by Jill Cox
“Oh, I don’t know. That I’d be breaking Sigma Phi bro code?”
“Since when do you care about that? No one is less involved in the fraternity than you are, Russell. I’m sorry. I know you’d like to believe you’re a card-carrying member, but even when you’re there, you’re not there.”
That stung a little bit, I’m not going to lie. And even though I knew Dan was right – that I’d never quite lived up to my fraternal responsibilities – I do care about loyalty.
Sutton was your first love, Sully. And even though he was thousands of miles away, I still wasn’t certain your heart was free.
White (K)night
Back in the day, Dan used to call you Emma Woodhouse – just like the beloved Jane Austen heroine known for her matchmaking fiascos. But here’s a weird twist – some scholars believe that in the original manuscript, the main character was a man.
Emmett Woodhouse, Esquire.
Okay, okay. You know Jane Austen would never have named a guy Emmett! Pffft. That’s ridiculous. But I think I’ll call Dan “Emmett” from now on because he’s one hundred percent the matchmaker that you aspire to be. And I’m about to prove it.
Maybe you didn’t notice it at the time, but Dan spent the first half of La Nuit Blanche in your orbit. Keep in mind that this was only a couple of hours after his pep talk.
Sutton’s MIA, bro! We’re in the City of Love! Ask that ginger out already! Cue Donny Osmond singing I’ll Make A Man Out Of You!
At the time, I remember thinking Dan should be a life coach or a motivational speaker or something. Who in their right mind would ignore such an impassioned, LOGICAL call to action?
You can’t see me right now, but I’m the literal personification of the raise-your-hand emoji.
Real talk here: I chickened out the second you and Anne walked through the door to my apartment that night. By the time Kelly and Harper arrived, I’m pretty sure Dan wondered if an alien had invaded my body because I started talking about – wait for it – prepositional nuances.
“Sorry we’re late,” Harper said, hanging her coat on one of the hooks by the door.
“Yeah, sorry,” Kelly seconded. “We just ran into Marshall and that Élodie girl down the street. Did you guys know they’re dating?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s old news,” I replied, grabbing Kelly’s coat to hang it next to Harper’s. “Marshall spilled the beans to Dan yesterday after class. Speaking of which, have you ever noticed,” I blurted, “that in French you say you’ve been dating since six months instead of for six months? Or days, or years, or whatever. The amount of time isn’t my point. It’s that the prepositions of the world are the very thing that will peg us as a non-native speaker if we’re not careful. BAHAHAHAHA WHY IS FRENCH SO WEIRD, YOU GUYS?!”
Please tell me you heard me vomiting words all over your friends that night, Sully. Because Dan definitely did. He gave me side-eye for a full minute after that, and when I saw him join you in the kitchen, I imagine he muttered, “Run, Meredith. Run for your life.”
Now listen, I love Dan Thomas like a brother. And if I had been in my right mind that night, I wouldn’t have even noticed that Dan was hovering around you at all.
But the night of October 8th wasn’t normal. It was the Paris all-nighter – the White Night. It was also the night of the brightest moon in four hundred years. So when Dan sat beside you at dinner, I didn’t see my roommate distracting my redheaded crush while my brain malfunctioned.
I saw a con artist who had been playing me for a fool all day.
And when he hung back to talk to you as we all strolled over to Notre Dame, I didn’t see a heartsick dude who was asking his friend how to win over a certain curly-haired Anne.
No. I saw a narcissist who had spent his life gaslighting me.
And when the two of you started shaking your fists at the moon, laughing and snorting so hard that you ruined the Magic Flute cathedral light show for all two hundred people in attendance?
WELL. I freaked the heck out, didn’t I? Which is, by the way, what Emmett Woodhouse, Esquire had planned from the get go.
You see, Dan knew all along that his pep talk would never work. He knew I would never ask you out unless I felt the flames of terror licking my feet.
So I followed you to the Big Band concert that night. And I think Dan might have been onto something with that brightest moon nonsense because Sully, you did not seem sorry I was there. Not when I followed you, not when I convinced you to dance with me, and not when we were sitting alone by the fountain together.
Did you realize you were catching the feels for me? Because when I swept you onto the dance floor to the opening notes of Begin the Beguine, you were into it, sister. If I hadn’t been so completely freaked out, I might have let myself believe that the size of your pupils had everything to do with your heart shifting and nothing to do with the twinkle lights overhead.
And when the music ended – when you were still in my arms, staring into my eyes like you were seeing me for the very first time in your life – whoa. I have no idea how my rational brain kept my lips from touching yours in that moment.
Good thing I didn’t risk that kiss, though. Because a half-second later, the drummer began that familiar opening riff to Sing, Sing, Sing, and lindy-hopping with you that night is one of my best memories of all time. Do you know how lucky we are?
Nobody has that kind of instant chemistry on the dance floor, Meredith. Nobody.
I, for one, was petrified. Over the years, I probably convinced myself that someone had cursed me at Stanford orientation. There’s no way this girl is into me, I kept telling myself the whole time we talked at the fountain. And even later, alongside the river, when I surprised myself by inviting you to hop on a train to nowhere with me, I never believed you would go.
But you would have, wouldn’t you? I can see that now. You would have met me at the Gare du Nord, and all would have been right with the world. By Thanksgiving, we would have fallen in love. You would have been my rock all year while Gigi’s life withered away. You would have made me laugh when I wanted to cry. You would have held my hand when I tried to run away.
Except none of that happened. Because Drew Sutton appeared later that morning at the Centre Lafayette. And from that day forward, you and I swerved far, far off that course.
The Eight
When I saw Sutton arguing with that taxi driver later that morning, I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. Because seriously, what? At the time, I would have sworn that kid had your phone tapped, or at the very least, that he’d paid Marshall Freeman handsomely for Russell/Sullivan intel, because come on, man! How else could he have known we were *this* close to ruining his fun?
So when my phone rang and I saw it was Gigi, I walked away without another word.
“Good morning,” she chirped. “How’s my favorite grandson?”
“Fine, fine,” I lied, zooming into the Centre Lafayette. “I mean, I’m a little tired. My friends and I stayed out all night for that Nuit Blanche celebration I told you about last week.”
“Did you?” I could hear the smile in her voice. “Well, that’s nice. I hope you made some good memories together.”
Oh, Gigi, I thought. If only you knew.
“We did,” I said out loud. “And how are you? It’s a little past your bedtime, isn’t it?”
It was nine a.m. Paris time. Technically, midnight might not be too late for someone as active as my grandmother, but that was before she got sick. We rarely talked about her energy levels, because Margaret Beckett was from the Whiney-Butts Are Losers™ generation, but I knew the drill. Chemotherapy makes you tired. Which is why I should have known that call would take a bad turn, because cancer is a friend to no one. Especially superheroes like Gigi.
“I’ll get straight to the point, Peter. I had an appointment today, and the doctor let me know they’ve discovered two new tumors.”
“What? Wait, hold on a minute, Geeg. How is that possible? You promised me your team wou
ld use the most aggressive treatment available. You said –”
“I know what I said.” Her voice sounded brittle, like it might crack at any moment. “Everything I told you was true, but you know there’s never a guarantee. Ever.”
“What does that mean?”
She paused for a long moment, then cleared her throat. “Listen, darling, there’s no point in sugarcoating this news. The doctor says we can try a few experimental treatments to sustain my quality of life, but the best-case scenario is that I’ve got nine months to live.”
Let me just say here that I’m thankful for whoever invented aviator sunglasses, because I slid mine on and walked to the back of the courtyard as tears I didn’t even know I still had flooded down my cheeks. “I’m coming home,” I told her through gritted teeth. “Release whatever restrictions you’ve got on the airline mileage account, Gigi, because I want to be with you.”
“No,” she retorted. “You’re staying in Paris, Peter. It’s been years since I’ve heard you as happy as you’ve been the past month, and whatever magic you’ve found there, you need to hold onto it. Now more than ever.”
“But –”
“We can talk more frequently if that would make you feel better. I’ll even try to learn that video chat thingamajig you’re so fond of, but I refuse to let you take more time away from your future, okay? You are twenty-two years old, and you have a full life ahead of you. The last thing I need when I arrive at the Pearly Gates is to find your grandfather and your parents with their arms crossed in disapproval.”
Gigi rattled off a few factoids about the experimental drugs the doctors had proposed. She told me she’d already booked herself a flight so we could spend Christmas together in Paris. When she hung up, I sat there willing myself to pull it together before I joined you guys in class.
Except I never pulled myself together. So I never joined you.
When you saw me after class, I was on the phone with Vick Darby – Brooks’ dad. I was begging him to grant me power of attorney over Gigi so I could fly home and help her, but Gigi had already cut me off at the pass. For every question I lobbed his way, Vick lobbed an answer right back – one my very wily grandmother had already provided. So when you and Sutton suddenly appeared on the other side of those glass panels in the entry hall, I hung up the phone and slipped inside a nearby classroom until the coast was clear.
The very last thing I needed that morning was another smug grin from Drew.
Sixteen hours and at least two liters of boo-hoo baby tears later, I hopped the first train headed out of the Gare de Lyon. I had no agenda, really – I just needed a change of scenery, preferably of the mountainous kind. So imagine my surprise when Meg Green and the entire New York contingency spilled into the club car while I was drinking my third cup of espresso.
Dan told me once that thanks to Facebook’s tagging mechanism, you were under the (mistaken) impression that I spent that weekend holed up in the hot tub of a fancy Swiss chalet with the ice queen of the Upper West Side. I have to laugh every time I think about that, because really, Sully? Could your imagination be any more clichéd? I’m not a male bimbo.
Here’s a fact: in another life, you would have been friends with every single one of the Hudson College crew, including Meg and the girls you call her minions. The second they saw me on the train, all eight of them took me in like I was an honorary part of their squad. They even started calling me the ninth member of The Eight.
That’s what they called themselves: The Eight. Some of them even got VIII tattoos that year. Why didn’t we get tattoos? Arrows are way cooler than Roman numerals.
All weekend, I hung out with the Hudson guys – Dylan, Mark, and Jared. The best part was that those guys didn’t care who I was. No one asked me what it felt like to be an orphan at age eighteen. None of them knew I was about to lose the only family member I had left. And even though they must’ve noticed that I drank soda every time they drank beer, not one guy ever mentioned it. All we really did that weekend was play tourist together.
On Sunday morning, hours before we headed back to Paris, we took a cogwheel train up to the top of Rigi-Kulm. The summit is exactly what you imagine the Swiss Alps should be: jagged peaks, snow glinting in the midday sun. The nine of us took a billion pictures up there and had an all-out snowball war. Maybe it was the pure mountain air, but I started to feel like I could breathe again.
At the train stop halfway down, you can take a horse-drawn carriage ride in freshly fallen snow. Every member of The Eight clambered up the steps onto one enormous carriage just as the horse took off around the snowy village path.
Everyone, that is, except Meg and me.
A smaller carriage idled nearby– a two-seater pulled by a donkey and an old man who weighed ninety pounds soaking wet. Meg took one glance at the set-up, then looked up at me.
“On a scale of one to Nora Ephron, how badly do you want to have this sleigh ride experience right now?”
“Uh… zero?”
“Good. Because I am literally freezing my butt off out here, and I think that coffee shop over there is a wiser decision. I predict that donkey will keel over dead in the next ten minutes. Possibly in the next five.”
I laughed. So did she. And then we strolled through the snow to the café.
We took a seat near the window, and while Meg texted her friends our location, I ordered two hot chocolates. After a bit of small talk, she gave me some serious side-eye.
“Why are you here, Pete?”
“Uh… you mean here on the planet?”
“No. I mean here here.” She scowled, gesturing around us. “You and that Meredith girl have been joined at the hip ever since school started. Then on Friday, I saw her walking around the Centre Lafayette with Malibu Ken’s twin brother.”
I’d never thought of it before, but she was right. Sutton does look like Malibu Ken, minus the androgynous zones and the plasticine skin, of course.
“Oh, that guy?” I attempted to smile. “Yeah, that’s Drew Sutton. The Dawson to Meredith’s Joey. Soul mates, party of two.”
“You’ve seen Dawson’s Creek?”
“Only the first season.”
“Interesting.” Meg surveyed me over the rim of her cup. “Um, not to spoil seasons two through six for you, but Joey and Dawson don’t end up together.”
“Really? But they were so perfect for each other.”
She shook her head. “Were you even paying attention? Joey and Pacey had chemistry for days. Even in the first season.”
“They did?”
“Yep. Plot twist.” She bumped the home button on her phone to check the time, which was when I noticed her lock screen photo. It looked like that Hey, Girl actor. What’s his name? You know, the one from The Notebook? Ryan something… Reynolds? No, wait. Ryan Gosling. Yes, that’s him, and this guy could have been his twin. He even had that same straight nose.
I gestured toward her phone. “Who’s the fella?”
The tiniest smile danced at the corner of her mouth. “Oh, you know. Just my high school boyfriend.”
“Yeah?” I cocked my head to one side. “Does he have a name?”
“Devon. He’s studying Spanish in Argentina this year.”
“Wow. Good for him.” I paused for a moment, studying her face. “Are you guys… together?”
“We are. Well, we were.” She turned her phone over, screen face down. “It’s complicated.”
“Ah. Got it.” I rapped my knuckles on the table. “No further explanation necessary.”
Meg’s mouth shifted into a straight line, and for several seconds, she didn’t look at me. And I don’t know why, Sully, but just like that, I realized Meg and I were in exactly the same boat. She was pining, I was pining. So I reached over and squeezed her hand.
And to my surprise, Meg squeezed back.
So that’s how we got started. Meg missed Devon, I missed you, and at first, all we really did was find comfort in each other’s company. We were like… you know
those tiny blankets kids carry around with them? The ones with a stuffed animal toy head sewn on to them? That’s how I saw Meg.
Well, okay. She’s a little prettier than a blanket or a stuffed animal. But you get my point.
When I got back home that night from Lucerne, Dan was already asleep. But when I got to my bedroom, I found a hastily scribbled note on my pillow.
“I’m going to cut you some slack because your grandmother is sick,” Dan’s scrawl said. “But I thought you should know that two of the three Addison girls wish you would’ve forced Drew Sutton on the next flight home to Portland instead of running away on a train. (Don’t be mad at Kelly. She thinks Sutton is hot.) Hope your little stunt this weekend was worth it, loser, because Sutton or no Sutton, you’ve tanked your chances with Meredith. Welcome home.”
Thirty Thousand Steps
After Sutton went back to Portland – after you two went Facebook official – I removed myself from your orbit. At the time, it felt like the noble thing to do. Sutton was still my fraternity brother, and you were… well, you mattered to me, Meredith. You always have.
Step aside, I told myself that first Monday back in class. Let her breathe. Think of what Drew Sutton would do, and then do the opposite. Be the better man.
But I’m not sure I really was the better man, Sully.
The truth is my ego got walloped the same day Gigi told me she was dying, and once again, I handled my pain in the only way I knew how: by avoiding it at all costs. So I hung out with the Hudson College crew, and with the exception of the week your brother came to visit, I steered clear of Marie-France’s house as often as I could.
By the way, Marie-France was on to me from the very beginning. Why do you think she pulled that mistletoe trick the night of your birthday junior year? Or that surprise reunion in your chambre de bonne last Friday? She knew (then and now) that my heart belongs to you.
