We Can't Keep Meeting Like This

by Rachel Lynn Solomon

  The first thing my eyes land on is the tray of hors d’oeuvres on the counter next to me. So I grab a tiny cube of cheese and stuff it into my mouth.

  “Quinn,” Asher says, voice pitched with worry, and before she finishes her sentence, I realize what I’m chewing is not the savory, cheesy goodness I was expecting. It’s tart. Too tart to be cheese. “That’s a mango.”

  2

  It takes only a few minutes for my body to surrender to the allergic reaction. My lips swell and a rash climbs up my arms and neck and then I am being buckled into the passenger seat of Tarek Mansour’s car.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says for the twelfth time. Asher was ready to drive me to the hospital before my mom insisted she couldn’t lose both of us, and there was Tarek, keys dangling from his index finger, concern slanting his dark brows.

  It’s been years since I had an allergic reaction, mainly because I don’t encounter mangos very often. It’s not severe enough to trigger anaphylaxis—and my mom has an EpiPen in her emergency kit anyway—but because it’s been so long, my parents insisted I go to the hospital. Just to be sure, they said.

  “Not your fault.” My tongue is swollen, so I have to force out the words. “Although I don’t know why you’d put mango on a cheese plate.”

  “It actually goes quite well with creamy cheeses,” Tarek says. “Mango has the right amount of acidity to balance out the—” He breaks off, shaking his head. “Sorry, that’s probably not helpful right now.”

  “Not really.”

  I stare out the window, trying to keep my face out of his peripheral vision. It’s easier if I don’t have to look at him, because what I’ve observed so far is that college made him hot. Almost annoyingly so. He was always cute to me: when he grew his hair a bit too long, until he couldn’t delay a haircut any longer without his parents hounding him about it, and then he’d cut it a bit too short. He was cute even during his unfortunate man bun phase two years ago. Now it’s the perfect length, shaggy and curling just past his ears.

  He’s Egyptian American, his mother born in the United States and his father born in France, both of them with parents who’d emigrated from Egypt. When we were ten and eleven, our parents started letting us tag along to weddings. They’d ask us to entertain the other little kids during the reception, and in our tiny suits and tiny dresses, we’d dance to songs I hadn’t grown sick of yet. As we got older, we took on more responsibilities. I’d retreat into the kitchen after a recessional until his parents or mine yelled at me for distracting him; he’d sneak me leftovers while I helped the Mansours clean up.

  It was his love for baking that drew me to him before I had the words to call it what it was. Desserts were his favorite, and it wasn’t unusual for him to walk around unaware he had powdered sugar in his hair or smelled of cinnamon. Whether he was frosting mini cupcakes or balancing a tray of tomato soup shooters with wedges of grilled cheese, he had this clear passion.

  And once upon a time, so did I.

  The boy I used to know slouched when he walked, a side effect of a too-early growth spurt, and tugged on his long sleeves to hide the eczema I knew embarrassed him. Sometimes he even skipped weddings because of it. He’s not feeling his best today, one of his parents would say when I asked where he was.

  Maybe it’s cliché to think this, but he looks so adult now. There’s a confident edge to his shoulders he didn’t have before, a new definition in his jaw. Like he “figured himself out” in college, the way people always say they’re going to do. The thought of it makes me suddenly, painfully jealous, an ache that settles beneath my ribs, pulses next to my heart.

  He runs a hand over his face, drawing my attention to the scruff there. Oh yes. That too.

  So I focus instead on the fight we had before he left for school and how, after I tried to make things right again, he went silent for eight months.

  “Are you too hot?” he asks. I wonder if the car sat abandoned in his garage while he was away. He was so excited when he finally saved up enough for this old Ford Focus, which he plastered with stickers supporting local farms and proclaiming the benefits of eating sustainably, plus an I POWER KEXP like anyone in the 206 with decent taste. The car is so Seattle, it might as well be wearing flannel. I wouldn’t be surprised if it ran on kombucha. “Too cold? Do you want to stop somewhere?”

  “I’m fine. Thanks.”

  He’s clearly trying to be a good guy about all of this, but it doesn’t undo what he did, and neither does his upgraded appearance. It doesn’t change the fact that he ignored me for almost a full year, and now he’s sitting there with his great hair and his ridiculous jawline, asking me if the NPR station is bothering me like we’re two polite near-strangers instead of friends. God, maybe he really did turn into an adult, because he never used to listen to NPR.

  We end up at an urgent care much closer than the nearest hospital since my reaction is more nuisance than life-threatening. Still, Tarek rushes into the lobby and explains my symptoms to the bored-looking lady behind the front desk, and I fill out the required paperwork.

  Then we wait. In one corner of the room is a boy holding a red wad of tissues to his hand, the girl next to him clutching a plastic bag with what I’m half certain is a chunk of his finger in a sea of melting ice cubes. Since I’d rather not sit next to the guy who may or may not have hacked off his finger, I pick a pair of empty seats next to the vending machine.

  “You really don’t have to stay,” I tell Tarek. “They’ll give me some antihistamines and tell me not to eat any more mango masquerading as cheddar, and I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m not going to make you Uber home alone.”

  “Are you sure your parents are okay with it?” Or maybe it’s that I wish my parents had been less insistent about holding on to Asher.

  “They’ve got plenty of help.” Then he holds up a hand, a patch of rough red skin disappearing into his sleeve. “It’s usually me with the rash,” he jokes, sounding not at all self-conscious.

  I give him a noncommittal grunt in return, and then we both go quiet. I cross and uncross my legs so many times it must look like I’m doing Pilates at best and a seductive chair dance at worst.

  “So… you’re back,” I say, desperate to fill the silence.

  He stares down at his plain black shoes with clunky comfort soles, idly scratches at that dry skin on his wrist. I wonder if he hates his eczema as much as he used to. The joke he made would indicate otherwise. “Yep.”

  “For the whole summer?”

  “The whole summer.”

  Lovely.

  “Was college…?” I trail off, unsure where I want to go with the question. “Everything you hoped it would be?”

  He makes an odd face at this, one I can’t quite interpret, and then he runs a hand through the hair I used to dream about touching in that exact way. If I’m light-headed, I blame the mango. “Even better.”

  “I’m glad.” It kills me to say it. Picturing him at UC Davis, taking classes in their renowned food science program, so completely sure of this thing he wants to spend his life doing—it stretches that jealous ache in my chest.

  “And senior year? You had a good one?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Great.”

  I’m not used to this stilted conversation, this way of talking without saying anything at all. We’ve always bickered, and I’m stunned to realize I miss that rhythm.

  Because here is Tarek’s fatal flaw, the thing he has tried over and over to convince me is a feature and not a bug: he is, at his core, a hopeless romantic. And not the kind of sends-a-dozen-roses-just-because romantic or hides-a-note-in-your-jacket-pocket romantic. He’s much, much worse.

  To date, Tarek has been in four relationships, all of them documented in excruciating detail on Instagram.

  There was Safiya, who he wooed by filling her car with balloons.

  Chloe, who he rented an inflatable bounce castle for on her sixteenth birthday because she told him she’d always
wanted to play in one as a kid.

  Paige, who he asked to junior prom with a flash mob involving his school’s dance team and an old One Direction song.

  And Alejandra, who he charmed by having Mansour’s deliver a different homemade snack to each of her classes. After last period, she smashed a cupcake into his face and then pulled him in for a kiss.

  He believed epic, sweeping gestures were the epitome of romance. If he wasn’t babbling to me about his latest flashy display, he was posting about it, interspersed with couple photos that were so clearly staged but inspired comments like wow otp and omg you two are the CUTEST. Meanwhile, I did… things I definitely wasn’t posting about on Instagram.

  This was what we bickered about: romantic gestures, the very thing keeping our parents in business. Everything Tarek did felt fake, performative, bordering on intrusive. He’d insist he only planned a gesture when he was already in a relationship or when he was certain the other person would be open to it, but I couldn’t imagine the pressure of being on the receiving end of something like that. It wasn’t jealousy. I swear.

  He and Alejandra broke up right after graduation, which meant that last summer, he was single for the first time in ages. My feelings for him whirlpooled out of control, turning me into someone who obsessed more than usual and dreamed up scenarios that could never happen. I didn’t like that person. I tried every antidote, the way I’d done for the past few years—I kissed other boys, went a full week without speaking to him, made a list of everything I didn’t like about him. Nothing worked. The more excuses I made to see him at weddings last summer, the more I could ignore the mental alarms telling me we weren’t right for each other.

  I shouldn’t have ignored them. Because after our biggest fight, a fight that didn’t feel at all like bickering, I had an idea. It was obvious, really: I’d smooth things between us and let him know how I felt all at once.

  So I charged forward with a grand gesture of my own. In retrospect, it wasn’t that grand, but it was about as brave as I could be.

  I didn’t expect some poetic declaration of love when I sent that email the night before he left for school, even if I secretly hoped for one. I’d gone out of my comfort zone, broken all my rules, assigned words to the swirly sickness in my chest. If he rejected me, I reasoned, he’d be more than seven hundred miles away. That had to be the best way to speed up a heartbreak. At the very least, I thought I was worth a response.

  Instead, after three weeks of unbearable silence, I sent him a text. Hey, did you get my email?

  He replied almost immediately: yeah sorry been busy

  That was it. I didn’t even get the courtesy of punctuation or capital letters. Yeah sorry been busy. He probably thought I was this heart-eyed baby high schooler trying to nab a college boyfriend, and now he’s just sitting there with his stubble and his pleated pants, an ankle resting on his knee in that trademark Casual Dude Pose.

  A horrifying thought occurs to me: What if he thinks I’ve been pining for him all year?

  I have a sudden urge to take a bath in mango smoothie.

  “Quinn?” a nurse calls, and I spring to my feet.

  Tarek makes a move to follow me, but I hold up a hand. Blessedly, he sits back down, resumes his CDP.

  The nurse takes my vitals and tells me the doctor will be in shortly, which in urgent-care-speak means anywhere from three minutes to eternity. No one seems to take the “urgent” very seriously. Once I was here with my best friend, Julia, when she sliced her heel on a jagged rock at Green Lake, and we waited for two hours before someone stitched her up.

  “I’m sorry, that doesn’t look very fun,” says the doctor when she steps inside.

  “That’s where you’d be mistaken. I’m having the time of my life.” I explain to her that I’m allergic to mangos but I haven’t had a reaction in forever. “Gimme the good drugs.”

  The good drugs turn out to be a dose of Benadryl along with a prescription stronger than what you can get over the counter, plus a topical steroid cream.

  “The rash should clear up in a few days,” she says, and tells me to come back or see my regular doctor if it doesn’t. “Oh—and the antihistamines are going to make you a little drowsy.”

  By the time I meet Tarek back in the waiting room, where he’s scrolling through his phone, the guy with the possible missing finger is gone. It’s seven thirty, and Naomi and Paul have probably already had their first dance. We’re usually scheduled to leave after the cake cutting, but with a wedding as big as theirs, we’ll stay longer to coordinate transportation for the guests.

  “Everything good?” he asks, slipping his phone back into his pants pocket. “You’re already looking a lot better.”

  My face flames at this non-compliment because of course it does. “I’ll survive. Just have to pick up a prescription, if that’s okay.”

  Fortunately, there’s a drugstore around the corner. My eyes are droopy and I’m all out of small talk for Tarek. This is worse than having played harp at a wedding with Jonathan, worse than fake-smiling through the ceremony and pretending all of it isn’t some grand romantic ruse. It’s a reminder of the time last year I felt it could have been real—until a crushing wave of reality made me realize I’d been right all along.

  The drive to my house is quiet as we chase the watermelon sky. Seattle summers can feel infinite, and it’s not even the solstice yet. A couple times, I catch Tarek’s eyes flicking over to me, as though he’s making sure I’m okay or maybe trying to make sense of this whole thing.

  I have spent the past year convincing myself I despised you, I want to tell him. And I’d finally gotten good at it.

  He puts the car in park. Rubs again at the redness on his wrist. Stop scratching, I can practically hear his mom say. I’m not scratching. I’m TOUCHING, he’d say back.

  “Thanks for playing chauffeur,” I say, unzipping my bag and removing my keys, ready to pull the covers over my head and sleep for a year. Or at least until the next season of The Bachelor.

  “Of course.” Tarek gestures to the purple lanyard on my key chain. It’s a newer addition, a gift from my parents when my sole college acceptance rolled in. “Hey, congrats. You’re going to UW? I meant to ask you—I never saw anything about it on social media.”

  I look him right in the eye and summon all my saltiness. “Yeah, sorry, been busy.”

  3

  The meds send me to bed at eight thirty like the wild party animal I am. I wake up Sunday morning with our eleven-year-old cat Edith on my chest. Lady Edith Clawley—so named because of Asher’s Downton Abbey obsession—was originally Asher’s cat, but she bonded with me because I slipped her slivers of deli meat. She rewards me by regularly cutting off my air supply.

  “Hi, baby,” I coo at her, trying to slide her to one side. Her eyes are half closed, like it’s too early for her to give a shit. Same, Edith. Same.

  I roll over and grab my phone, pushing the bottle of antidepressants on my nightstand out of the way. They’re for my OCD, and while they don’t completely silence my intrusive thoughts, they make them a lot quieter. I reply to a few texts from Julia announcing she’s returned to civilization after a camping trip and informing me I’m coming over later to get ready for Alyson Sawicki’s grad party tonight. Our last grad party—or at least the last one we’ve been invited to.

  The reality of a summer weekend hits me in a way it hasn’t yet. Graduation was last week, and the next three months before college stretch ahead of me. The University of Washington is only a twenty-minute bus ride away, so I’ll be living at home, which I’d be okay with if my parents hadn’t already picked out my first-year business classes, a freshman business group for me to join, and a spreadsheet of other courses they think will serve the future career with Borrowed + Blue they’ve also picked out for me, the same way they did for Asher. Except Asher worked an after-school job that helped her save up enough to live in the dorms, while my after-school job has been practicing the harp.

  It does
n’t feel like I’m moving “onward and upward,” like our valedictorian talked about at graduation. It feels like nothing is changing.

  Thinking about college makes me think about Tarek, though, so before I can go down that rabbit hole, I push myself out of bed. His hair didn’t look that good. It’s just hair.

  My room is the only one on the house’s third floor. Our Crown Hill home was built in 1904, which becomes extremely clear on the hottest and coldest days of the year. The moment I saw it, I fell in love with this octagonal space on one side of the house, a small capped tower called a turret. Asher thought it was creepy, so she relinquished her oldest-kid-picks-first privileges and let me have it.

  Downstairs I find a post-wedding scene I’m all too familiar with. My mom is at her laptop, her wedding bun loosened into a casual ponytail, switching between our post-wedding survey and one of her endless spreadsheets. My dad is scrutinizing the massive calendar chalked on the board that is one wall of our kitchen. Each square contains the most important details for each wedding: names, location, start time, number of guests.

  “Do we have an updated guest list for the Wheatley-Ishikawa wedding?” he asks. He’s weekend-dad chic in khakis and a short-sleeved button-down, sipping coffee from a mug Asher and I got him for Hanukkah years ago that says 00 DAYS WITHOUT A DAD JOKE.

  “MOB just sent it over,” Mom says without glancing back at him. MOB: mother of the bride. “They’re at one ninety-three, and the venue is capped at two hundred. I told her that—”

  “For the fourth time,” Dad fills in.

  “Yep, and she swears they won’t go over. Although she did ask if a child counts as a whole person or half a person.”

  Even I can’t help laughing at that. But this is the problem with the two of them working together and from home: they are never not working. They were able to grow the business when they brought on Asher full-time, and now at any given point, there are twenty to thirty weddings in progress.