help it. Part of me wanted to know if it had changed, if he had transformed one of many non-living memories of the years I spent deeply in love with him into something completely new. I couldn’t really tell in the dark, no matter how hard I strained to see.

My gaze fell onto the porch. He had finally replaced the light, after Caroline and I had gone; it shone brightly in my eyes and made me squint, almost. There were no more flowerpots sitting on the thick railings of the porch. They were empty now, and there was nothing left to shield the bench against the house from the rest of the world.

I tried to look away, but there they were.

She had long auburn hair and eyes glittering with happiness, a spray tan I could pick out in the bright porch light and a smile that made my jaw tighten gradually. Nicholas Archer II was sitting beside her, holding her hand. They were just talking, enjoying the summer turning autumn night together and alone. He said something that made her laugh; she threw her head back, and her shoulders shook. He looked down at their hands, and then out toward the street. Before he could meet my gaze, I was moving forward.

Once I turned a corner and sped toward the highway, I swallowed the images of my ex-husband’s rare happiness and let the memory of Ryan Drisi’s unsteady voice replace them as soon as they had slipped away. My chest tightened again, after all the time I had spent in the past fifteen minutes trying to numb myself to the unique form of pain.

I wanted to close my eyes, to pretend that this wasn’t happening. I had known it was wrong to expect a perfect night, as well as irrational and prone to disappointment. But I hadn’t expected him to call me in such a state of emotional turmoil, frozen and alone and needing someone to rush to him, to tell him that everything was going to be okay.

I wasn’t so sure I would be able to grasp his hand tenderly and lie to his face. Maybe everything would work out, and maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe we would both go home relieved, with light hearts and plans to reschedule (again). But I was learning. It had taken six lives, but the concept of reality was finally starting to settle in.

Dreaming was always easier. Making plans, knowing where I would be in five years; ten years—that was how I had always survived. Even though nothing had ever seemed to go according to plan, I had always managed to start anew, with new hope and completely restored faith. It amazed me to think that it took a hardly forgivable heartbreak from the man who had promised to love me for the rest of his life to wound my soul beyond repair.

Maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe the realization was coming from Caroline’s second-grade teacher, the blast from the past that I should have turned away from as soon as I looked into his hazel eyes on that first day of school. Maybe it was the third disrupted planned dinner in a row that was quickly draining the fairy tales from my childish mind.

I saw his Mustang as soon as I pulled into the parking lot, pulling into the space right next to it and getting out of my car even before I had yanked the key from the ignition. The faster I moved, the less time I would have to think this through. There was no turning back now, no matter how easy it would have been. I wanted to be here for him, to prove to him that I cared. But I wasn’t sure that I would be able to handle the emotions that I knew would come spilling out of him as soon as this realization washed over him.

The first person I saw when I walked through the door was Karen the dog sitter. In fact, she was the only person pacing in the middle of the waiting room. All of the chairs around her were empty. There wasn’t even anyone behind the front desk, I noticed as I let the door close gently behind me.

As soon as she heard the noise, she looked up. I could feel the relief ripple through her as her gaze fell upon me from where I stood. My feet were glued to the spot I had stopped at, making moving virtually impossible. She rushed toward me before I could say anything and hugged me. Her sigh of relief made my knees shake.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, wiping her eyes with the crushed tissue in her hand. “I didn’t know what to do. I asked him if he wanted me to do anything, or if he needed anything. He was so quiet, I was just about to walk away and leave him alone. Then he told me he wanted to call somebody. I gave him my phone, and he called you.”

“What happened?” I asked, already wary but hungry for the details Ryan Drisi hadn’t given me over the phone. She was still frantic, talking a mile a minute and barely taking breaths in-between her sentences. I touched her arm gently and led her over to a chair. We sat down side by side, both of us pale and shaking. I dropped my purse onto the floor in-between my feet and held it tightly between my heels, releasing at least some of the tension.

“It’s my fault,” she said, holding back a sob. Her voice broke. “God, it’s all my fault.”

I sighed internally. “What’s your fault?” This was no time to be frustrated—this I knew. But I refused to let myself grow hysterical, at least until I knew the outline of the situation. I wasn’t used to dealing with other people in this way, having to persuade them to control their emotions long enough to care for the soul that, in that moment, needed them. The only person I ever seemed to have to control was myself.

“I was gonna be late for the party my friends were throwing me—” That was when I noticed her attire, a skirt that barely touched her knees and a tank top to match, all underneath the summer jacket that was now hanging crooked on her shoulders. She was not, I was able to determine, the stereotypical smart girl. “I didn’t see her. She just ran into the street before I could stop, and—” She lost her composure, pressing the Kleenex against her mouth to try and stifle the sobs that erupted from deep within her. Her shoulders shook.

I didn’t know what to do. So I just sat there while she cried, knowing she would continue the anecdote as soon as the sudden wave of emotion had subsided. I felt helpless, like I was supposed to be the one responsible for calming her down. This wasn’t what I had come for, but I knew this was why it was here. There would be no one else arriving to comfort her. The last thing Ryan Drisi needed was a thousand tear-filled apologies.

“It’s not your fault, Karen.” I thought I had whispered the words, maybe soft enough that she wouldn’t be able to hear. But she lifted her head at the sound of my voice, sniffling and swallowing the sadness, even if just for a moment. I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, biting my lip. “She’ll be fine.” Won’t she? It was all I could think to say. My head hurt from spinning in so many rapid, varying directions at once.

“You don’t get it,” she said, wiping her eyes again. She spoke the words in a low steady tone, one I knew meant that what she was about to tell me was too real even for tears. “That dog is all he’s had since what happened with his wife. He only told me one thing when I offered to take care of her during the day. He said, ‘don’t you dare ever let anything happen to this dog.’ And he meant it. He doesn’t kid around about this stuff.”

I didn’t say anything. I forgot how to speak.

“There were only two women in his life that he cared about, his wife and Nattie. He already lost her, and he barely made it through that. If Nattie doesn’t make it, I swear—he won’t have anything left to live for. I—I don’t know what’ll happen. He’s already been running himself thin, with all his jobs and all that. This—God. He’ll snap.”

I didn’t think it was possible for me to feel any worse. I should have known that he would have been able to manage to hide his hurt so easily, especially from me. He had always been so protective of me somehow, coming to my rescue whenever I claimed I needed him. The few times he had needed me, he had never asked for help. I’d known him well enough to know when to be there and when to leave him to his thoughts.

He’d asked me to come to him. No—he’d needed me to come to him. He’d spoken the words with his own quivering lips, no matter how strong he was still trying to prove he could be. I couldn’t imagine what would happen if he lost his one and only true remaining companion, especially after everything Karen had been brave enough to fill me in on.
I tried to picture him falling apart; the effort made my eyes fill with tears. They burned my eyelids as I held them in, trying to be strong for Karen; for Nattie; for him.

“Is he—?” I stopped, surprised at how loud the words leapt so suddenly from my throat. I had meant for them to slip out gently, to match the mood we were trying hard to grow comfortable with (it was difficult, in all of that silence). She looked up, dry-eyed and waiting for me to go on. “Is he back there? With the vet?”

“I hope so,” she said, as if I shouldn’t even have asked.

We were quiet for a long time after that. I stopped counting the minutes and got purposely lost in my thoughts. After awhile, I found myself losing track of what I was even thinking about, ideas and images and a thousand other things coming to mind and then disappearing forever. The train seemed to stop on the subject of his wife, and what little Ryan Drisi had told me about her. And after that, I couldn’t shake the questions. The answers were out there, and I wanted to be informed.

“Can I ask you something?” Karen looked up again, looking as weary and emotionally exhausted as I felt. She sniffled once, a final audible representation of her sadness. And then she nodded, suddenly looking curious. I looked down at my hands, thinking through my words before I looked up at her again. “Did you know her? Ryan’s wife?”

I didn’t think she was going to answer at first. She just sat there in the same position she’d been in before my question, wearing the same exact expression. There wasn’t a single implication that I could detect signaling that she had even heard my words. I waited patiently, watching her rub her eyes with the knuckles of her pointer fingers. Her words were extremely lacking in emotion, whether or not I knew it was there.

“Yeah,” she said, looking up at me with wide, bloodshot eyes. “I did.”

I wanted to know what she was like. And as I thought about it, I realized that this particular curiosity had been hovering in the back of my mind ever since I found out that Ryan Drisi wasn’t making her up. It wasn’t because I was jealous of everything she had shared with him that I never had. I wanted to know…because there had to be a reason. The kind of women he would have been known to fall in love with wouldn’t just run off without a reason.

So I asked her, gently and confidently, and she answered me in the same exact manner.

“She was—” Heavy sigh. “She was amazing, Michelle. There’s no other way to describe her. Seriously, I think she had to be the most loving person I ever met. She loved everything, I swear.” And then, as warm memories flooded her mind to replace the hurt, guilt and sadness, she smiled. “She was a preschool teacher for awhile. She was always helping people, everywhere she went. It was so easy to be jealous of her…but then, you couldn’t really hate her. My dad did. But she was always so nice to him anyway.”

“She must have been really attached to Nattie,” I said, wishing I could submerge myself further into the memories that were so quickly lightening the darkened mood. “Do you think that’s why he’s so attached to her, because she would’ve wanted him to take care of her?” It broke my heart. I could feel it cracking inside my chest.

“Most definitely,” she said, sounding even more devastated than she had before. All conversation between us stopped as we heard footsteps in the distance, and then muffled voices murmuring back and forth. One of the voices was unrecognizable, deep and steady. The other one I knew well, even if I couldn’t hear the words Ryan Drisi spoke. I knew exactly how he would look when he came around the corner. The lump in my throat grew until I couldn’t swallow, or breathe.

“I really don’t think there’s much more you can do for him tonight,” I said, hoping she hadn’t heard him like I had (she didn’t seem like she had). She looked like she was about to protest, just for a second. But she was a smart girl, in many gifted ways, and she knew better than to insist otherwise. “Why don’t you go to your party? He’ll call you if he needs you.” This, at least, I knew for sure.

She just nodded, and we both stood simultaneously as I hung my purse on my forearm. “Thanks, Michelle.” She hugged me, her gratitude obvious in the emotion that now filled her words. She slipped through the door of the vet’s office without looking back, leaving me alone to face the man I’d come here to save. Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure I could do it. I didn’t know how long I would be able to stay strong for him.

I migrated a little closer to the voices and waited, straining to make out what secret information was being shared between them. No matter how hard I listened, I couldn’t hear them. Even still, I had a feeling it wouldn’t take long for him to fill me in on everything—and, if I still knew him as well as I thought I did, more.

The voices stopped, and I could feel my heart pounding nervously in my ears as I stood frozen in the middle of the otherwise empty waiting room. I could barely hear his faint footsteps as he came around the corner, his hands shoved deep into his coat pockets. He looked up before running me over and stopped, like he hadn’t expected that I would actually show up like he’d asked. We just stared at each other, afraid to speak. I dug vigorously through my brain, trying to think of the right thing to say. My brain had no answers; I was on my own.

“It’s done,” he said before I could open my mouth to speak whatever words would come out. He stood there for a moment, just staring at me like I was supposed to know what that meant. As the truth began to sink in, realization I concluded I’d been fighting off ever since the words had left his tongue, I suddenly felt my emotions overpowering me. I was losing control, and I knew it wouldn’t be easy to get back.

“It’s—?” I tried to confirm, but he wouldn’t have it.

“It’s done. Over. I don’t wanna talk about it.” And having spat the words out, his strength noticeably fading away, he pushed past me and went out the way Karen had gone. I hoped she was long gone now, so he wouldn’t have to deal with anyone other than me. I owed him this, no matter how much I knew he would protest if I mentioned it to him.

“Ryan,” I called after him, hesitating for half of a second before I pushed myself forward in pursuit. I knew this wasn’t what he wanted, a girl from his past chasing after him when the past was the one and only thing he was trying so hard to get away from. But I couldn’t let him go. I wouldn’t let him slip away from me again; not this time.

“I said I don’t wanna talk about it.” He had to shout in order for me to hear him over the rain, but I knew that wasn’t the only reason why he was raising his voice. He didn’t even turn around to look at me. He just trudged through the parking lot, his strides twice the length of mine. I had to run to keep up with him, which was hard in my shoes. I almost slipped, but caught myself. I stopped, watching him disappear.

“Ryan!” I called to him over the rain as it pounded down hard on the pavement around me, but there was no reply. I was soaking wet, standing in the middle of a puddle and shivering. I looked down helplessly, watching the raindrops splash into the water pooled around my feet. I knew calling him again wouldn’t do me any good, no matter how hard it would be to leave him here alone. But there was a time and a place for going after the people that you cared about, and I knew that the only thing he wanted at that particular moment was to sort through this pain and sorrow on his own.

I pulled my keys out of my purse and made my way toward my car, the only drenched vehicle left in the parking lot besides his old dark green Mustang one space to the right. I unlocked my door, climbed uneasily inside, and closed and locked it behind me. Water dripped onto the floor and onto my seat, making the world seem that much colder than it actually was. My dark purple dress clung to my knees, completely soaked through.

My keys rested comfortably in my lap, but I didn’t pick them up. I didn’t shove them into the ignition or turn the key. The engine stayed silent, and I didn’t drive home. I bowed my head and stared at my hands and started crying, because I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t be strong, and I couldn’t make his pain go away. I couldn’t say the right things to make him smile or even be at his side when he needed me the most. That may have been the only thing I wanted, but it was the one thing I couldn’t have.

Despite the intangible level of despair that was suddenly flowing through my bloodstream, only a few tears managed to slide down my cheeks before my brief period of private sadness was abruptly interrupted. There was a knock on the passenger side window to my right, bringing my head up and immediately closing my throat. The window was covered with rain, but I didn’t have to see the face of my visitor to know who it was.

I unlocked the doors, and the sound of the rain grew louder as he pulled open the door and lowered himself into the seat next to mine. When he slammed it closed, the sound of the rain pelting the metal roof of the car engulfed the silence between us. Water dripped from his hair and ran down his face like the tears he flat out refused to set free.

We didn’t say a word. Before either of us could remember to buckle our seat belts, the engine roared to life. I backed out of the parking space, sped out of the parking lot and drove—aimlessly at first, until I knew exactly where I wanted to take Ryan Drisi in the midst of his confusion, anger, and sadness.

He didn’t ask me where we were going as I kept my eyes on the road, determined to follow the taillights of the car in front of me without losing them in the storm. By the time we got to the park and pulled up next to the curb, it was only drizzling. I turned the car off, unbuckled my seat belt, and sat. He did the same.

I grew used to the cold as the raindrops on my skin evaporated. I stared out into the darkened, wet world, afraid to look at him. Suddenly, nothing really seemed to matter anymore. There was nowhere we had to be—no time. No place. There were no plans we were determined to follow. We just sat in silence, until it dawned on me that I was going to have to be the one to begin what would most likely turn out to be the most difficult conversation I would ever have to endure for the rest of my many lives. I didn’t want to. But confirmation was necessary.

“You’re Carter,” I said as I turned reluctantly in my seat to face him. My heart rate was normal, it seemed, but it pounded against my chest like it was trying to escape. It was this sort of drama and emotional confusion that it had never liked to handle, the kind of situations it had always somehow managed to convince me to run away from. I couldn’t run this time, and I knew it. The breath I took in and released was cold. “And your wife was Sarah.”

He didn’t move, not a muscle. His stillness was almost scary, the way he sat frozen and didn’t even look like he was breathing. It was like he hadn’t even heard me, like he was so engrossed in his tangled thoughts that he was otherwise dead to the rest of the world. I regretted speaking the words I knew were true, my heart beginning to hurt.

“Cassie,” he corrected, firmly yet almost in a whisper. I stared at him, not daring to open my mouth just yet. I had learned so much in the years I had spent living on this messed up Earth, one of the lessons being the difference between when it was the right time to utter helpful words and when the only thing that would help was if you kept your mouth closed. I studied his profile, watching him press his lips together hard. “Her name was Cassie. Cassandra Bethany Ongman-Drisi. The one and only.”

Now that he’d confirmed the idea that Karen the remorseful dog sitter had planted firmly in my head, a thousand reasonable questions flooded the front of my mind, making my head hurt. There was so much I wanted to know, but I didn’t want to ask. Asking would mean he would either shrug me off or tell me. And both of those things would only make things a thousand times harder than they had already become.

I knew where I had to start. I had to swallow the fear of hurting him, just long enough to squeeze the words out and watch them penetrate his eardrums. There was a big difference between a question unspoken and uttered words lined with confusion. But I knew that if I didn’t say anything, we would be stuck here in this place for the rest of our lives.

“I thought you said you only dated her for awhile,” I said, trying not to regret it. It was hard; I’d never done anything like this before. “In college, right?”

“I did date her for awhile,” he said, his vocal volume rising from a whisper to a whispered gentleness. “And then we got engaged, and then I married her. And then she left. A year ago next Thursday.” I let the words sink in as he continued to stare out past the windshield in front of him, out into the rain that was starting to dance on the metal roof all over again. They wanted in. They wanted to know what was going on in the one place that they couldn’t reach. But this was between me and him. Secrets were easy to keep that way.

“You woke up one day, and she was gone.” It was funny, the things you could remember from conversations you’d once thought you were never supposed to have in the first place. Well, maybe not funny. It was just one of those things in life that I would never be able to understand, like love and betrayal and loss. “You knew it was coming.”

I hated remembering these things. It was like I was suddenly turning into the type of person I had always despised, possessing traits I had always loathed. I wasn’t trying to prove to him that I knew everything about everything, that I was right and he was wrong and that I was supposed to blame him for something he didn’t do. I quickly realized, after the silence, that he hadn’t ever changed. He could never tell a lie during my third life, and he still never had.

“She was sick for a long time,” he said, even though the author of Not Expecting Much had already told me all of the parts of this story. It was different somehow, coming from him. It was real, no longer fiction. The emotion that came along with the memories included much more than sympathetic tears. “I was sitting next to her at the hospital, and all of a sudden she was gone. I went home. I was numb. I went to sleep, and when I woke up, it hit me. She really wasn’t coming back. Ever.”

It was like he had imagined this scene in his head a thousand times before. He had gone through the story in his mind time and again, until he got the words perfect. If the circumstances had been any different, I would have felt a twinge of sadness that I probably hadn’t been the first one he had told all of this to. But I couldn’t prove that it was true, and let the assumption drop to the damp, dirty floor.

I knew him better than I ever would have thought possible, and that was good enough for me.

“I didn’t know what to do. So I grabbed a notebook and a pen and just started writing. I didn’t really know who I was writing to until I was done.” He paused, running a finger through his damp hair and sighing heavily. Maybe this was good for him, sifting through the memories with someone there to listen. “I wrote down our whole story. All the stuff that happened between us from the first time we met to that morning was there. It was kind of sloppy and not very well written. I mean, I’m not a novelist. But it was all there.”

It was all coming together slowly. I tried to stop the processing, to wait until he was finished telling me the whole story before I let it all sink in, but that proved to be harder than getting him to talk to me. It was all so new, so astounding, that I found I couldn’t even feel anything at all. It felt like I wasn’t really there, listening to him talk about Cassandra Bethany Ongman-Drisi. I was someone else, floating outside, pounding on the roof of the car with the rain. I couldn’t breathe.

“I’d been following a story in the news about this writer. She lost her memory, forgot everything. For some reason, I saw that the first time and it stuck. I went out and bought all of her books. They were supposed to be for Cassie, to give her something to do, but I ended up reading them first. I don’t know. I just felt like I knew her or something, even though we’d never met. She connected with you through her words that way.”

I nodded, starting to understand.

“She did an interview a couple days before I lost Cassie. I was sitting in the hospital flipping through channels, and it caught my eye. She talked about how she wanted to start over with her writing, to experiment with whatever she could find. It must’ve been only a few months since her accident, so she was just getting back into the swing of things. I sent her what I wrote about us. I didn’t know if it would even get to her or anything. But it made me feel better. I mean, as good as I could feel.”

“And she got it,” I guessed.

“She wrote me back. It was weird, because I hadn’t even expected her to even get my letter, at least not that fast. She asked me if she could work with what I’d given her. She said it really clicked in her head, or something like that. I mean, I couldn’t really say no. And then, out of nowhere, she wrote me again. And she sent me a whole manuscript.”

“Not Expecting Much,” I chimed in.

“It was all there, everything I wrote. I mean, it wasn’t all exactly the same. She added a few things and made up pretty much all of the dialogue, and changed all of the names, but mostly everything that happened to Carter and Sarah happened to us. It was weird, reading it the first time. But whenever I needed closure, I just went back to it. The release date isn’t for a few more months. You and me and Caroline are the only ones that know about it.”

I just stared at him, not really sure what I was supposed to say. I couldn’t say anything; not now. Everything I had left myself assume about his situation had been wrong. Cassie didn’t leave him, whether or not there was a reason: she died. She’d gotten sick and smiled through her suffering and slipped away when she couldn’t fight anymore. But she had been a hero, fighting right up to that point. And I still couldn’t believe it.

When he spoke again, his voice returned to the grim, whisper-like tone it had been before the memory of writing down Cassie’s story had filled him with temporary joy. He was remembering the hard things now, the things he’d never spoken aloud to anyone. Maybe he had written them down, a long time ago, but it was easy to tuck those kinds of things away and try to forget the pain. This, sadly, I knew.

“She was sick when we started dating, but you couldn’t tell. She was always so happy and excited about everything, even if she was the only one. She never told me about it. She got better, but it never goes away. It always comes back.” He wasn’t even talking to me anymore. He was just talking, trying to work through these feelings without the burden of tears. I would have told him that it was okay to cry. But I didn’t know how. “We got engaged. And we were gonna plan this huge wedding for the next summer. But she got sick again, and she couldn’t hide it from me anymore. We got married three months after she graduated. We didn’t know how long—”

The words caught suddenly in his throat, stopping him for a long enough amount of time that I wasn’t sure he was even going to bother to continue. I waited, trying to keep my breaths steady and silent. I had rushed out of my apartment and driven so far to help Ryan Drisi grieve over the potential loss of his beloved golden retriever. I never thought it would come to this, getting all of the information I had once longed so much for, all in one damp sitting. It was too much. I couldn’t hold in my emotion for much longer. I may have been numb and breathless, but it was still there.

“She held on for three years. They said she wouldn’t even make it to the wedding, and she stayed with me for three. Years.” He still sounded like he couldn’t believe it. I didn’t blame him; I wouldn’t have, either. “She didn’t even care. She just kept volunteering and helping people and loving me…and giving and giving and giving. She gave until there wasn’t anything left. And then she was just, gone.”

That was the last thing he said about her that night. As much as I could have said to fill the silence, as many words as there were buzzing around in my head, I didn’t open my mouth. All I had ever wanted for Ryan Drisi, ever, was happiness. And even if I hadn’t been the one to give him the kind of happiness I wished upon his life, the moment I’d seen the ring on his finger had filled me with emotion that overpowered all of the tiny twinges of jealousy that prickled my skin. He had someone that made him happy, and that would keep him happy for the rest of his wonderful life.

Now I knew that he wasn’t happy anymore. Not only had he lost Cassie, the apparent love of his life, but now he didn’t even have a golden retriever to serve as a canine companion while he grieved. He had no one. And I couldn’t even be that person, even if I wanted to be. It was too complicated. It was too soon.

There was so much that I wanted to say to him that I kept it all inside. If I opened my mouth to speak, it was likely that I wouldn’t be able to stop the sudden flow of words. And that was dangerous, when the words trying to leap from your heart didn’t belong in this time or this place. Now was not the right time for me to speak, and I knew it. So after thinking for what seemed like years, I reached into my purse, pulled out the straws inside, and handed them to him one by one.

IM SORRY

Because that was how I felt. I was sorry for everything he had lost, and everything that would ever slip away from him again. I was sorry about the letter I had written, and sorry about blaming him and hating him for never writing back. I was sorry that I’d never spoken up. I was sorry that I never gave myself the chance to make him happy. But most of all, I was sorry that I’d pushed him away when he needed me.

I had insisted we keep our personal lives separate. Maybe I hadn’t spoken those words aloud or to his face, but that was what I had meant to imply. I hadn’t wanted to revisit the feelings I’d harbored for him so long ago. I hadn’t wanted anything to do with him at all. Yet I’d trusted him to teach my daughter in a way that would challenge her, rather than hold her back.
I’d pretended to hesitate when he’d asked me to dinner the first two times. And when he had been so close to kissing me those times when we were alone, I’d basked in my success in resistance. But all this time, I’d been hoping for a second chance. But really, once he’d started giving it to me, part of me had known it was too good to be true.

He held the straws in his hands for a long time before looking up at me, his smile making my heart beat faster inside my chest. But we both knew what we had already accomplished tonight, and that our emotional limits had already been long ago surpassed. This was not the time to talk about us. That would come later, when we were both ready.

He reached out his free hand, gripping the straws gently within the fingers of the other. I took it, surprised at its warmth. He squeezed my hand twice and then let go, a thank you that I would never hear, but feel instead. And that was it. I held my purse open as he dumped the IM SORRY straws back inside, and drove him all the way back to the vet’s office.

He looked at me as we sat idling in front of his Mustang. I knew there were words in there, a thousand things he longed to say. But he pushed the passenger side door open before anything could come out and put both feet down firmly onto the soaking wet pavement. He looked back once, and then shut the door and disappeared. I drove home, my emotions thawing quickly. My knees were shaking as I rested my foot on the gas pedal. Suddenly, I felt sick to my stomach.

This wasn’t how things had gone before. When I was hurting and confused and upset, I’d climbed into his car and curled up in the seat next to him as he drove. We got to the park, and I’d spilled my secrets out in front of him, mixed with emotion and tears and complications and hesitation. It was a mess, one he was glad to help me sort through—no matter how long it took. And it took all night. There were undeserved consequences.

I was there. He climbed into the car, and I drove. We stopped at the park, and he told me a story about a girl named Cassie. But he hardly even looked at me the whole time. He wouldn’t connect with me. Even worse, it was like he refused to. He was telling me all these secrets, but he wasn’t asking me to comfort him. That wasn’t what he had wanted.

So I drove home feeling like I hadn’t accomplished a single thing. I could feel my heart breaking all over again, knowing that nothing between us had really been solved. Ryan Drisi was going to go home to an empty house, numb and exhausted, and he was going to fall asleep without difficulty. And when he woke up, he would realize that he’d lost someone he really cared about all over again, for real. And then what would he do? He would fall apart, like Karen the dog sitter had implied. He would drown in his sorrow.

It was late when I finally walked through the door of our apartment. I hadn’t expected Caroline to have waited all this time for me to come home. After I had promised her I would come home and watch stupid TV with her and tell her all about my date, and after none of that had actually happened, I’d expected her to give up on me and seek out answers in the morning. That was what she would have done, any other night.

But she had seen my face when I hung up the phone. She’d listened to my words as I told her I had to go, that I didn’t know when I would be back. She’d been there when I had rushed out of the door, returning only once to retrieve the purse I had left sitting on the counter. And that was why she was sitting on the couch when I came through the door so suddenly, a novel in her lap and a bowl of chocolate chips on the floor.

I set my purse down on the counter, breaking. She looked up, finally realizing I had returned. “Mom?”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even take off my shoes or my coat. I slowly made my way over to the couch, still damp and still shaking, though a lot more violently than before. Once I was on the cushions, I couldn’t even remember sitting down. My hair was a mess, and my chest felt like it was going to explode. Everything Ryan Drisi had told me that night during our time alone together finally caught up with me.

I cried.

I cried because I was sorry. I cried because it wasn’t fair. I shed tears for Cassie and for her husband, for all of the memories he held in his heart that were supposed to make him smile. I didn’t stop because I didn’t know how. I finally knew everything about her, because I knew everything about Sarah. But I didn’t want to know anymore. At least when he had left me wondering, there wasn’t any reason to be sad.

I was sad, and I told Caroline everything about my night.

She understood.

My foggy dreams turned into sharp nightmares, one right after the other—and so on.

The unfamiliar sequence began with the cotton candy dream and ended in death. One minute Ryan Drisi was looking at me with those irresistible hazel eyes, pondering whether or not he really wanted to lean forward and kiss me in the middle of everything, with everyone watching. And then Spray Tans Always Suffice Carrie showed up and pulled my almost-sort-of-hopefully-becoming-my-boyfriend away from me and wouldn’t bring him back, even though I begged and pleaded and cried real tears.

I dreamed that we were happy, holding hands and skipping down empty streets made of shimmering gold. And then, all of a sudden, he was gone. In his place stood Nicholas Archer II, my enemy suddenly turned second chance lover. We didn’t skip. We walked side-by-side, grinning from ear to ear and vowing never to ruin the moment. Rain poured down on our heads, and the gold washed away. He left me without a word.

I woke up with a heavy heart and an ear-piercing headache. All I could really do was lay there with my eyes open, staring at the ceiling and letting my mind spin out of control all over again. I could have easily stayed there all day, falling continuously in and out of sleep and pretending that the world didn’t exist outside of what I could see through my retinas. But I had things to do, responsibilities I couldn’t ignore. That was how things always broke apart.

I sat up slowly, throwing the covers back and proceeding to stretch. My jaw-cracking yawn startled Caroline, who was at the counter with her nose in another literary masterpiece. She looked up as my feet hit the carpet and then went right back to her book, almost like she’d been expecting someone else to hobble toward her with messed up hair and breath that was setting off even my gag reflex. Someone less emotionally torn apart, perhaps.

“You were talking in your sleep again,” she muttered, turning the page.

“Again?” I repeated, going straight to the refrigerator and pulling out the milk. The Fruit Loops were already on the table; I grabbed the only remaining clean glass bowl and silver spoon and sat down across from her. We had only bought the cereal yesterday, and only about half of it was left after I’d filled my bowl almost to the top. “What was I saying?”

“I don’t remember all of it.” She slid the book over a little on the counter top, moving on to the next page. I couldn’t understand how she could hold a conversation of decent value and depth with me while fully engrossed in Nathaniel Hawthorne. “I got bits and pieces—that’s all it really was. Something about Dad getting a fake tan and stealing your cotton candy.” All was quiet. “Don’t ask me to interpret that for you. Not gonna happen.”

“Fine with me.” I ate slowly in silence as she turned page after page in front of me. I couldn’t remember my dreams, not the details, anyway, but I could remember every word we had exchanged back and forth the night before. She knew everything, all of my secrets and desires and disappointments. There was no Andrew. His name was Ryan Drisi, and the two of us weren’t meant to be together after all. Maybe.

“Next time we go shopping,” she began as casual as could be, flipping the page again, “we should buy some spoons.”

“Spoons?” I looked down at the one I was gripping tightly in my hand, dropping the combined contents (milk and sugary, colorful cereal) back into the almost empty bowl. I couldn’t see my reflection, but thinking about it made me realize that was probably for the best.

“Yes. Spoons. So we have more than two.” I vaguely remembered us having this conversation before, only I had been the one to address the issue first instead of her. My priorities were way out of balance. She looked up from her book before finishing the thought, her expression serious. That worried me. “Dad has spoons. They used to be yours, too. They aren’t anymore.” I nodded slowly. “You need new ones.”

I groaned, my head dropping. “It’s too early for your insightful metaphors.”

“It’s nine-thirty,” she shot back innocently. She went right back to her book.

“In the morning?” I didn’t really mean for that to come out (sugar equaled Michelle Bennett saying stupid things, still). I rose and dumped my dishes into the sink and began going through a mental checklist, crossing breakfast out at the top and moving on to Item Number Two. I headed for the bathroom. “Start getting ready,” I insisted.

“I thought you said Dad’s picking me up at eleven.”

“Too bad. I’m changing the plans.” We both turned to look at each other as the words that had flown out of my mouth (by themselves, most definitely) sank in. She couldn’t believe my declaration of spontaneity, and neither could I. But desperate times called for desperate measures. And changes. And people. “We’re leaving at ten. Be ready.”

“You’re freaking me out,” she informed me matter-of- factly, half mumbling.

“There are worse things in this world than this.” A truth she couldn’t argue, for sure.

That morning, my appearance was the least of my worries. I showered, threw on the first items of clothing I happened to pull out of my closet—jeans, socks and a short-sleeved T-shirt—and threw my hair up into an extremely sad excuse for a ponytail. By the time I shuffled back into the kitchen, Caroline was already ready to leave.

“I feel like we’re forgetting something.” I pulled my sunglasses out of my purse and stuck them on top of my head and threw on a light jacket, just in case. It was only ten till ten, a little too early to set out on this miniature journey of ours. We stood there in the middle of the room, neither of us saying a word.

“How about we get rid of all those?” She suggested, gesturing toward the counter. I followed her gaze, my lips curling into an innocent smile. Eight minutes later, still ahead of schedule (even if only by two minutes), we were in the car and pulling out of the parking lot. I rolled down the windows, breathing in the fresh air happily.

The beginning of the drive was silent, except for the hum of the car’s engine and the sound of the tires on the road. I knew there was something she wanted to say, something on her mind that she couldn’t bear to shake. I waited patiently, focusing on the unique traffic that flowed through downtown while she dug through her thoughts. Just as I was about to give up on her, thinking that maybe my prediction had been wrong, she spoke.

“Mom?”

“Hm.” We were just a few blocks away now, moving slowly on the seemingly crowded roads—just another car stuck in Saturday morning traffic. I kept my eyes on the car in front of me and watched it turn left, heaving an unnoticeable sigh of relief as I flipped my blinker on and turned right. There were no moving cars on this road.

“It’ll be okay when I’m gone.” She let the sentence hang in the air for a decent amount of time, waiting to see if I would respond. I didn’t. “I mean, maybe I won’t go to college now. That’s okay. But I’m gonna go eventually, sooner or later.” And then she looked down at her hands, seeming disappointed that I didn’t have anything to say in return. I took in a breath and let it out little by little, thinking. Honesty was the hardest. But life is never easy twenty-four hours a day. There are always decisions to make, facts to state, and emotions to release.

“I know,” I said, chewing on my bottom lip and breathing deeply through the heaviness that had yet to lift from inside my scarred chest. We were about to turn onto his street; this would be the second time in a row that I would have to look at the house since my escape. Maybe, I tried to convince myself, it wouldn’t be so bad in the light. “I just worry about you sometimes. I just don’t want you to have to feel like you have to rush through your life. I mean, you have so many great years ahead of you. I don’t want you to miss out.”

“I won’t.” She was still looking at her hands, thinking through my words. It was possible that maybe, after all this time, she was finally starting to understand why I was always so quick to grab for her hand, even when both of us knew she was fully capable of crossing the street all by herself. “It’s okay that you worry. It’s your job.”

I turned and began the last stretch of today’s journey together, fighting a smile. Maybe it was better not to stay serious, sometimes. “Well?” She looked up at me, her wide blue eyes blinking curiously at my profile. “How am I doing so far?”

“Pretty good,” she admitted, her thin lips curling upward. “I mean, you know. For you.” I looked into her eyes, watching how they sparkled as her mouth exploded into a baby-teeth grin that lifted a fraction of the heaviness, even if it was just for a moment. There was something we had between us, I realized in that moment, that nothing could ever tear apart. Through an unfair divorce, our bond hadn’t broken. And if we could survive that, I knew we could survive anything. Even if she went away, her memory would never fade.

I pulled into the driveway, stopping as soon as my back wheels rolled past the sidewalk. I was the first one out of the car, reaching into the back seat and pulling out one of five plastic bags sitting in a pile there. Caroline followed me up the sidewalk, her steps quick and her expression (once again) confused.

“You don’t have to walk me to the door,” she said as we climbed the front steps. The wood on the front porch had been re-painted since our residency here had been terminated (both against our will and by choice). “I can give it to him.” I knew what was going through her head, and I clenched my jaw while I let the right words come to me.

“Chill’ax,” I instructed her, pulling my sunglasses down over my eyes as she rang the doorbell reluctantly, pressing the button with the very tip of her finger and stepping back a significant distance. I didn’t move. “This was my house once. Our house. It’s not like I’m inviting myself into a stranger’s apartment.” That would have been weird.

She didn’t say anything as we waited patiently on the light grey front porch. The outside of the house was still the same, a blue so pale that it almost looked white from a distance. There were still thick curtains over the windows, isolating its inhabitant(s) from the outside world. I remembered that feeling, almost like being trapped.

We heard footsteps on the other side of the door before it opened. There were a series of locks that he had to undo before we saw his face, but I stopped counting after two. They say a lot can change in a summer, but it didn’t exactly appear to me that much around here had gone through any sort of colorful metamorphosis. Now that I thought about it, I realized that Caroline probably would have told me, if anything had changed. My expectations sank, and the tightness in my chest loosened just a little.

“Hi Dad,” she said as soon as the light from the sun shone onto his face. She went instantly from nervous, uncertain Caroline to perkiest daughter that ever lived. He muttered a brief “Hey,” while his gaze never left my face. He glanced down at his watch, or where a watch usually rested upon his wrist, and then looked back up at me, his mouth hanging open a little. I gripped the handle of the plastic bag tightly between my fingers.

“I thought—” he reached behind his head nervously, scraping the back of his neck with the fingernails he lacked. My heart began to pound all over again, and I had to curl my toes to keep my face expressionless. “I’m sorry. I just thought we agreed on the phone yesterday that I was gonna pick Caroline up at eleven.” He hesitated. “What time is it?”

“Ten oh six,” she gladly answered him.

“Ten oh six,” he repeated, using his knuckles instead of his fingertips this time.

“I’m sorry,” I said, adjusting my sunglasses just so I didn’t have to stand there completely still like an idiot. I wasn’t really all that sorry, since I really didn’t think there was anything much to be sorry for. This was just, truthfully, one of those things. “I have errands to run. I just thought it would be easier for me to drop her off. I mean, so you wouldn’t have to make an unnecessary trip.” I was really bad at this.

“It’s okay,” he said, after having thought about it. I knew he didn’t mean it, and could sense a “but” in various forms in the very near future. But that was just how things worked with him; there was no way to change that. “I mean, you could have called first. But it’s okay.”

“I’ll be downstairs,” Caroline announced out of the blue, pushing past him with her overstuffed (as usual) backpack bouncing along behind her. It was the last thing of her I would see until the weekend was almost over. For some reason, I felt an almost unbearable wave of sadness overwhelm me. “Bye, Mom!” And that was it.

“You know,” he said, leaning against the doorframe and sighing heavily as he folded his arms across his chest. I hated this game we were always playing, putting on faces for our daughter even if the initial drama had already blown past a long enough time ago for the shock to have worn off. I wanted to remind him that she wasn’t “normal”—she had the mental capabilities to understand these things. But I didn’t. “You didn’t have to walk her to the door.”

“I’m her mother,” I found it ever so fit to remind him, just in case he had been overly successful in moving on with his life since we signed and initialed next to all the right x’s, forgetting this fact in the process. “I think that gives me at least half of a right to walk my five-year-old up to the door of her destination.”

“What’s in the bag?” he asked, ignoring my comment.

“A present.” I tried to smile, but felt like I was stretching my lips far enough to make them crack wide open. I pressed them together, making them virtually invisible. I gave up and held the plastic bag out to him. He took it reluctantly, staring at me for a moment before finally daring to look inside. His gaze shot right back up to my face.

“What am I supposed to do with sixteen boxes of Junior Mints?” He wanted to know.

“That’s how many we have left in our apartment,” I said honestly, reaching up and tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. I bumped the stem of my sunglasses in the process, almost knocking them completely off of my face, ruining my shield. “I don’t think I can eat any more. And we’ve only eaten, like, two boxes. Or four. I can’t remember.”

“So you’re giving them to me,” he said, clearly guessing.

“I, um, I thought you would want—” I shook my head, pushing the sunglasses back on top of my head and giving up completely. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. God, I’m so stupid.” Not knowing what else to do, I spun on my heel and started toward the front steps. I couldn’t talk to him, not like I thought I could.

“Wait.” I stopped at the very edge of the porch, my feet suddenly frozen where they landed. I turned around slowly, trying to figure out why he was even bothering to stop me from running. He’d let me walk away before—why was now any different? “Do you have more? Maybe I could give a bag to Carrie.”

“Um. Yeah, sure.” I went back to the car and grabbed another bag full of sixteen boxes of Junior Mints, all the while trying to flush her name out of my mind. Carrie. And then I started wondering all of the things I’d promised myself I would never think about, like what her last name was…her life-long goals…her short-term plans…

I carried the bag of candy back up the sidewalk, up the stairs and across the light gray front porch. I held it out to him, not saying a word, and he took it and held both plastic bags in his hands, nodding. We just stood there, trying not to fidget nervously through the silence, neither of us really knowing what to say next. I knew what I wanted him to hear me say, that I had somewhere to be and that I hoped to see Caroline (promptly) at eight tomorrow night. But I opened my mouth and closed it again, and that was all. I couldn’t do this anymore.

“Do you wanna come inside?” He finally asked, just as I was about to take yet another deep breath and try again. His question caught me off-guard, just as he probably meant for it to do, and I forgot everything I was supposed to tell him in order to get myself out of here, most likely for good. I just stared at him, feeling even more intellectually challenged. “I mean, unless your errands are urgent or something.” He hesitated. “I made coffee.”

Then probably would have been a good time to mention that I was trying not to drink coffee anymore, that I’d been successful in breaking my addiction for a long time, and I wasn’t going to let a minor relapse tear me down completely. But his out-of-nowhere offer completely melted my brain. I couldn’t remember how to say two letter words like “no.”

“Um, sure. I mean, why not?” My knees were shaking. The whole saliva swallowing process wasn’t working out too well, either. “Or we could—” I thought about gesturing toward the bench, about sitting down on the porch and gritting my teeth through whatever conversation (or conversations) we were likely to have…if I didn’t turn and run at that exact moment. But then I remembered that the bench was their bench, and I didn’t belong in their world. “Um, never mind. Sure. Coffee sounds good.”

And so somehow, though I’d promised myself a long time ago that it would never ever happen, not even if the world was ending, I followed Nicholas Archer II (my ex-husband, my former lover, the father of my only daughter) into the house we used to share. He shut the door behind me, and though I didn’t feel particularly comfortable walking into the open living room ahead of him, I did.

My jaw hit the floor in half a second flat.

Nothing was where it was supposed to be—er, used to be. All of the old furniture had been replaced, and none of the pieces matched. The carpet had been completely torn up, and the two of us were now standing on a completely finished hardwood surface with a rug that (surprisingly) matched the curtains in-between the couch and the coffee table.

And the ceiling fan was gone. Just, gone.

“Wow,” I said, completely unable to tear my eyes away from the living room I’d done plenty of living in not even six months ago. It wasn’t the same, though. I’d spent all that time picking out colors and shopping for furniture that matched. That carpet had been extremely pricey, by the way.

“What do you think?” he asked me, not even trying to hide his proud smile. I didn’t even look at him: I couldn’t. He hadn’t even bothered to fix the ceiling where the fan used to hang from. And how was anyone supposed to stand mismatching end tables? Was it even possible to buy one end table without its twin brother or sister? Really?

“It’s—different.” That was the best I could do, I’ll admit.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was going for.” He folded his arms across his chest and surveyed the room like he was just seeing it for the first time. After a few silent nods and one full-out smile, he turned back to me and started to say something. And then he stopped, looking at me like he knew. And of course, he did. “What’s wrong?” But he still asked.

“Nothing.” But I couldn’t fool him that easily; not even now “This is gonna sound stupid. I’m sorry in advance.” Gag. “I just thought, I don’t know. I thought Caroline would tell me if you changed stuff.”

“That’s not stupid. I get it.” I looked into his eyes, and the sane part of me knew he meant the words he was speaking. The insane part of me probably believed it, too, but it was far too stubborn to admit it. “I don’t know. I just thought, I needed to change something. I kept everything else the same, though.”

“Even the bathroom?” The one with pink and green tile and a matching polka-dotted shower curtain, the one you always swore you were going to have re-done when I wasn’t paying attention? Really?

“Unfortunately.” And then he smiled again. Only this time, he was smiling at me. He was really smiling at me. I thought about turning around, to see if Caroline was standing in the kitchen watching us. The only reason he had ever bothered to smile at me since things went wrong between us was to try and make things better for Caroline. Even though she understood everything, and wasn’t as hurt as a normal five-year-old would be.

I felt my heart starting to tear itself apart beneath my rib cage, and I had to bite my lip until it almost bled to hold back the sudden rush of tears that flooded my eyes. I had to get away from here, to prevent him from seeing me this way. I’d made a vow that I would prove to him that I was strong, that I didn’t care that he cheated on me and threw meaningless apologies at me one after another. I couldn’t break another promise.

But he knew me. It hadn’t taken him long to figure me out, and he apparently hadn’t tried as hard to forget me as I had to forget about him.

“Something’s wrong,” he said, already knowing that there was. The way his expression automatically shifted to mind-racing worry only made it harder to keep my emotions from exploding all over the living room he was somehow so proud of. I took a deep breath and tried to swallow the sadness, but there was too much. “Here, sit down.” He led me to the striped couch and sat down next to me, looking like he just might burst before me. “Tell me what’s wrong. No, wait, let me get you some coffee first. And Kleenex. No, wait, I’m out of Kleenex. How about paper towels? They’re absorbent.”

And then he was up and all the way into the kitchen, rushing around like he used to do when I was pregnant with Caroline—always sure that my needs were more important and urgent than anything else in the whole entire world; always willing to do more for me than I ever would have asked. I hated remembering these things. I hated being here. And at the same time, I didn’t want to leave. At that moment, there wasn’t anyone else I would rather spill everything out in front of. He was burden-free; he was happy. He could handle my emotional baggage.

At least, I really hoped so.

He came back into the living room with an oversized mug of coffee in one hand and an entire roll of paper towels in the other. The tears were slowly drying, leaving my cheeks sticky and uncomfortably damp. All he did was sit there, waiting for me to dry my eyes and attempt to gather myself back together again. I looked up at him, the sting returning.

“I can’t—” I wanted to tell him that I couldn’t believe all that had happened since he broke my heart, that I couldn’t tell him how I was feeling, because I still couldn’t trust him. But I couldn’t lie to him, and those things weren’t even close to the truth. He hurt me…but the pain was almost bearable now. Almost. “I can’t believe I’m jealous.”

“Jealous of what?” He should have known. I’d very desperately hoped that he would, so I wouldn’t have to speak the words myself. But he just looked down at me, right into my puffy red eyes, waiting for me to elaborate. What he should have asked instead was “jealous of whom?” It would be stupid to harbor envy toward an inanimate object, though it wasn’t likely that it hadn’t ever been done before.

“Of you,” I said, sniffling and bringing the crumpled wad of paper towels in my hand back up to my face again. This definitely wasn’t the hardest thing I’d ever had to do in my lifetime. But it was probably up there with the top ten worst moments of my life, somewhere below the moment his betrayal was revealed to me. “You and Carrie. Carrie, mostly.”

We’d stepped into uncomfortable territory, indicated by the way he didn’t say anything right away. It became so quiet in the living room that I could hear the TV playing downstairs, where Caroline had most likely turned up the volume to drown out our conversation(s). She’d learned how to do that after awhile, even if she wasn’t actually watching what was on the screen.

“She means a lot to me.” He wouldn’t look at me as the words eased slowly into the air surrounding us. He didn’t want to talk about this with me, and I knew it. But I wanted to make him uncomfortable for some reason, to remind him that I still knew him well enough to make him squirm. And then I felt guilty. So, so guilty. And then I got over it.

“More than I ever meant to you?”

Those were forbidden words, words I probably should have kept far, far away from him and his well-trained ears. He looked right at me, a combination of horrified and angry and a thousand different variations of hurt. And though I probably shouldn’t have let the question slip past so many barriers, it just so happened to change the entire course of the conversation. For better, or for worse, I’ll probably never know for sure.

“Don’t say that,” he said, grabbing my free hand and holding it for a second. And then he dropped it, like he suddenly remembered we weren’t supposed to hold hands anymore, not by normal standards. He got up and crossed the room, clenching his hands into fists behind his back as he paced. When he came back to me, his face was the same color our living room couch used to be. “No one will ever mean as much to me as you did, or as much as you still do.”

“Stop lying to me.” I closed my eyes, covering them with my makeshift Kleenex.

“Michelle, I’m not lying to you.”

“Stop.” My nose and eyes and throat burned so intensely that the hot tears came without warning this time, and I let them come. We could never have a conversation without fighting anymore. We were too different to get along. We lived lives so separate that being in the same room with one another would never lead to happiness, not ever again. “You know. You know if I ever meant anything to you, you wouldn’t have—” Cheated on me. “You never cared. Maybe at first, but it went away.”

“I don’t know why. I don’t think I’ll ever know why.” He was so frustrated, so torn and upset and angry, that he couldn’t even yell. He only had enough energy to talk, steady and firm and with more meaning than anyone could ever hope to master. “I still care about you. I still think about you, and I still wonder—”
He stopped, because he saw me shaking my head back and forth, splattering angry and confused tears everywhere. And then he grabbed my hand again, gently, and he didn’t let go this time, not right away.
“Who says I have to stop caring about you, or about Caroline?” He was trying to be sincere. I wasn’t in the mood.

“You don’t care about her, either,” I informed him bluntly, sniffling.

“Says who?” He finally pulled his hand away.

“Says me.” I inhaled a shaky breath, struggling to let it out again. “Did you know her teacher wants her to try for a GED? Did you know she’s doing college work as a second-grader when really, if we lived in a normal universe, she would barely belong in kindergarten?” I could feel a rant coming on, and I didn’t mind in the slightest. “Did you know that she understands more about life than I’ll ever be able to teach myself or even learn from somebody else? Did you know she misses you, yet she wants to go away to college so she won’t have to deal with people making fun of her anymore? Did you know she would rather leave me than enjoy what could be the best years of her life?”

He just looked at me as more tears poured silently down my cheeks. I’d given up trying to stop them. This was apparently how things were supposed to go, me getting my sadness and personal burdens all over everything while he just sat there and watched. I was done trying to go against what had already been planned for me, outside of my control. I went on, not caring what he thought anymore.

“I don’t want her to go. I don’t want her to be a Steph Parker. Not ever.” I hiccupped, one of those that hurt so bad it just made me want to start bawling all over again. “What if she waits a few years and goes to Harvard like Karen the dog walker, and ends up going insane and trying to take over the world? It’ll have been all my fault because I let her go.”

“So don’t let her go,” he suggested.

“But I can’t just—” I hesitated, trying desperately to think through my words without over thinking the possible turnout of this conversation. Everything was so mixed up inside my head and in my heart, trying was pointless, making my success virtually impossible. “I want her to do the best that she can. If I hold her back, it’ll be all my fault if she doesn’t ever reach her full potential, or whatever.” I sniffled, wiping my eyes yet again.

“If you love her, which I know you do—” It was comforting somehow, being reminded that maybe the two of us weren’t so different after all. We both loved her. We would both do anything for her. And even if we didn’t agree, we would both willingly support each and every decision she made in regards to her future. “You’ll let her do what she has to do.”

“I don’t know if I can.” I really, really didn’t.

“Trust me, Michelle.” I stared into his deep blue eyes, remembering the way they always used to light up when he was making plans to toss my bad moods into the wind. “If you could make it this far in our relationship without ripping my head off, you can love Caroline enough to let her thrive.”

I wiped my eyes one last time, stuffing the paper towels into my coat pocket and standing up slowly. I stood there for a second, watching Nicholas as he followed suit. He was towering over me again, looking down into my tired eyes like he always used to do. That was how I knew for sure that he cared, and that he’d never really stopped. “Thanks for listening to me. Really.”

“Any time,” he said, leading me to the door and opening it slowly. “Really.”

I stepped out onto the front porch, feeling the fresh air swirl around me as I pulled my sunglasses back over my eyes. I took a few steps forward, knowing that he was watching me, before I turned back around again. The heaviness in my heart had temporarily subsided. I smiled, feeling a little light-headed from all of the crying.

“I’m expecting Caroline home on time tomorrow night,” I said, blinking rapidly behind my tinted shields. “Eight o’clock on the dot. No earlier, no later. Got it?”

“I got it,” he said. This time, he tried to hide his smile behind his hand. “If we’re late, we’ll pick up ice cream on the way, just for you.”

“Excellent.” I spun on my heel and prepared to rock my exit, knowing there was power in leaving the goodbyes for another time, another place. But I had only managed another step and a half toward the stairs before I remembered what I had come here to tell him, and decided that leaving without saying anything more would benefit absolutely no one. So I turned around, and he was still there, leaning against the doorframe, his hand on his chin. “I’m not really engaged, you know,” I said.

“I know.” He looked down at my hand, which I didn’t really know what to do with anyway. So I just let it hang there, fully exposed to his wandering eyes. There was no ring there to complete it. Maybe there never would be again; maybe there would. He looked down at his feet, and then back up at me. “Don’t ever let me kiss you again without your consent.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Nicholas,” I said.
And then I left.

The further away I drove from the place I used to call home, the more my insides ached. There was something still nagging deep inside of me, something I could feel but couldn’t quite reach, no matter how hard my mind explored as I merged onto the highway and began the hour-long drive to another place I’d lived, another place I wasn’t sure I wanted to go.

Still, something told me that this was where the answers to this mystery were hiding. Maybe I’d been searching for them all this time and hadn’t taken the time to stop and realize it. Maybe it was my conversation with Nicholas that had sparked the sudden questions blazing in my mind. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t shake the constant wondering. And that was why I chose to drive to my parents’ house.

The drive was long, so long that I feared it would never end. I even considered the potential (but also not very likely) possibility that they’d changed all of the exit signs around, so that somehow I’d missed the turnoff that would eventually lead me to my uncertain destination. But I kept moving forward, until the sign appeared out of nowhere overhead. I heaved a reluctant sigh of relief, turned my blinker on, and changed lanes.

I hadn’t made the journey to my parents’ house alone since college. Even back then, I’d almost always had my arm intertwined with my boyfriend’s, clinging to him for dear life as my father interrogated him, making sure he would always and forever bring me nothing but happiness. Even after all those visits, neither of them had grown very fond of him. They’d just sort of accepted him as my companion, treating him like family but never overly thrilled about it. The last time I’d showed up on their doorstep alone was to tell them that we were engaged, and to please not be disappointed.

After that, we had always made the journey together. And once Caroline was born, we never went without her. When things with Nicholas started falling apart, well, that was when I stopped bothering to make the journey at all. How they’d convinced the two of us to stay with them for a week that summer, I’ll never know. But as much as I would have liked to admit otherwise, seeing them again had been extremely comforting.

My mother and I hadn’t really talked while Caroline and I had stayed there. Sure, we’d talked—about this, and that, and whatever Caroline could come up with as we sat together at the breakfast table. And in restaurants for lunch. And at the dinner table. We hadn’t bothered to try and talk about what had happened with my marriage. I guess we both felt like we didn’t have to. After all, I knew she didn’t approve of my divorce, despite the circumstances, and she knew I didn’t exactly approve of her disapproval. So we let it slide away, ignoring it.

That had to be why even the idea of having to hold a polite conversation with her made my head spin. Everything was already resolved with the masculine parental unit, thanks to a tear-filled phone call and four days of nonstp quality bonding time together. My mother hadn’t mentioned anything about my newfound single life since they tried to come to my rescue shortly after Nicholas broke my heart. Even then, I’d been the one talking, and they’d listened.

The streets surrounding my former home were quiet, like it wasn’t almost noon and everyone was still sleeping soundly behind thick off-white curtains. There were cars parked in driveways, bikes leaning against garages and hoses spread out across side yards. I felt out of place driving down my old street, in a car that didn’t belong here. As I thought about it, I realized that I didn’t belong here, either. Shelly Bennett was the one who had jumped rope on this pavement, who had fallen off her bike a thousand times before learning how to balance on the sidewalk—not me. Not anymore.

I swallowed yet another lump in my throat as I pulled into the driveway. This could have easily been payback for when my father had showed up at my apartment unannounced, ringing their doorbell and greeting them without much of a reason at all. But I wasn’t quite sure what exactly I was trying to pay them back for, since all they’d ever done was hoped I would grow up successful and happy and smart and loved. I shook my head, turned off the engine, and climbed out of the car. I slammed the door behind me; I was ready, or as ready as I would ever be.

My parents were the type to redecorate often, always deciding they needed to arrange something or paint a room a new color. Caroline and I had stayed in my old room during our visit, which had gone from purple to dark blue to yellow and then to green, all since Nicholas and I had announced our engagement. They moved all my stuff into the attic for me to come back and go through later, assuming I wouldn’t be coming back to live with them ever again. They’d assumed right, even still.

The front door had been painted white since we’d been here in July, replacing its once olive green to match the siding with something a little more inviting. The doorbell was still in the same place, directly to the right of the door which hung from hinges on its left side. I pressed the button, trying to swallow my nerves but failing miserably. I waited until I heard voices, followed by footsteps on the other side of the door, before I stepped back and clenched both hands into fists behind my back. This was it; there was no turning back.

I thought about running, just for a second. I thought about what would happen if I turned around, bounding down the stairs at full speed and hiding in the bushes while they tried to figure out who was punching their doorbell in the middle of their precious Saturday. The fault in that plan, the fact that my car was sitting in the middle of the driveway, hidden by absolutely nothing, kept my feet planted right where they were. There was no way I would be able to drive away fast enough; not a chance.

The single lock on the inside of the door clicked, and my father pulled it open and squinted as the sunlight shone into his eyes. It only took a second or two for his eyes to adjust, at which point he looked me over, at first like he’d never seen me before, or had forgotten who I was. And then he smiled, a gesture I had only half expected to receive upon arrival in his personal space—and without warning, for that matter.

“Hi, Dad,” I said, raising one hand to wave, my purse slipping down to my forearm.

He didn’t say anything. He just stepped forward, over the threshold of the front door and into the light, and pulled me into his arms, squeezing me affectionately but gently enough so that I could still breathe. I lost track of how long we stood there like that, his arms around my middle and mine around his shoulders.

“You read it, didn’t you?” He finally asked as we pulled away, looking down at me like that was the reason I was here, because I’d finally figured out the mystery and traveled all the way here just to tell him. I just stood there, looking right back at him, unmoving. I didn’t really know how I was supposed to respond to that. Yes?—And he told me everything?

“I, um.” I stuffed my hands into my coat pocket, tearing a small piece of the paper towel still resting inside and squashing it in-between my thumb and index finger. I could feel my heart pounding against my chest, the nervousness rapidly rising. I didn’t want to talk about this, especially not now. “I have something in the car for you. I’ll be right back.”

I turned around and flew down the stairs, down the sidewalk and back to the driveway. He was still standing there on the porch as I unlocked the doors and grabbed another plastic bag out of the back seat. I could feel him watching me, curious and maybe even a little annoyed. I already regretted coming here—and I hadn’t even seen her yet.

I carried the bag back up to where he stood, handing it to him reluctantly and waiting for him to look what was inside it. He didn’t. He just turned around and went into the house, leaving the door open as a signal for me to follow. Right then would have been the perfect opportunity to bolt, when he wasn’t looking and while he was expecting me to follow him. But I didn’t run; I couldn’t leave things the way they were.

I stepped into the house and closed the door behind me, figuring there wouldn’t be any point in leaving it open. I was immediately hit with a sudden wave of cold air, hearing the air conditioning hum from somewhere in the depths of the house. I folded my arms across my chest, glad I’d worn a jacket over my short sleeved T-shirt.

“Did she call first?” I followed the sound of my parents’ voices, venturing into the living room and making my way toward my father’s office. She used his computer sometimes, since they only had one, and the only thing she really knew how to do with it was play Hearts and Solitaire. The walls around me were cream and peach, with matching furniture and a brand-new rug underneath my feet.

They came out of the office before he could say anything more, and I stared into the eyes of my mother, pushing my sunglasses back on top of my head and not really knowing what to do otherwise. She was holding the plastic bag full of Junior Mints in her hands, looking like she didn’t really know what to do, either. Finally she spoke, tying the handles of the bag together into a knot I knew she would never be able to undo.

“Thanks for the chocolate,” she said, handing the bag over to her husband. He carried it into the kitchen, probably just to set it on the counter to leave it until later, a mystery they weren’t quite ready to solve. My prediction was confirmed when he re-entered the room only a few seconds later, empty-handed. “You didn’t have to buy us candy so we would let you in. We would’ve done that anyway.”

“I just had it laying around.” And that was all I could think to say. I knew they were going to ask me why I was here, why I had traveled so far just to give them a plastic bag full minty chocolate. I didn’t have an honest answer, because I didn’t even really know why I’d convinced myself that this was a good idea. I wanted to go home, to forget I’d ever come here. But that would be rude. “Listen, I think there’s some of my stuff still up in the attic. Could I go check?”

My parents exchanged a look, one of those I-have-no-idea-what’s-going-on-but-let’s-play-along looks, speaking to each other with me in the room without actually saying words. They’d used this tactic all throughout my childhood, and even well into my teens, as a way to communicate without me being able to figure out what was going on. But I almost always did, even if they never knew it.

“Sure. If you want.” And then they just stood there, a plain as day reminder that I knew the way, that they didn’t need to follow me up two flights of stairs and into a dusty room with no carpet or paint on the walls. Still I remained on the cream and peach carpet, hoping that maybe they would say something else. But that was all; they were just being polite.

“Okay.”
After a few more seconds of waiting, I finally went. I could feel their eyes on me as I slowly ascended the stairs, gripping the railing and slowly sliding my hand up the long strip of finished wood as I went. When I was finally out of their sight, when I had finally reached the top of the stairs and stood on carpet surrounded by bedrooms, I finally let my shoulders relax.

The living floor was a wide open, four-sided area with closed doors all around. There was the master bedroom right across from me, my old room and a bathroom to my left and two guest rooms on my right. There was nothing in the middle, just air—a perfect place to play with Barbie and her dream house, have massive slumber parties, or work on a physics project. Sometimes Ryan Drisi and I would spread all of our homework out in wide radii around us, writing on books and sitting on pillows. Standing there brought back more memories than I ever would have hoped to dwell upon. I pushed them away.

There was a door in the corner to my right, what appeared to be a linen closet at first glance. It was pure white, like the rest of the doors and walls were on the outside. No one ever bothered to walk over to it and pull on the doorknob, to look inside to see what was really there. But I knew, even though I hadn’t ventured inside since the very end of Life Number Three, that behind that door lay so much more than shelves full of musty smelling towels.

I walked over to it and pulled the door open without hesitation, instantly overcome with hot dusty air and plain wooden stairs in front of me. Stepping inside, I closed the outside door behind me and relied on what I remembered about the layout of the space in front of me and the small amount of light leaking through the bottom of the door at the top of the stairs to ascend without falling flat on my face. Once there, I pushed the door open and looked around, taking in everything I saw.

Nothing had changed; not a single thing.

Well, besides the stacks of furniture they didn’t want to throw away, and the boxes full of matching lamps and rugs and other various trinkets stacked against the walls. We never had a single garage sale in the entire time that I grew up here, always rearranging and starting anew but never completely getting rid of the old. Moving forward was easy. It was getting rid of the past that was the hard part.

Other than that, everything around me was the same. The windows were still covered in dust, since getting to them with Windex and a roll of paper towels would pretty much require an entire army to move everything out of the way. Light still shone through somehow, leaving no reason for an overhead light. There was no insulation in the walls, just beams of wood and then more wood. It was hot up here in the summer and dangerously cold in the winter; spring really had been a great time for cleaning.

Everything I’d owned before trekking off to higher education still sat in the far left corner, isolated somehow from the rest of the stuff that had been piled up in here over the years. I realized, as I moved closer, that I hadn’t come back for anything between college graduation and my wedding. Everything I had absolutely needed for school I had taken, leaving everything else behind along with my third life. And with Life Number Five came new stuff, things I may have had at home but hardly even thought of returning for.

Whatever was written on the lids of the boxes was unreadable. I opened one, staring at my old comforter, matching sheets and pillowcases and all. I closed that one and pushed it aside, opening another one to reveal all of my old stuffed animals, as well as a few dozen Beanie Babies I’d forgotten I had. I thought about taking them out of the box, stuffing them into my purse and bringing them home for Caroline to arrange. But in a way, all these things were sacred. If I left this place with something, I would be forever cursed.

I closed that box and stacked it on top of the other one I’d peered into, curious as to what could be hiding behind it. I knew I would probably find plenty of things I had forgotten about—probably Barbie’s dream house, and Barbie clones as a cheerleader, rock star, doctor, and the etcetera. I could handle that part of my childhood, the innocence that came with hundreds of happy memories. I wasn’t sure if I could handle what I saw sitting in front of me, definitely not forgotten.

This cardboard box was different than all of the rest. It was decorated with a thousand colorful doodles, faded stars and squiggles and swirls I’d drawn in washable marker almost ten years before. There were stickers all over the lid, smiley faces and hearts and cartoon characters. But there were mostly hearts, sketched and painted and scribbled in various colors of ink. You could barely tell what its original color had been, because of all of the layers of casual and formal drawings. It had taken me years to make it perfect—four, to be exact.

I knew what was inside, everything from pictures taken with disposable cameras to notes we’d written back and forth when we had nothing better to do in the news room after school. There were small things, little trinkets whose significance only he and I would most likely be able to figure out. There were bigger things, an old jacket and a Turnabout/Prom dress. Really, there wasn’t any reason to lift the lid.


I did it anyway.

The first thing I expected to see when I opened the top of the box was the pink, floor length dress I’d been wearing when he took me to the Prom. It had been one of the last things I’d stuffed into the box before bringing it up to the attic, angry and frustrated and not really knowing what else to do with it or anything else I owned. But that wasn’t the first thing that was there. Instead, everything had been rearranged.

The pictures we’d taken were bound together with rubber bands, instead of stuffed aimlessly into worn, torn envelopes like before. The dress, as well as the jacket I’d purposely never given back to him, were folded at the bottom of the box. I never remembered folding either of those things, just stuffing them in between this and that so I could close the box. The little notes we’d written back and forth to one another were paper clipped together in a pile. And the two letters I’d placed on top of everything else were folded in thirds and then in half, on top of a stack of colored index cards with “secret messages” written “in code” on the back.

I picked up the letters, surprised to realize that I couldn’t remember what they said, at least not word for word. One of them had been written on notebook paper, torn out of a notebook and handed to me with the frayed edges still intact. The other was a copy of the letter I’d written back, on pink flowery stationary in neat cursive. I’d written it out once, as sloppily as I’d dared. And then I’d written it out a second time, neater and straighter. That was the one I’d sent to him, hoping it would change everything.

But for everything to make sense, I had to start from the very beginning.

I unfolded the letter carefully, remembering his sloppy yet somehow still legible handwriting immediately. He’d written it in blue pen, scratching out a word here or there and trying again right after. It was a little over a page, filling one side and briefly continuing onto the back. I took a deep breath, sat down cross-legged on the floor, and read.

Michelle,

In the past year, you have changed my life. That’s exactly what I wanted to say to you at dinner tonight. Don’t ask me why I didn’t, because I don’t know why. I guess I just wanted to keep things the same, like they’ve always been. I didn’t want to think about graduation tomorrow, or about the plane ticket that’s sitting on my dresser for the day after. I just wanted to cherish the last moments we’ll probably have together for a long time. I know that sounds lame, but I don’t care, and I know you don’t either.

I don’t know why I’m writing you. It’s almost one o’clock in the morning. I can’t sleep though, believe me, I’ve tried. I can’t stop thinking about how different it’s going to be after I leave. I hope you’ll write me. I hope you’ll call me every once in awhile, but long distance is expensive. Maybe you can text me, if I ever figure out how that works. I hope you’ll tell me all about college. I’ll tell you all about what I’m doing this summer, and when classes start in the fall, I hope I’ll have enough time to tell you about that. I’ll make time. You’re worth it.

I don’t care if I never become a famous rock star. I guess I’m not exactly the rocking type. I like ballads, and musical theatre is pretty cool. But I swear, if I never see your name at the top of a New York Times article about saving the world, I’m going to find you, and I’m going to punish you. Don’t ask me how. Just let that be your motivation to do exactly what I know you’re meant to do. Don’t ever let anybody tell you it can’t be done, or that it isn’t practical. Since when have either of us cared about being practical?

Keep in touch, Shelly. I know you hate it when I call you that, but I’m trying to keep the tone bright and cheery here. Don’t ever forget me. I won’t ever forget about you.

—Ryan



His letter affected me the exact same way it had the first time I’d read it, sitting on my bed after the graduation ceremony was over, still in my cap and gown and overly comfortable white shoes. A smile spread across my face as I folded it and held it in my hand for just a second, my heart fluttering. That letter had taken my sadness and transformed it instantly.

It was the next letter that I was dreading, the one I picked up after I had placed Ryan Drisi’s letter back in its place inside the box. I remembered too many of these words, and the emotion that had flowed through my veins as I wrote them. Even the words I didn’t remember poked at my suddenly heavy heart, taunting me.

But there had to be closure. I couldn’t just walk away.



Ryan Andrew Drisi, My Best Friend:

I have dreaded saying goodbye ever since you became a part of my life. I wish more than anything that I could have gathered up the courage to talk to you sooner, instead of waiting until the summer before senior year, when fate brought us together like it did. We had fun, during the econ project and as co-editors of the paper and as really good friends. I can’t believe it’s over. I can’t believe we made it through such a tough year without strangling each other.

I could tell you what my first thoughts were when I read your letter. I could tell you all the mushy stuff, that it made all of my doubts about the future fade away into pretty much nothing. But I’ll just tell you it made me happy instead, because it did. It made me smile and I almost laughed, though I’m not really sure why. It was just so…you. There’s really no other way to describe it.

There’s so much I wish I could have said last night. But, like you, I didn’t want to bring it up. I knew what we really needed was to spend one last night having a good time together, like we always do, before everything changed. I guess now is when we have to start facing reality. You’re going away tomorrow, a place I’m not allowed to go. But I hope you’ll tell me how all your dreams are starting to come true before they actually do. I already feel like I’m going to miss everything.

One thing I know I can promise you is that I’ll write. Well, you’ll write, and then I’ll write, and that way it’ll be just like the news room when we used to write messages to each other when we were bored. I’m going to miss the paper, so, so much. But I’m already on staff for the paper at my college, starting this fall. But you already knew that. You were there with me when I got the phone call.

You’ve been with me through so much. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank you enough for letting me drag you along on that beach trip, or putting up with my parents. They really like you, you know. My mom keeps asking me if you’re going to be home for Thanksgiving, and if you would want to spend it with us. I keep telling her I’ll ask.

When we were at the festival last summer, and you kept offering me cotton candy even though I kept telling you I didn’t want any, we had a moment. We were standing on the corner, right across from the pizza place. Remember? You looked at me, and I looked at you, and then you grabbed my hand. And then you let go, and that was that. You tried to kiss me when we were walking on the beach. Actually, you were going to kiss me, and then that wave hit us. That made me really mad, you know. I really wanted you to kiss me. I really wanted to kiss you.

I don’t want to keep pretending that there’s nothing all that special between us, because there is. I’m not sure how you feel about me, but I know how I feel about you. I loved you even before we were friends, when I heard you sing in choir and went to your soccer games and joined the paper because you were already on staff. I wanted to know you, and now I do. I loved you then, and I love you now. And saying goodbye last night and today almost killed me.

I know I shouldn’t have waited. I know I should have said something. But it was hard to know with you. One minute you would be looking at me like my dad looks at my mom sometimes, and the next minute things would go right back to normal. I can’t figure it out.

Please tell me. Am I alone? Or do you love me? Write me back. Call me. I don’t care. I can’t keep waiting around for you to say something. It hurts. It really, really hurts.

—Michelle


I couldn’t even fold the letter back into the pre-made creases. I kind of just let it drop back into the box the way it was, not really sure what else to do. I remembered writing every word now, forming every letter with my pen. I’d let go, forgetting about spelling things right and using proper grammar like I was writing an English paper. I let those words spill from my heart onto the page. I’d never put so much emotion into a piece of writing before then, or even since then.

I’d rewritten the entire thing, folded it, and stuffed it into an envelope. I’d sealed it, stamped and addressed it, and took it right to the post office, dropping it in the mailbox and crossing my fingers. I’d spent the entire months of June and July waiting for a letter. Every time the mail came, I’d waited anxiously while my mother sorted through it. But there was never anything for me, at least not from him.

So August came, the month of college orientation and final registration and move-in day and the start of classes. I woke up on a Saturday morning, having narrowly escaped a dream in which he showed up at my door and tore the letter I’d written him in half, right in front of my face. I was angry and upset and tired of waiting for him to write.

I packed everything that reminded me of him into the box I’d been hiding in my closet ever since I first discovered that he existed. I just threw things in, not caring where they landed or if they bent or folded over in the process. I took it up to the attic, shoved it into a corner, and decided right then and there that it was time to move on. The life I’d planned to have with him was over. A new one thus began.

Remembering all these things should have hurt. They should have brought tears to my eyes, tears full of pain and sorrow and maybe even a little remorse. But I didn’t cry. I just sat there on the floor, staring into the box like none of the things inside mattered to me at all. There was no pain. There was no sorrow.

The grieving period had long ago come to an end. I’d cried all the tears I needed to, and that was that. When I left the box in the attic nine years ago, I left with it my sadness. It wasn’t even there inside the box anymore. These were happy memories—pictures of us when we were happy, best friends and notes to each other on index cards in Pig Latin. I couldn’t stop smiling. Really, I couldn’t think of a reason to try.

As I stood up, a thought struck inside my brain that only made the urge to start laughing at nothing in particular that much harder to resist. I bent down and carefully slid his old jacket out from underneath my prom dress, hanging it over my arm and immediately knowing for sure where my next stop would be. Maybe this place wasn’t anything like I’d once thought it was. Maybe taking things out—and putting things in—wasn’t such a bad idea, really, after all.

I opened my purse, pulled all of the IM SORRY straws out of the chaos one by one, and dropped them into the box. I’d never thought I would ever have the courage to open this box again for as long as I lived. I thought the only thing I would be able to do was let it sit here for the rest of eternity, so it and everything inside could rot and decay and lay forgotten without anyone noticing, or even caring, for that matter.

I knew I would have to come back someday to rescue it from the dust coating its outsides. It’s only fair to believe that, if two people are friends and lose touch, and then meet up again years down the road, it wouldn’t make sense to just throw the relationship away. We were going to be friends forever—this I knew. There were a lot more memories I was going to have to drop into our box before it could be considered complete.

I pushed it back into the corner where it had been before, memorizing its location and implanting the image into my memory for later use. I was ready to go now. I had been brave enough to come here, and to search for whatever it was that I was supposed to find. Now that I’d found it—peace, where I never would have guessed it could be waiting—there was no reason to ache. I knew where we stood, and I was happy about it.

And then I turned around, and something caught my eye. Normally, I would have just ignored it and gone on with my original plans, not giving it a second glance. But it was the text scribbled on the outside in permanent marker (my rushed handwriting) that made it impossible for me to tear my eyes away.

Life Number Five.

I knew what was in the box, and I should have run. I could remember my mother’s face when Caroline had showed up for our week-long stay that summer, each of us holding onto one corner of an oversized cardboard box. I’d just told her it was left over from the move, and that we didn’t have any more room for it in our apartment. She didn’t even question it; she’d just handed it to my father, who had brought it upstairs to the attic—

And placed it here. Right in front of me.

I couldn’t control my body anymore. My legs carried me over to it, sitting me right back down on the floor where I’d just recently been. My hands gripped the edges of the box and pulled it closer to me, so that I didn’t have to lean forward. My fingers opened the flaps, and my eyes peered inside.

The contents were mostly pictures, aside from a few little things and my wedding dress stuffed into the very bottom. Suddenly, Nicholas Archer II was everywhere, and so was a much smaller, though equally adorable version of Caroline. I was there too, but it didn’t look like me. There was something different about the way I smiled, something I couldn’t figure out. It was like the camera had only seemed to capture The Perfect Moments.

There were cases full of DVDs piled inside one corner, hours upon hours of footage containing the family we’d kept strung together so easily for almost six years as Caroline grew older and our smiles grew less frequent (or so it most likely seemed). I would never watch them, not ever again. Once, alone in the dark when Caroline had gone to spend the day with her father, had been more than enough.

I don’t know why I picked up the wedding album. Some greater force, one completely beyond the capabilities of my usually very trustworthy willpower, had taken over for good. I couldn’t stop myself from turning it over, and as much as I tried to resist opening to the first page, I couldn’t help it. So I gazed, and I flipped, and then it was over, and I closed it again without a word.

I put it back into the box. I folded the flaps over and I stood, swallowing and gripping the handle of my purse as I left the attic, possibly for good after all. I closed the door, and bounded down the stairs with dry eyes, fighting as hard as I could. I burst back out into the world, letting the door slam behind me. And then I crossed the room, opened a door, and stepped inside.

They had re-done it again since Caroline and I had visited. Instead of green, with a matching bedspread and sheets and pillowcases and bedside lamp, it was decorated in purple and white and grey. Normally I wouldn’t have minded this color combination—they worked nicely together. That was why I’d chosen them, when we’d re-done my room the summer before my freshman year of high school began.

It was an exact replica of what my old room used to be like. They’d painted the walls the exact same color, and replaced the old furniture and rug and bed fixtures with identical ones, only newer. I had literally stumbled into the past, and I couldn’t move. I just stood there in the doorway, trying to figure out why they’d done this, why they’d studied pictures of how it used to be and recreated the images perfectly.

And suddenly, I knew. And that was when I stopped trying not to cry.

My heart burst inside my chest, an uncontrollable explosion of emotion as I staggered toward my—the bed. I sat down on the edge, the familiarity of the mattress almost too much to bear. I knew that this wasn’t the time or place to lose myself in my despair, but I couldn’t help it. And there was no way I would be able to slip past either of my parents without them sitting me down and demanding (gently) to know what was wrong.

So I just sat there and cried. I tried to contain my wailing sobs, but it hurt more to hold them in than I knew it would if either my mom or dad heard me from downstairs. I’d come here expecting something, expecting a happy ending with a life-changing revelation. I put my purse and Ryan Drisi’s jacket aside, dropping my head into my hands. All I’d gotten was disappointment. That was all I was ever going to get, it seemed.

I’m not sure how long I sat there bawling my eyes out. This was the second time in one day that I’d lost the will to be in control, and it wasn’t fair. I had promised myself a long time ago to always be strong, to never let anything break or bruise me ever again. I’d cried enough tears over Ryan Drisi, and then I let him go. I’d cried plenty of tears in spite of Nicholas, who had dared to hurt me more than I would have ever thought possible.

I was still letting him hurt me. Over, and over, and over again, without fail.

My sobs had been reduced to damp eyes and sniffling by the time I heard footsteps outside the open door. I wiped my eyes with the used paper towel I had pulled from deep inside my coat pocket, completely unprepared for any sort of conversation I was about to have with whoever approached. I pretended like I hadn’t heard him or her, thinking that maybe if he or she saw me like this, I would be left alone. But I was wrong, and I should have known better than to expect that from either parental unit.

“I thought you were up in the attic,” my mother said as she entered the room, her feet making little to no noise on the carpet beneath them. I looked up, wiping my eyes again and pushing away any more tears that threatened to slip out from deep within my tear ducts. I saw the way she was looking at me, and it didn’t help very much.

“Um. I was.” I cleared a space for her next to me on the bed, shoving both my purse and the coat full of memories onto the floor by my feet. She seemed to hesitate, not sure If she really wanted to get into this discussion right now. I sniffled again, and she set herself down gently next to her one and only daughter. She looked so concerned, even though she wasn’t saying anything. I’d never seen her like this before.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” I looked up at her, then down at Ryan Drisi’s jacket. And then I looked at her again, taking in a few shallow breaths.

“I think so,” I said, turning my gaze away from her worried face and concentrating on my empty hands. I was still trying to process everything, letting all of the images run slowly through my mind one by one. Really, I wasn’t ready to talk about this. But there would never be another opportunity like there seemed to be now. “And some stuff I wish I hadn’t found.”

“The box?” She asked, like she already knew.

“Which one?” There should have been a balance, a container full of good things and one full of tough to swallow ones. But at that moment, the painful memories could only seem to outweigh the happy ones. These wounds were still healing, some of them still bleeding. It was dangerous, moving so rapidly forward like this.

“You tell me,” she advised gently.

I sighed, letting out the breath I’d been holding in. I’d known she would say that. “The one I brought over when me and Caroline came to stay with you.” I waited, seeing if she would nod so I wouldn’t have to continue. She made no gestures with her head. “The one with all of the stuff from—from when I was married to Nicholas.” Silence. “It had our wedding album in it, and a bunch of DVDs, and some other stuff.”

“I thought you meant your Ryan Drisi Box, or whatever you used to call it.”

“Something like that,” I commented, though I’d never really given it much of a name at all. It had just been The Box, full of everything I’d vowed to always keep secret from both of my parents and all other outsiders. I knew I’d failed, miserably, but I didn’t really care. Not as much as I should have, anyway. “Are you the one who went through it?”

She pressed her lips together. “Maybe. Maybe not.” I didn’t say anything in response. Why I hadn’t thought of the possibility before was one of those things I just couldn’t seem to figure out. Still, I didn’t want to be mad at her. I was done holding senseless grudges. “You moped around for a whole summer. I figured, since he wasn’t around, it had to be because of him.” She paused, sighing. “I shouldn’t have gone through your stuff. I just thought maybe, if I knew what was going on, I could help.”

“I didn’t think you even noticed. About the moping around, I mean.” And I really believed she hadn’t. While I dragged my feet around the house, consuming my entire weight in Junior Mints several times over in those lost months, she hadn’t said a word to me about it. Things had gone on as normal between the three of us, with the addition we had somehow made to our family over the past year nowhere to be found.

“I notice a lot more than you think I do.” I thought about this, how she hadn’t ever seemed surprised when I gave her all sorts of big news throughout the various stages of each life—my attraction to Ryan Drisi, my engagement to Nicholas Archer II, and Caroline. Maybe she paid more attention than I’d ever given her credit for. And then a question popped into my head, its answer so unclear that I couldn’t stop myself from asking.

“Did you know Nicholas would cheat on me?” The sentence hung in the air, bouncing off of the silence and coming right back at me full force. But still, she gave no indication of my question even startling her. She just started talking, staring at the wall as her words unfolded in front of me. She could never look at me when things got serious.

“When your—” She stopped, catching herself. “When Mitchell died, I never thought there would be anyone else who could take care of us like he did. I never thought there could be anyone else like him, you know?” I just nodded, even though she wasn’t looking at me. For once, I knew where this was going. “But Todd took care of me, and he took care of you. And that was how I knew he was right.”

She meant to say he was perfect. But she didn’t.

“I knew Nicholas wasn’t right for you,” she went on, the words sounding like they hurt her to speak. If she really cared about me, like she always said she did—and if I was right to believe her, as I always had—they most likely were. “I knew the first time you brought him home. I never trusted him. I tried to, but it wasn’t possible.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Thoughts started zipping around in my head, prickling my brain. What if she had said something? Could she have warned me about the dangers that were bound to come along with falling head-over-heels in love with him like I did? If I hadn’t trusted him so deeply, would I have been able to see it, too?

“Why didn’t I tell you I didn’t think he could be trusted?” I nodded, still trying to figure out what all this meant. Had I been blind to the truth all this time, thinking he was this great person all along who’d suddenly gone bad, when he’d really been a bad seed from the beginning? “Why would I have? It would have made you angry. You would have said I was just saying those things because I didn’t want you to be happy.”

“But you did,” I said, feeling a revelation coming on. She nodded, her expression unchanging.

“That’s why I tried so hard to like him, because he made you happy. After what happened with Ryan, I was just glad you’d finally found someone you really loved again. I knew I couldn’t pull you away from him. So I didn’t even try.”

“What—what happened?” There was a burning sensation behind my eyes, but my cheeks stayed dry. My mother looked at me, confused as to where this conversation was suddenly turning. The fact that I knew made it a little bit easier. “You came to me. You begged me to tell you what was wrong. And when I told you, you didn’t even act like you cared. He hurt me, and you acted like you thought I deserved it, or something.” I breathed in, slowly. “That’s not what you thought, was it?”

“Shelly.” She put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. We were the same height standing up, but leaning over made me, momentarily, shorter. I suddenly knew how Caroline felt, always looking up to me, figuratively as well as literally. But I didn’t mind, for some reason. I just closed my eyes and listened. “I was mad at myself. Not you. I knew I should have talked to you about him, and I didn’t. He hurt you and I—” Her words caught in her throat suddenly, making me open my eyes and sit up. I’d been too little when my father—my real father, Mitchell Bennett—had died. I couldn’t remember ever seeing my mother cry. Right now, at this moment, she was dangerously close. “I couldn’t fix it.”

They say mothers are always right, and in most situations, they almost always are. She’d studied him each time I brought him home with me, desperately searching for something—anything—that would prove him worthy to be more than a friend to her daughter. She’d tried as hard as she could to accept him. But all she could find were flaws, flaws that would make for a disastrous marriage in the future. That was why she had barely congratulated me when I’d first announced that the two of us were engaged. She knew I was walking right into a trap, and the only thing she could do was watch helplessly from a distance.

We just sat there for a long time, trying to figure everything out. I had more to process now than I’d been struggling with when she first came in, before she told me she’d just known somehow that it would come to this. If she hadn’t let me go, there would be no Caroline. If she hadn’t let me go, I never would have learned the lesson that his betrayal had taught me.

You could love someone with all your heart and soul, vowing that you would gladly do anything for them, everything, for as long as they lived, just to make them happy. But that didn’t mean their love for you would remain as strong, or that it had to exist at all. Sometimes, you just had to give up and stop looking for someone else. Someday, they would find you.

I hadn’t been found yet. But I wasn’t lost, either.

Finally, I gathered up enough courage and willpower to speak. I didn’t want to start crying again, because my lungs already hurt from the rapid contractions they had already endured that day. But whatever it took to get the answers I wanted, I was willing to move forward, even if it meant making a treacherous journey through a sea of sadness.

“How do you know if someone’s perfect for you?” I asked, folding my hands neatly in my lap and squeezing them together tightly. “Not perfect in general. Right, I guess. How do you know Mr. Right isn’t, well, Nicholas?” I watched her carefully as she thought through her response. And then I saw the faintest hint of a smile, just for a second.

“Ryan Drisi was perfect for you,” she observed, turning my generalized question personal with six simple words. She sighed again, and looked at her hands in her lap just as I’d done with mine only seconds before. We were so alike, yet so different. But I loved that about us; I always had; I always would. “I thought you would be together forever.”

“We were never—” I began, but she put a hand on my knee, stopping me.

“I know. I think I just...hoped you were.” If I had ever seen this side of my mother before, it hadn’t been for many, many years. I had almost forgotten how much both of them had welcomed him into both their home and my life so easily. They hadn’t just assumed that we were an item—they’d believed it. “He never wrote you back,” she said.

“Hence the moping around,” I answered, flashing her a wary smile. She’d gone through the box, and she had read the letters. For one reason or another, I didn’t mind. It was like we had a mother-daughter secret of our own, knowing the could-have-been that only turned out to be an exchange of meaningful words between two good friends. It was a kind of secret I knew well, because of the many I shared with my own daughter, and one I would keep forever.

“What’s wrong?” She asked suddenly. I batted the quick rush of tears away as soon as I realized they’d escaped.

“It’s nothing. Really.” I wanted the conversation to stop now. There were things I could tell my mother, and there were things I could have easily told her if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to. It wasn’t necessary to spill even more secrets in front of her than had already been spilled without my initial consent. But maybe she had the right to know. After all, it wasn’t like they had been strangers, she and Ryan Drisi. “He had a wife. She died.”

Her response surprised me, almost to the point of choking to death on that stupid lump in my throat that just wouldn’t go away. “I know.” I lifted my head, staring at her with wide eyes and my mouth hanging wide open. “Your dad had dinner with Ryan last week, and he told him all about her. He called me that night. He couldn’t believe it.”

“Neither can I.” Because really, all he’d told me in the car last night hadn’t had that much of a chance to sink in just yet. It was almost like he’d been reading Not Expecting Much out loud to me, like he’d been telling a story about someone other than himself and a woman he had loved. I couldn’t decide if it had actually hit me yet, that he’d really lost someone close and important to him not even a year before. “I wish I could’ve been there for him. You know?” She nodded, seeming to be taking this all in at the same moment I was trying to.

“You can still be there for him now,” she reminded me with a smile. That was what I had been waiting to hear—a blessing to release the past and grab firmly onto the now. Once again, she’d done her duty as a mother, proving to me that being right ninety percent of the time had more perks than any non-mother would naturally guess.

I followed her back down the stairs, closing my bedroom door behind me as I went. An old jacket hanging over my arm and a purse slung over my shoulder, I was ready to make one final journey before going back to my apartment and making sure things got as back to normal as they could possibly get. But first, I had to say goodbye—not for forever, or until Christmas. Just, I guessed, for now.

We found my father sitting on the living room couch, the plastic bag full of boxes of Junior Mints sitting beside him. He’d torn it open, and was now well into his second box of delicious chocolate candies. For a second, my mother looked horrified and annoyed, like she would take them away from him and never give them back. But she just smiled, shaking her head as she watched her husband happily.

“Consider your debt paid off,” he said, swallowing. I looked at my mother.

“He finally told me about the money,” she informed me, folding her arms across her chest and tucking her beautiful hair behind one ear, and then the other. “You’re lucky to have a father like him, you know.”

“I know,” I said, smiling. And I thought that would be the end to our exchange of feel-good words. I hadn’t felt this happy standing in my parents’ living room for a very long time. Secretly (or maybe not so secretly—it was hard to tell anymore), I hoped this house would keep on making me smile for the rest of my life. But my mother had one last thing to say, one last reminder to give to me gently before I walked out the door.

“You’re always welcome here,” she said, “even if you forget to call first.”

And I would never forget that. Ever.

The hot dog mystery was one of several solved that day, before heading home.

I tried to think of what I wanted to say to him as I sped down the highway, getting closer and closer every second that ticked past, in perfect time with my heartbeat. I still had so many questions, even more than had been circling around in my head before I’d opened the long-forgotten box in my parents’ attic. Why hadn’t he said how he felt that night at dinner? Why hadn’t he tried harder to kiss me all those years ago? There had to be a reason. There just had to be.

I turned the radio on to keep myself occupied, my mind suddenly going back to the first day I’d met Nattie the amazing, beautiful golden retriever. He’d told me all about his wife that day, without me even realizing it. I remembered the CD he had played while we drove, full of songs she’d sang, letting her voice soothe him. He’d wanted to tell me about her then, and almost had. But he’d known better than to ruin a perfect moment. For that, at least, I was thankful.

Karen the former dog sitter, Harvard-bound and blond hair bouncing, emerged from the inside of the house as I was pulling into the driveway of his home. She was carrying a wicker basket under one arm, and waved at me as she came down the stairs. She was smiling, but I could tell she wasn’t happy. There were plenty of people who could easily fake it without anyone ever noticing, but she wasn’t one of them.

I climbed out of the car, my purse hanging on my shoulder and Ryan Drisi’s jacket over my other arm, and met her face-to-face on the pavement. I could see what was in the basket now: a blanket, a few dozen dog toys, and a bright pink, sparkling leash and collar set. I suddenly felt my heart start to ache all over again, remembering.

“How is he?” I asked, trying not to study the items now in her possession too carefully. She bit her bottom lip, looking back at the house as if seeing it again would help her answer my question. I could almost feel her hurt, almost as deep—if not more so—than mine. Our conversation at the vet’s office the night before had helped. But it certainly hadn’t made everything right and okay again; nothing could.

“He’s actually doing okay,” she said, turning back to me and adjusting her grip on Nattie’s things, from one arm to the other. “I think he’s a little more upset than he looks, but that’s normal. I mean, for him.” She caught me looking at what she was holding in her hands and pressed her lips together tightly. “He wanted me to take her stuff. I don’t really know why. I just think it’s hard for him to look at.” She was hurting. “I mean, I guess I don’t really blame him.”

“You’re not taking it with you, though,” I assumed.

“Oh, no,” she said, laughing awkwardly. It was forced, breathy, and emotionless. “I’ll just leave it with my dad. He won’t bother it.” We both looked down at it then, at the chew toys and the fur-coated blanket underneath them. There was still a dent, from the last time she’d curled up on top of it.

“How about I take it?” I suggested, surprising even myself with the spontaneous offer. I swallowed hard, my heart pushing desperately up into my throat. I’d just expected to pull into the driveway, walk into the house, and start talking. I should have known the universe would beg to differ. “I mean, I’ll be closer. Just in case he ever wants it back.”

“That’s true. You’re probably right.” When she smiled this time, it was sincere and grateful, rather than forced and forged. She handed the basket over to me, and I turned around and pulled the nearest car door open. I slid the treasure gently onto the seat and left it there, grabbing the last two bags of Junior Mints before closing the door again. I finally pressed the lock button on my key ring. “He talked a lot about you, you know,” she said as I faced her again, upright.

“He talked about me?” I repeated hesitantly, puzzled. Maybe even a little flattered.

“When I was in there, trying to be—I don’t know. A good neighbor, I guess.” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, her bracelets catching the light and holding my attention until she put her arm down again. She was wearing a Harvard sweatshirt, jeans, and bright pink flip-flops. “He said you guys were friends once, a long time ago, and that he missed you for a long time after you lost touch.” She hesitated. “I was just sitting there, listening. I knew that was what he needed. He didn’t really say anything too personal, I don’t think.”

“It’s okay,” I said, noticing her words speed up a little bit toward the end of her much appreciated explanation. I pulled my sunglasses off of my head, twirling them around in my fingers by one of the stems. “I mean, that’s why I’m here. We talked last night, for awhile. It got late though, so we just went our separate ways for the night.” Remembering wasn’t so bad, after all.

“I think seeing you again will really help.” She knew this for a fact, and presented it to me in such a way that I couldn’t help but believe it was true. She was just that kind of person, observant and not afraid to dish out valuable, harmless information to those in need of it. I was grateful, suddenly, for her being around during all the times in the past week that I’d needed her the most. I wanted to thank her. I didn’t really know how. “Good luck in there,” she said, starting down the driveway.

“Thanks,” I said, smiling. “Good luck at Harvard.”

“Thanks.” She looked back at me one last time before reaching the street and heading back to where she’d come from, calling over her shoulder, everything seeming almost okay again, even for just a few brief moments. “I’ll need it!”

All I could do was stand there for a good thirty seconds or so, watching her go. She was everything I’d never been able to be at that age, confident, genuinely happy, and a really good friend. She didn’t mope around the house when things didn’t go the way she would have originally planned. She faced her challenges head-on, even if she couldn’t fix them.

I finally turned back to face the house in front of me, leaning against my car for just another moment before gathering up enough courage to move forward again. The walk from where I was standing to the concrete steps took longer than I’d hoped. It was like I was moving in slow motion, the suspense rising as I inched closer and closer to my destination. Finally, I approached the door and knocked, two little taps on the glass.

“Come in,” I heard him say, in a completely normal tone of voice. He didn’t sound like he’d just lost one of his best friends—a member of the family, really. He sounded okay, like he’d had plenty of time to process everything and was now ready for things to get back to normal. That hope, at least, was enough to coax me, though hesitantly, inside.

The first thing that struck me about the kitchen I’d just stepped into was how bright it was. I had to squint, having expected all of the curtains to be closed and the lights respectfully dimmed. Every light in the house was on; every shade and curtain had been pulled up and back, letting in the warm daylight. Every window that I could see from where I stood was open, letting in the fresh September air.

The next thing that caught my eye were the hot dogs. They were everywhere—piled on top of the counter, covering the kitchen table, and even spilling out of the wide-open freezer on the other side of the room. They were all still in their packages, frozen together in bunches, hard as rocks. I wanted to ask him what he was doing, standing at the counter in his soccer T-shirt, surrounded by frozen processed meat. But there were other things I wanted to get out of the way, other questions I wanted answered. So I let that one go, for now.

“So are you still gonna punish me?” I asked, letting the door close gently behind me as I stepped a little closer toward him. He was just standing there, surveying the mess he’d made before my sudden arrival, not really paying attention to anything in particular. As I spoke, he turned his head to look at me. He had no idea what I was talking about.

“Punish you?” He repeated, even looking (and sounding) a little annoyed.

“Don’t you remember?” I asked, crossing the room and seating myself at the kitchen table. I kept my hands in my lap, on top of the jacket he hadn’t noticed I was carrying, just in case bumping one pack of frozen hot dogs with my elbow would throw off the entire balance of this warped masterpiece he had created. I set the plastic bags I’d been holding down by my feet. He just looked at me, his expression completely unidentifiable, and shook his head. “In your letter. You said you would punish me if I never got an article published in the New York Times.” I waited, hoping.

“Oh, that’s right,” he said, the tiniest hint of a grin appearing briefly between his nose and chin. “I forgot about that.” And so I had finally caught him, finally found something about our past together that he couldn’t remember, but I could. Sure, I only knew about it now because I’d read the words not even two full hours before. But this friendly competition had no rules. “What happened with that, anyway?”

“Journalism?” I asked, seeking the clarification I already knew for sure that I was going to get. He just nodded slowly, clearly determined to say as little as possible…yet saying more than he ever could have with actual spoken words. I just sighed, pressing my hands together in my lap and feeling the wheels turning deep inside my brain.

I could have told him the entire story—that all my professors had dubbed me far beyond promising, that majoring in journalism and holding a spot as the editor of the school’s well renowned newspaper for two straight semesters had landed me a spot in the best internship I could have possibly ever received with the effort I’d put into my plethora of applications. I could have told him that I had been going places, that I’d been prepared to accept the internship with a smile and an overly meaningful thank you. He already knew that I would have made a name for myself, could have, if I’d gone through with it. Everyone had known that, from the very beginning.

I should have told him that my plans changed at the last minute. Thinking it through, making hundreds of pro-con lists and writing out every possible scenario, I realized that my dream no longer fit into the mold that was quickly becoming my life. At that point in time, I didn’t want to focus on a career. I wanted to focus on my husband, and start a family with him, and dive back into writing life-changing articles when the time was right. I gave up everything for Nicholas, and for awhile it seemed worth it. Now, as I sat there thinking about it, I couldn’t believe how much faith I had actually wasted on plans that had no guarantee of actually sticking around—and, in the end, didn’t.

I would have told him all of that, every single detail. But this wasn’t the time, or the place.

“It just didn’t work out the way I planned,” I said, and all he did was nod, understanding.

“I guess I should probably stick to my promise then,” he said, folding his arms across his chest, still leaning against the counter facing me. And then he smiled, a grin that made my heart explode into four equal chambers of happiness. I’d expected to come here to listen to him vent, biting my lip as we wept. I really needed to stop expecting things to happen, and learn to go with the flow. “I can’t think of anything good.”

“Oh, please. Stop lying to me.” His grin widened.

“Okay, fine. But you asked for it.” He pushed himself away from the counter with his hands, walking calmly across the room and pulling out the chair right next to me. He sat down, folding his arms again. I wasn’t too sure how I felt about the sly look he was giving me, but I held on. “You have to play the question game with me.”

“Not you, too.” I almost laughed.

“We play it in class during team building every once in awhile, just so the kids can get a chance to learn more about each other. It’s a lot different, playing with only two people, but I think you’ll be able to handle it.” I waited, saying nothing. “Unlimited time and questions. No passes. No circular or one-word answers, and no questions are illegal.” He waited for me to protest, to argue somehow against his propositions. He knew I’d played before, and he knew I was determined not to lose. But really, I just wanted answers. “I’ll start?”

“Permission granted. Your question?”

He smiled; my heart leapt into my throat. “Why are you haunting me with Junior Mints?” He pointed to the bags still sitting between us on the floor.

“I’m getting sick of them. Why did you by me so many?”

“I was trying to prove a point.” He hesitated, trying to decide what he was going to ask me next. It occurred to me, in that moment of silence, that it wasn’t very likely that I was the only one sitting here with unanswered questions. There were probably things about me that I’d never bothered to tell him, not since our unexpected reunion. I dug a fingernail into my palm, ready for whatever would hit me. “Why didn’t you tell me you were in love with me?”

I let out a sigh by accident, and then I tried, and failed miserably, to take it back. He didn’t seem to notice. “I thought you weren’t interested in me, not that way. I couldn’t ever tell. I thought if I said something, and you didn’t feel the same way, it would mess up everything.” I swallowed, realizing that I’d never spoken these words aloud, not even to myself. “What’s the real reason why you never wrote me back?”

“You were too perfect,” he said, breaking the silence that had washed over us all of a sudden. “The whole thing was perfect—you saying you loved me, and talking about how we would just keep writing letters back and forth. That’s why I never tried to kiss you again after the beach thing. I thought, if we ever did…” He shook his head, defeated. “There was no way I was ever gonna find another girl like you. And that scared me.”

“What about Cassie?” My question was a foul, for he hadn’t asked another and I hadn’t given an answer. He should have been crowned the winner of the game, another champion that I wouldn’t ever be able to hope to beat. But somehow, we’d dropped the idea of the question game taking over our conversation. Getting everything out in the open was much more important than sticking to the rules.

“Cassie had flaws,” he said, as if this was the greatest fact he could have ever presented me. To him, I realized, it probably was. “I could see myself with her. It was easier to connect with her, somehow. We argued, and nobody ever won. She hated soccer, and I hated animal shelters. We could do our own thing for an entire day, meet up at six, and order McDonald’s on the way to the children’s hospital. That was why I changed my major,” he added as a sort of side note. “She dragged me there a few times, when I was a junior and she was just a freshman, and it changed—everything.”

“You miss her,” I observed, a wave of sadness washing over me, my smile fading.

“I miss her a lot,” he answered, looking away for a second, remembering. “There are days I wake up and I don’t think I can make it through another twenty-four hours without her. I took on all these jobs, just so I would have things to occupy me, so I wouldn’t have to think about her as much. Really, I just thought about her more. But it gets a little easier, every day. It hurts a lot less now. It’s a lot easier to smile.”

“I noticed,” I said, smiling right back.

He sighed again. “Permission to confess?” I just looked at him, not really sure what I should say. I didn’t want to fall back into a structured question-and-answer pattern. I just wanted to talk to him. I just wanted to figure out everything about him that I still didn’t know. But I nodded slowly, biting the inside of my lip. “When I saw you standing there the first day you dropped Caroline off, it almost killed me. I saw so much of her in you, just by the way you were standing there. You had this look on your face—I don’t know. But then I stopped thinking about her, and started thinking about you. And I realized that ever since she died, I’d been thinking about you more and more. I never thought I would ever see you again.”

“Likewise,” I said, my heart thumping.

“I don’t—” he stopped, looking around the room. There was nowhere he could bear to focus his gaze on for more than a few seconds. His mind was racing, trying to decide. I just sat there patiently, waiting. I knew what he was going to say; this was what I had come here for. “I don’t think I’m ready to fall in love again.”

And then, finally, it was my turn to confess.

“I think I still love him,” I said, looking down at my hands—even though it was a fact, not a hunch. He still hurt me, after all this time. And then, it was settled. Well, almost. I looked up at him, and couldn’t stop smiling all of a sudden. “Can we just go back to how things were before? Like, way before?”

“You read my mind,” he said, standing up.

I couldn’t contain the satisfaction. It was like all the hurt just drained away, as soon as those last words flew out of his mouth. We still needed time to grieve, and the fact was plainly understood. I watched him as he stood in the middle of the kitchen, like he wasn’t really sure what to do with himself. I rolled up the jacket in my lap when he wasn’t looking, stuffing it into my purse. It would probably be best to hold onto it, just until the time was right—until we were in the right place.

I heard a metallic bang from the other side of the room, and lifted my head to see Ryan Drisi coming toward me with a metal garbage can in one hand. He walked up to the table, slammed it down on the floor, and held the lid open with one hand as he began sliding frozen hot dogs off of the edge, directly into the can. I just watched him, my mouth hanging open, until half of the table was cleared.

“Okay,” I said, standing up. “What up with the hot dogs?”

“Cassie and Nattie both worshipped Oscar Mayer,” he said, clearing off the rest of the table and moving on to the counter, taking the garbage can with. “I just kept buying them and kept it all in the freezer. It made me feel a little better, for awhile. But I sort of just realized that they still make me wanna gag.”

“At least let me help,” I said, dropping my purse on the floor next to the extra bags of Junior Mints and walking over to the freezer. Once he’d finished the counter, he turned around and held the garbage can up at chest height. I tossed frozen hot dogs across the room, making a few nice shots and missing the rest. We had made a game out of it before I’d realized what was happening, counting how many I could make versus how many I missed, and then switching positions. He hit me in the forehead with a few, but I couldn’t really feel it.

As we played frozen hot dog basketball, I took a moment to step outside myself, to think about all that had happened since he stumbled so suddenly back into my life. I decided that I liked how things were going, for the most part, at least for now. Maybe I would keep Life Number Six around for a little bit longer, just to see how things went.

Starting over had never really worked for me, anyway.