by Jill Cox
“You know what? You’re right. How dare I imagine myself in your shoes?” She laughed bitterly. “You’re almost twenty-three years old; of course you know what’s best for your life.”
“Brooksie –”
“No, seriously, Russell – just go for it. Run away to California. No wait, why stop there? You could be in Bali forty-eight hours from now, no problem. Why stick around this continent? You’ve got nothing important to fight for here. Not your education, not your friends who love you, or that brand new girlfriend you’re so crazy about. Nope. Nothing important whatsoever.”
She gripped the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles went white, but to her credit, Brooks never increased her speed. She drove all the way back to Gigi’s house without saying another word… right up until she wheeled into the driveway and threw the car into park.
“Listen to me, you little jerk,” she hissed. “If you think I haven’t heard your phone buzzing all day long, you’re delusional. This Meredith girl must be worried sick about you, especially considering what happened to her brother. You can’t just ignore her. That is cruel. And you don’t have a cruel bone in your body.”
“Relax, okay? I’ll call her tonight.”
“Will you?” She lifted an eyebrow. “Because you know I will side with her if you’re lying.”
“Hey, you don’t even know her.”
“I don’t care. Female solidarity dictates I side with Meredith whenever you go mental.”
“Fine,” I grumbled as I opened the passenger door. “I will call her tonight. I promise.”
But we both know I didn’t follow through on that promise. Purging those storage units had unleashed something dark inside me. And even though I knew I would hurt you, I couldn’t spend another minute in Oregon. The hole in my heart gaped too wide.
For a long time after I moved back to Shanghai, I convinced myself that my intentions were honorable. Meredith’s better off without me, I told myself. I’m removing my bad luck from her orbit. Sacrificial love is noble, right?
Wrong. By dropping off the face of the earth, I made you believe that you weren’t important to me. That I wanted to be free of you.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Commencement
You might notice that I’ve ripped out a few pages here. That’s because I’ve started and restarted this letter at least four times. And every time, I rip it out all over again.
I really don’t want you to read this story.
But here I am, writing again, because you need to know what happened between Dan and me on your twenty-second birthday. Or, as you probably remember it, the day you and I broke up.
After you walked out of the Treehouse that day, I sat on that outdoor sofa for what felt like hours. In reality, it was only twenty minutes until Dan reappeared, half out of breath.
“Hey,” he said, sitting down on one of the lounge chairs. “No dice, man. Meredith had already left the English department when I got there, and now she’s not answering her phone.”
“That’s okay,” I replied with a fake smile. “Thanks for trying.”
“So, listen,” he said, leaning forward on his elbows. “I don’t mean to be nosy, but do you mind telling me why you’re back in Portland out of the blue?”
“Oh, you mean my surprise guest star appearance?” A rueful laugh escaped me. “Yeah, funny story. Apparently, I’m graduating this afternoon.”
The color drained from his face. “That’s not funny, man.”
“No, no. It’s definitely not funny. But I am graduating. You’re welcome to come if you’d like. I’ve got eight tickets and only six guests RSVP’d.”
His eyes widened. “Why?”
“Why what? Why didn’t they RSVP?”
“No. Why are you graduating?”
“Oh. Right. Well, you see, Daniel, in college you have these things called credit hours –”
“Don’t be a jerk, Russell. You know what I’m asking. Why would you want to graduate early?”
“Well, I don’t know if want is the word I’d use. It’s more like a plot twist. You see, thanks to my high school AP credits and the Mandarin classes I’ve been taking in China, Highgate won’t actually let me stick around another semester. Rude, but what can you do?”
“Plot twist?” Dan pushed his hair away from his face. “And you didn’t see any reason to warn us that you were coming home?”
“Warn you? Well, no. Silly me, I thought my friends would be happy to see me.”
His eyes narrowed. “Okay, Smart Mouth McGee, calm down. I’m just trying to understand the big picture here, like why you weren’t surprised just now when I said I couldn’t find Meredith.”
“Well, that’s simple enough to explain.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “The reason I wasn’t surprised, Officer Thomas, is because Meredith showed up right after you left earlier. In fact, we were sitting right here on this couch together, having a moment… but then I said some things she didn’t like, so she left and drove home. Which probably explains why she’s not up for a chat at the moment.”
“You broke up with Meredith?” Dan gaped. “Why? You’re totally crazy about her.”
“Yes, I am. But since I’m moving to Shanghai for the foreseeable future, breaking up seemed like our only viable option.”
Dan glared at me for a full minute. Then just like that, he stood up and walked away.
A million words ran through my brain as I sat there, frozen in place for the second time that day. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why I’d gone so snarky all of a sudden. It’s not like Dan had asked me something weird. If anything, he’d shown enormous restraint.
By the time I walked back inside the Treehouse, Dan was outside in the front loading up his car to drive home for Christmas break. When he saw me in the doorway, he didn’t stop working. For a minute there, I thought he might leave me alone in the house and drive away home to Eugene. But eventually, he walked back inside and parked himself on an armchair across from where I sat on the couch.
“Here’s the deal, Russell,” he said, jaw set firmly. “I’m not down with this new and improved version of you. The defensive posture, the flippant attitude – why’d you even come home if you’re going to push everyone away? That mission’s long since accomplished. No one on this side of the Pacific needed a reminder that you don’t live here anymore.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I took a deep breath, then exhaled. “Look, I know you think I ran away this summer because I’m a coward –”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to. I know you. And I know how this looks, so I’ll tell you the same thing I told Meredith today: I cannot be here right now. Not in Oregon, not even in America.”
“You miss your family. Everybody gets that, man, we really –”
“No, Dan. You really don’t.” My throat began to ache. “It was hard enough to stay here after my parents died, and losing Gigi and Pops nearly killed me all over again. And I know you think I flaked on Meredith, but Ian’s death was… well, it finally tipped the scales.”
“But she needs you, Pete. Don’t you care that –”
“Of course I care!” I shouted. “What do you want from me, Dan? Am I supposed to suck it up and be a martyr for the rest of my life just to keep the rest of you happy?”
“No one’s asking you to be a martyr. But you can’t just –”
“I can’t what? Tell me, please, in your infinite wisdom and experience, what is the perfect pathway to relieve my grief? Have you lost every member of your family in the span of four years? Or instead, will you spend the next month hanging out with them in fuzzy socks, eating popcorn balls and watching Christmas movies until you fall asleep from the overwhelming joy?”
Oh, Sully. I was on fire that day. I might as well have punched Dan’s glasses off his face for the look he gave me. I don’t think we’ve ever spoken to each other the way we did on your birthday. And things were about to get much
, much worse.
“For three years, you were my best friend,” he said as he stood up. “But when you left this summer, you crossed a line. I don’t have to tell you that you’ve broken Meredith’s heart worse than Drew Sutton ever could. You know you crushed her this summer, you’ve come back and crushed her again, and if I’m being honest, I don’t know how I will ever forgive you.”
“Dan –”
“I’m not finished. The answer you seek is not in Shanghai, Pete. You can keep running for the rest of your life, but you’ll never escape that hole in your heart because you refuse to get the help you need. And until you get help, I think it’s best if we end this friendship.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” a muffled laugh escaped my throat. “There’s no need to be dramatic, okay? Let’s just calm down for a minute and talk things over, man to man.”
“We’re done talking. I’d like you to leave my house. Now.”
“Your house?” I stifled a laugh. “Look, I paid an entire year’s rent for all four rooms in this place, so if it’s anyone’s house, it’s mine. Now come on, man. Sit back down. I’m sorry things got heated, but you can’t just kick me out. We haven’t resolved anything yet.”
Without another glance my way, Dan walked past me to the front door and stood with one hand on the door handle, the other on his hip. For several seconds, I thought about standing my ground. But I know better than to argue with Dan Thomas when he’s made up his mind.
So I did what I was told. I left the Treehouse.
As he followed me out the front door, Dan didn’t even say goodbye. He just locked the door behind us and walked to his car, driving away without another word.
Lockdown
James and his parents stayed at his grandparents’ house the night of my graduation, but somehow I ended up in the Darbys’ pool house. To be fair, it’s roughly the size of an average person’s homestead. So I was suffering in style.
I don’t know if it was the jetlag or my disaster of a graduation day, but when my brain decided to throw a rave in the middle of the night, I could NOT. SHUT. IT. DOWN. The temperature that night hovered right above freezing – it was mid-December after all – but that didn’t stop me from heading outside. I grabbed a blanket, a coat, and your favorite chullo hat and parked myself in a two-person lounge chair, wondering just how long it takes to catch hypothermia and whether anyone would care if they found a Pete-shaped popsicle at dawn.
A few minutes later, I sensed a presence drifting toward me from the main house. When I looked up, there stood Brooks, smiling at me like she’d just found an escape artist from the mental ward. “Listen, loser, you’ve got to ditch this habit of tripping the local motion detectors. Lucky for you, I get the text alerts from the security company, not my dad. Otherwise, you might be staring down the barrel of a shotgun right now.”
“Oh. Whoops. I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about the cameras out here.”
“You’re forgiven. This time.” She lowered herself onto the chair next to me, tugging the left side of my blanket to cover her legs. “Come on, bud. Tell your old pal Brooksie what brings you out to the pool this fine evening.”
“Oh, you know, just checking off the mental list of things I was meant to accomplish while I was home.” I began to count on my fingers. “Number one: graduate from college. Number two: break up with my amazing girlfriend. Number three: sell my own house right out from under my own two feet. And last but not least, number four: lose my best friend. Hey, look at that. I win. Quarter-life crisis accomplished two years in advance!”
“Yes, look at you go! Gold stars all around.” She pretended to do a high kick under the blanket. “What’s your next trick, Peter Pan?”
“Let me think.” I closed my eyes and lifted my chin to the sky. “Hey, do you have one of those memory-erasing spells like Hermione used on her parents? Because I can think of two people who’d prefer never to remember me again.”
“Only two?”
I opened my eyes and smiled. Brooks was schooling me at my own game, and in that moment, I sort of loved her for it. She’d finally learned never to lecture me over life plans she didn’t agree with.
Pulling the blanket up to her neck, she scooted closer to me. “So, you know my devotion to the purge?”
“How could I forget? You stripped me of all my family belongings this summer.”
“Turn that finger right back at yourself, mister.” She pulled out her phone and opened up Facebook. “Now listen, it turns out you can declutter more than just your belongings; you can also declutter your social circle.”
“Yeah? How so?”
“Well, it takes a little bit more nerve than throwing out your holey socks, but day by day over the last couple of months, I’ve whittled my online circle down to forty followers. And I’ve got to tell you, Pete – I haven’t been this happy since I was twelve years old. What good does it do to watch the rest of the world curate the image they want us to have instead of actually living our own lives?”
She had a point there, Sully. In China, It was a hassle even to access those apps. I hadn’t been active more than a handful of times since I’d moved away, so in reality, a purge like the one Brooks proposed would only make my life break official.
Over the following days, as I closed all the doors on my old life, I started on the outer circles and moved steadily inward until the only ‘friends’ who remained on my socials were the people who populated my daily life, plus Kathy Beauchamp, the Logans, and the Darbys.
And as I put each channel on lockdown, the clamor up inside my head simply – poof! – faded away.
You and Dan were the last people I deleted. You were also the only two I regretted.
Flower power
By the time you and Dan started classes in January, I was back at the Restoration Initiative. Traffic is always heaviest in the winter, so with James’ blessing, I expanded our Monday-Wednesday-Friday soup kitchen and laundry services to seven days a week.
When winter turned to spring, James gave me a new job: travel assistant. Most of our residents were homeless because they’d arrived in Shanghai without the correct work papers from their home province. For six months, I organized logistics, booked train tickets, and accompanied residents to their hometown until we secured the requisite paperwork.
But I guess I did my job a little too well, because by September, we had no residents left; every single one had found a job and somewhere to live. In fact, we had so few visitors that month that James voluntold me to help the Sisters of the Holy Cross at their flower shop near the Bund. Which meant I spent a lot of time hanging out with his favorite nun, Sarah.
One Thursday in mid-September, the novitiate who was meant to help Sarah was too busy hugging the convent’s toilet to join her (thank you, Influenza B). So she texted me, and fifteen minutes later, I was helping her arrange three hundred dozen tulips for some hotel shindig.
You read that right. I had to touch thirty-six hundred tulips. Your favorite flower.
“You’re pitiful today,” she said, handing me another dozen multi-colored tulips to trim. “Plus, that beard’s gotten a bit too scraggly for my tastes.”
“Doesn’t your nun-ness disqualify you from having thoughts about a man’s appearance?”
“An opinion is not a thought. Especially if it’s my opinion, which is always fact.”
“Well, there you go,” I muttered, making a mental note to groom myself a little better in the future, because Sarah was correct. I looked like a yeti.
For hours, we worked side by side, with me trimming the ends of each tulip to a uniform length while Sarah arranged them in glass vases. Every ten minutes or so, I would feel Sarah’s eyes on me, and to be honest, it felt kind of nice. Sarah wasn’t in Shanghai yet my first time around, but this time, she’d become the big sister I’d always wanted.
“You want to tell me what’s bugging you today?” She finally asked when we reached the halfway point with the tulips. “You’ve been a grumpy pant
s for weeks now, but today is extreme.”
“I guess it’s the tulips,” I mumbled, snipping the stems. “Sorry. They remind me of someone, and now I just… I miss her. And it’s my own fault, because I’m the one who left.”
Sarah untied the smock from around her neck. “Okay, time for a snack break,” she said, nodding her head toward the back of the store. “Do you mind locking the front door? I don’t want someone to come in and steal our best work.”
I did as I was told, and when I stepped into the back room, Sarah was pulling some cookies out of her bag – oatmeal cookies, to be exact. With butterscotch and chocolate chips.
Just like my mom used to make.
Grabbing two waters from the fridge, I followed Sarah to the back porch of the store, which has an oddly unobstructed view of the Yangtze River, and, despite its location in central Shanghai, that space feels like a calm oasis from the world.
“Here,” she said, handing me the bag of cookies. “Please eat as many of those as you can. Sister Mary Elizabeth keeps baking them for us because they remind her of home, and I can’t afford to gain another pound.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” I smiled, taking three cookies. “You know what’s funny? These are my favorite cookies. You nuns really do have a divine connection, huh?”
She didn’t answer. She just stared out at the river for a long moment. “So, Pete, this person you’re missing… she was someone you loved?”
“Not loved. Love, present tense. Will always love, future tense. It’s just… complicated.”
“Complicated. What a surprise.” She chewed her cookie, then took a sip of water. “Did I ever tell you how I ended up in Shanghai?”
“Um, no. Sorry, I probably should have asked you, huh? I just assumed you got sent here by the church.”
She smiled to herself. “People assume a lot of things about the sisterhood – that we had no childhood because we were promised to the order, and then, poof! We become nuns, just like that.”
