by Jill Cox
You read that right. Brooks Darby – the former destroyer of Baby Pete’s chill – finally kissed me after twenty-four years.
All because of a puppy, Sully. That is the lamest first kiss story I’ve ever heard.
It’s also the story of how I accidentally ended up with a girlfriend while I was still googling last-minute tickets to Ireland to track you down over my Christmas break.
A guy can go crazy examining how many random decisions thwarted his own happiness.
Addison
When I arrived at the Logans’ house on Christmas Eve, James answered the door. This may sound logical to you, because duh, it was his parents’ house. But James rarely spent Christmas at home anymore. And I had no clue until that very second how much I’d missed him.
I hugged my buddy before I even dropped my duffel bag on the ground. “What are you doing here?” I half-laughed, half-shouted. “I didn’t think I would see you again for years. Not in person, at least.”
“You wouldn’t have.” James clapped me hard on the back. “But the US Postal Service recently delivered five of the best Christmas presents ever to this particular address, so my parents invited me home to watch you open them in person.”
You know those decisions you make sometimes and you wonder later, what was I thinking? When I’d applied for grad schools, I’d given them the Logans’ address instead of the Restoration Initiative’s because US mail is cheaper than international. Then I’d selected snail mail as my official form of communication. Not e-mail. Who would do such a thing?
Oh, Past Pete. You and your illogical decisions.
The thing is, in my rush to get home, I’d completely forgotten to alert the five graduate schools about my change of scenery. So all five letters had arrived the week before Christmas, and the Logans, being the good people they are, had never opened them. They just booked their son a very expensive last-minute flight home from China to watch me open them in person.
Acceptance to Yale.
Acceptance to University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Acceptance to Stanford.
Acceptance to Columbia.
Acceptance and a full-ride scholarship to Addison College, because I was a legacy three times over. (Gigi, Pops, and my mom went there.)
Without hesitation, I chose Addison. The moment I read the letter, I realized it was always going to be my choice. Why had I applied anywhere else? Even without the scholarship, that was where my heart expected to be. I wanted to share an experience with my people, you know? They weren’t here anymore; this was the only way to connect with them now.
So I posted a letter on Christmas Day to the name and address provided, even though the USPS and the Addison offices were closed. And that evening, James and I sat at the Logans’ computer and booked my flight to Boston for Addison’s orientation one month later, held on their main campus in Vermont.
When I got back to Portland after New Year’s, things with Brooks were easy. I went to her apartment every day after soccer practice. We cooked dinner together and graded papers or took Waffles on walks in the snow. At school, we hung out whenever we could and tried not to be obvious in front of the kids that we’d taken our relationship beyond the professional.
The night before I left for orientation, I told Brooks I needed to fly to the East Coast to meet with one of James’ big donors. Which wasn’t technically a lie, because I was meeting one of his big donors: Pete Russell 2.0.
I know. Lying by omission still makes you a liar. But Brooks and I weren’t officially official yet. We were just two old friends hanging out, sometimes with our lips attached.
Oh, yes. I really do know I’m the worst.
WHY ARE YOU STILL READING, SULLY?
Friday morning of orientation weekend, Kelly and Harper picked me up at Boston’s Logan Airport. They’d both taken a vacation day from work to drive me up to Vermont, and I have to tell you, it was really good to see them. My memories of the Addison girls were pleasant but distant, eclipsed by the overwhelming presence of a certain Meredith Sullivan. But that weekend I realized they were two of my biggest fans. Yours, too.
You know who is not my fan? Anne Wilder. Harper and Kelly made some lame excuse about her work responsibilities, but I knew why Anne wasn’t there. She may be quiet, but she’s a mama hornet where you are concerned. And I had a sneaking suspicion she was still #TeamDan4Lyfe.
“So Pete,” Kelly said, a mere twenty minutes into our drive north. “Does this visit mean you’ve officially decided on Addison?”
“Either Addison or Stanford,” I lied, though I’m not sure why. “Hopefully this weekend will decide for me.”
“Mmm-hmm. Taking your time, exploring your options. Good, good. Very wise.” Kelly strummed her fingers against the passenger door. “Speaking of your wisdom or the lack thereof, remind me again why you and Meredith broke up?”
I squirmed in the backseat. “Do I have to answer that?”
Harper shot me a look in the rearview mirror. “That depends. Do you want to walk the rest of the way to Vermont?”
“Uh… no.”
“Then start talking.”
And since I knew Harper never made an idle threat, I answered their question. And then I answered all the questions they hadn’t asked, like what it felt like when Ian died. Why I disappeared. How you walked out on me at the Treehouse and never looked back.
But you know what? In retelling our story to the Addison girls, my mistakes didn’t feel like mistakes anymore. I remembered all the reasons I’d set you free.
“Okay.” Harper nodded at me in the rearview mirror. “Okay. I get it now.”
“Me too,” Kelly nodded. “You know, you could have asked us for help. We could have flown out to Oregon to take care of you guys that summer. Neither one of you gave us a chance.”
“I know. I know. We should have done a lot of things differently, me especially. And I’m sorry, okay?”
Kelly shot me a look over her shoulder. “I suppose you’re forgiven. But don’t sit here and act like you don’t miss Meredith. You’re in the presence of two highly sensitive empaths, you know.”
I looked out my window at the snow-covered farmhouses rolling past. “I do miss Meredith. I’ll always miss her. She was my first love.”
“Does she know that?”
I turned back to face them. “Look, she’s better off without me, okay? Meredith is… well, she’s a glacial lake – all calm and peaceful. And what am I? Nothing but a tornado, stirring up the silt. Think of all the bad things that have happened since she met me.”
“But what about all the good things?” Kelly countered, eyes pleading. “The two of you take the edge off one other. You push each other without getting ugly. You believe in each other. But the very best thing? You make her laugh, Pete, and I love Meredith’s laugh.”
Oof. Kelly’s words punched me right in the gut, because man, Sully, so do I. Especially the one that starts off really slowly, like you can’t believe someone like me could humor someone like you. Or the silent one that happens when you’re laughing so hard you can’t catch your breath.
As Kelly waxed poetic about you, I noticed Harper watching me in the rearview mirror. Did you ever notice that when Harper watches you, it’s like she can actually read what’s going on in your mind? Like, the muscles around her eyes twitch in rhythm with your thoughts?
No? Well, they do, and her creepy gaze made me squirm again in my seat. She shot a brief, sidelong glance at Kelly, then she returned her eyes to the road. “Guess it’s just as well,” she said, almost too quietly for me to hear. “Especially considering…”
She gave a pointed look at Kelly’s phone, which she was clutching to her heart. And maybe Harper’s telepathic skills work for reading minds and sending silent messages because in the same instant, Kelly’s eyes widened. “Oh,” she yelped. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Right about what?”
Kelly shot me a helpless glance, then she tapped in the lock scree
n password on her phone. She clicked here, tapped there, and four seconds later, she handed the phone back between their seats.
“These are Meredith’s latest Facebook posts. Scroll from here up and tell us what you see.”
I scrolled slowly back up the page in chronological order. Your posts were brief, contained no photos, and your check-ins were repetitive. Same place every day.
But then my feeble mind picked up on the anomaly: it wasn’t just the place that repeated itself. You’d tagged the same person every single time.
Revising at Gus O’Connor’s Pub – with Jack Kelly.
Hating Past Meredith’s words at Gus O’Connor’s Pub – with Jack Kelly.
Taking a break from my word salad at O’Connor’s Ceilidh Night – with Jack Kelly.
Ding, ding, ding! “Who is Jack Kelly?”
I may have added a four-letter word to that question, which is probably why the girls ignored me. And when I shoved the phone back onto the armrest between them, Harper changed the subject so fast I halfway believed I’d imagined the whole thing.
I don’t have to tell you this: I have excellent compartmentalizing skills. For the rest of that weekend, I managed to focus on Addison College and my near future. It didn’t hurt that several of my new classmates were Addison graduates who knew Harper, Anne, and Kelly. Every second of every minute that I was in Vermont, my horizon felt rife with possibility. I managed to ride that wave all the way back to Portland, and for the next several weeks, Brooks must have thought an alien had replaced me from the inside out.
I asked her to be my girlfriend. Officially or whatever.
I let her change my lock screen to a cringeworthy selfie of us kissing on the couch. I also let her change her name in my contacts from “Brooksie” to five kissy lip emojis.
I spent time with her parents, and not just because her dad held the keys to my kingdom until the day I turned twenty-five.
I hung out with her friends.
I watched The Bachelor without complaining.
When Amy Harrington decided she should be a full-time mom instead of returning to the classroom, I didn’t even hesitate when the principal offered me her job for the rest of the year. Nor did I hesitate when Brooks invited me to join her in Cabo for her best friend’s wedding in June, four whole months in advance.
And when I finally admitted the truth about Addison-in-Paris, Brooks was so crazy supportive that I wondered why I needed a Master’s degree at all.
So what if my life didn’t look the way I’d planned it once upon a time. Does anyone’s life resemble their dreams? Of course not. Why do you think there are so many podcasts dedicated to that topic?
People rarely chase their bliss, yet the average person manages to find contentment all the same. And after half a decade of struggle, my life was better than most. I had no right to be greedy.
At least, that’s what I kept telling myself, right up until the last week in May when the Highgate Alumni magazine found its way into my mailbox and I discovered this announcement in our class notes:
Meredith Sullivan, recent graduate and recipient of the Beckett Endowment scholarship, has sold her first novel, Night and Day, to Reardon Publishing. According to her agent, Michael Brady, Night and Day will debut next October in North America, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, where Miss Sullivan resides.
Two sentences. That’s all it took to pulverize my allegedly happy life. Because while I knew you’d taken creative writing senior year, I’d only managed to focus on the “Meredith’s ditching French” factor rather than the “Meredith’s a right-brained wizard” truth.
That announcement was proof that you were not some mythical fairy from my past. You’re a real person – a woman manifesting her dreams despite the Ian-shaped hole in her life. And somehow that single paragraph about your moxie made my average, normal life feel very average and normal indeed.
Ellie Whitman
Google is the modern equivalent of Wonderland’s rabbit hole. Type in Meredith Sullivan plus novel, for example, and boom! Your author website appears. Click the link, and hey! Guess whose official Instagram is a work of art? Yours, of course. Last I checked, you follow thirteen accounts: your publisher, and twelve other authors. One of whom is @doolinjack.
But here’s something you may not have noticed: both @meredithsullivanbooks and @doolinjack share a follower named @ellie.whitman.123. Her profile picture is a Robert Doisneau photo of a couple swing dancing. She posts inspirational quotes, shots of her adorable Golden Retriever, Waffles, and sometimes on Mondays, she features Jonathan Crombie as Gilbert Blythe, because duh, he’s her #ManCrushEVERYday.
Ellie Whitman has seventeen followers. Twelve are bots. The rest are creepers trolling for lady friends. But Ellie only follows you and Jack.
She hearts all of your writing posts. She does not heart any candids featuring #TheBoy.
Oh, come on, Sully – how can you be so oblivious?
I. Am. Ellie. Whitman.
On Memorial Day, after months of searching online, I tracked down a used copy of Jack’s novel which I had overnighted from Ireland to my hotel because DUH.
One hundred and seventy-five dollars later, Time To Go was in my hands.
Jack is talented, Sully. I can see why he’s won so many awards.
I can also see why the two of you clicked.
What? I can be the bigger person when I feel like it.
Two nights after I finished reading Jack’s novel, I woke up drenched in sweat. At first, I thought I was having a heart attack, but no. It was just Passport Pete taking over the helm again.
You remember that guy, right? The one who runs for the hills whenever life gets weird?
Yeah. He’s a peach.
Side note: Dr. Keating and I spent most of the summer getting to the bottom of this particular freak-out because it doesn’t follow my usual pattern. For once in my life, I wasn’t running away from my own pain. If anything, I was running toward you.
Keating believes that from the day I flew home last November, I was just… well, coasting. Checking off the days on my mental calendar until it was time for graduate school. Filling up the empty hours with Brooks.
But somehow, seeing your name in that alumni magazine set the inner clock of my heart ticking once again. Because for better or for worse, you always make me aim higher, Sully.
So the day after teacher in-service ended, I packed my suitcase and booked myself a one-way flight for the following Monday.
Except when I told my girlfriend, I left out that pesky never-coming-back-again detail.
Rue Guénégaud
For the first two weeks after I moved back to Paris, I was either at my apartment, overseeing renovations, or I was at Marie-France’s, doing odd jobs in your old room on the seventh floor.
When I walked through the doorway that Friday morning to find you standing under the gable of your chambre de bonne, every English and French word I’d previously possessed flew right out of my brain and skittered down the back staircase, because Meredith, you were there.
And for the record, I immediately spotted the claddagh ring on your right hand. I understood what it meant – that you and Jack were serious – but that didn’t stop me from hugging you so hard that I cannot believe you didn’t shove me away.
You could have shoved me away. I would have deserved it. But I wouldn’t have cared, because MEREDITH. You. Were. There.
In Paris. With ME.
All day Friday, I tried to get the words inside my head to form on my lips, but… nothing. Nope. Just nonsense and awkwardness and oh my word, why didn’t you slap me, Sully? Somebody needed to slap me! I’m fairly certain Anne would have stepped up if only you’d asked.
Also for the record, I HATED watching you stare at my phone when Brooks’ five kissy faces popped up on the bâteau-mouche that night. The light actually left your eyes, and not in an OMG-I-hate-that-girl kind of way. No, it was far worse than jealousy.
Your emp
ty expression screamed: who are you?
I didn’t know anymore, Sully. I only knew I was no longer the Pete you’d once loved.
When I got home Friday night, I went to my mom’s jewelry box and pulled out the Fee charm I’d ordered for your twenty-second birthday. For a good half-hour, I sat on the sofa, running my thumb over Ian’s quirky scrawl, imagining how disappointed he’d be in the man I’d become.
Good times, right? Thirty minutes well spent.
Then on Saturday morning, during the Louvre tour, I couldn’t concentrate. The Addison girls said you were back at the hotel e-mailing your editor.
What? Who were you?
That’s when I decided we needed a few hours alone together. Why? I wasn’t exactly sure. But nevertheless, when the opportunity arose, I volunteered the two of us to solve Tour Guide Valérie’s change-of-venue debacle.
In the taxi headed toward the rue Guénégaud, I noticed you staring at my bicep, and for a minute, I was flattered. “Did I spill coffee on my t-shirt or something?”
“What? No. I just noticed… did you misplace your favorite tattoo or something?”
“What are you talking about?” I tried to deadpan.
“I never had any tattoos.”
You lifted an eyebrow at me, then perfectly mimicked nineteen-year-old Pete, flexing your own arm and shoving your elbow in my face. “Bro, check out this ink. It says mercy in Mandarin. So awesome, right? Hey, don’t mock me, Merry Merry Quite Contrary. It’s bad luck to make fun of noble concepts, especially when they’re written symbolically.”
Merry, Merry, Quite Contrary. Oh, man, Sully. I wanted to laugh so badly. After all that time, you could still capture the essence of my former self.
“Okay, okay. You win, Sully. Maybe I did have a tattoo. And if I remember correctly, a certain redhead insisted my precious new ink probably translated as super-duper American loser instead of mercy.”
