Chapter 9
“M aybe I could just make up an excuse not to go,” I said over the phone a week later, with a heavy sigh. “I’m good at that.”
“Hmm,” said Julia.
I leaned forward on the couch to stretch my tight calf muscles, which were a bit sore from walking uphill to the resort more than usual this week.
Mariana and her executive assistant were leading a series of staff meetings and professional development sessions that I’d unfortunately had to not only plan but also attend.
At least the planning and logistics kept me busy and away from Jeff for the most part.
When Julia didn’t say more, I prodded her. “What does ‘hmm’ mean, Julia?”
“It means … you could do that.”
“But?”
“Do you want to disappoint a little girl?” she asked in a too-casual voice.
I groaned. “Of course I don’t. She’s so sweet.” I ran my palm over my hair and tugged on the ends. “Do you think I haven’t thought of that?”
“Of course you have.”
“I mean, it’s the reason I said yes.”
“Right, of course.”
“But you understand my hesitation, surely?”
“Of course,” Julia said in a voice that sounded a little too nonchalant.
She was my best friend—my only friend—but sometimes she could be maddening. I took a last sip from my wineglass and rose to refill it in the kitchen. “Julia—”
“Are you drinking, Rox?”
Despite being mildly annoyed, I chuckled. “Guilty as charged,” I said while opening the red wine bottle and pouring some more. “I feel just a slight bit bubbly.”
Julia burst into laughter. “Were you just trying to do an English accent? Because I’m living in England?”
“Guilty again!” I took another sip. “I’ve only had one glass so far though.”
“You never did have any tolerance, even during college.”
“I know. Or should I say ‘I know’?” I donned my horrendous English accent for the last words. “Sorry, I can’t help it. CAH-n’t help it, that is.”
She laughed. “OK, I get it. You’re a little tipsy already.”
“Just a wee bit,” I said, assuming the accent again.
She tsk-tsked. “Just don’t have too much. You’ll just get sick.”
“Yeah, yeah, still acting like my RA, aren’t you?” I said, returning to my own voice. “Then again, that Julia was fun . Remember how we’d have binge-reading and wine-drinking weekends? It was seriously the best part of college.”
“Yeah, I just wish we hadn’t met those jerks from the baseball team.”
I smiled ruefully to my usual audience of no one at home. “In fairness, it was our breakups that inspired those fun books-and-wine weekends, so maybe we should be grateful to those guys.”
“Nah, they were idiots who didn’t deserve us, Rox.”
“I wish I could be so confident,” I heard myself saying.
My chest tightened as the regret poured in. Why did I say that? Sure, I could tell Julia almost anything—she was the only person I trusted with the real me—but that didn’t mean I should admit to everything. After all, I didn’t want to drive her away as I’d done with many others in my life.
The real Roxy wasn’t someone that people wanted to be friends with.
“I wish that too,” she said quietly. “You are a wonderful person who deserves only the best in life. We both are. Problems , like having social anxiety, don’t define us. We define us.”
I took a sip of wine as I settled back onto the couch.
I reached for the remote control for the ceiling fan and turned up the fan speed.
It was warm and humid, as per usual for early September, and I was determined to reduce my A/C usage.
“I know, Julia. I know all that, it’s just—harder to internalize it.
Like, it applies to you, to anyone else, but somehow not to me. ”
“I know, Rox.” She paused and then spoke hesitantly, “Have you thought about—”
“Oh, hey—” I interrupted her because I knew what she was going to say. It had come up before: She was going to suggest therapy. To me, a former therapist. The idea of it was silly. “I—uh, I just remembered I was going to ask you about your weekend in Bath! What was that like?”
“It was OK.”
I gasped. “ Just OK ? You went to see Roman baths, the Abbey, one of the homes where Jane Austen lived, and it was only OK?”
She exhaled slowly. “It’s just—do you remember how my family and I spent a lot of summers at a lake house up north?”
“Odd change of subject, but yeah, you’d go to your grandma’s house, right?”
“That’s the one. Well, there was this boy at the lake who was just the worst . His family lived next door, and my parents and grandparents were really friendly with his parents, so he was around a lot . I swear he was such a moody butthead.”
I snorted. “Did you just say ‘butthead’? You’re showing your age, Julia.”
“Very funny. I’m only two years older than you,” she said dryly. “But yeah, it was over ten years ago, so I called him a butthead. A lot. To his face. Because he was —seriously, Roxy, I swear he lived to torment me with his condescending faces and … and words. And, you know … that sort of thing. ”
I tried not to giggle. “He made faces at you? He sounds like a real villain.”
“Laugh it up, Rox. It’s hard to explain, but he was just so frustrating. So difficult, always. But often so aloof at the same time. He thought he could criticize me because I was younger and … well, I don’t know why else. He always had something against me, I think.”
“I believe you. What on earth does this have to do with Bath though?”
She breathed in and out audibly. “ He is here.”
I gasped. “No.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“He’s on the other side of the world, in Bath , on the same day you are? The odds of that have to be miniscule.”
“No—well, yes, he was in Bath too, but he’s at the university too. He’s in the same master’s study abroad program.”
“What?” I nearly screamed. “How did that happen? And how am I just hearing about it now, halfway through your program?”
“It wasn’t a big deal,” she said.
I snorted again. “Right.”
“OK, I was hoping it wouldn’t be a big deal.” She sighed and spoke slowly. “At first, maybe I hoped he’d be different. But he definitely wasn’t. He was just the grown-up version of himself. And that’s worse.”
“How’s it worse?”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Try?”
“I don’t know. He’s just more obnoxious, he still treats me like a child, and he’s more …” she trailed off. “I don’t want to talk about it, honestly. He already ruined the last few days in Bath, and I’m not giving him a chance to ruin this one too.”
“Well, I can’t argue with that. Stupid logic.”
Julia laughed. “Thanks for listening.”
“Always.”
“You know you’re, like, my platonic soulmate, right?”
I smiled. “Same, you know.”
I loved that I could be myself around her, and our conversations didn’t feel stilted or forced or awkward like with every other person in my life. She knew me better than anyone ever had.
“What are you doing tonight?” Julia asked. “I’m just studying, as usual.”
I bit my lip, unsure how much to say about my current passion project. I’d mentioned him a few times in texts, but Julia and I didn’t do phone calls very often, so it felt different. “I’ll probably work on that board game project I told you about.”
“Oh, right. With the online guy.” She paused as if thinking. “Danny, was it?”
“Yes. I mean, that’s the pretend name I call him,” I said sheepishly.
“What does he call you then?”
“Mindy. It’s—”
“Danny and Mindy from The Mindy Project ! That’s so perfect. So this is kind of a slow burning more-than-friends thing, then?” Her voice rose, and I winced.
“Oh. No, it’s not like that. We’re just friends. I mean, I think we are. It feels like we are, despite not knowing our real names. He’s great, but it’s just friendly between us. Very friendly.”
“Really friendly, huh?”
“Yep,” I said, popping the p sound at the end.
“Interesting,” she replied in the tone of voice that usually came with a smirk.
I shook my head, feeling my lips twitch at the corners. “Anyway, I’ll leave you to your homework. And your lake boy.”
She scoffed. “Not my … never mind. Not taking the bait, Rox. You have a great night, all right?”
“You too,” I said before pressing End Call on my phone and tossing it on the other side of the couch.
My eyes swung over to the empty wineglass on the coffee table. I started to rise to refill it again but then slumped back onto the couch. No, two glasses would be plenty, at least for now. I didn’t want to be drunk when Danny came online.
I supposed I cared what he thought. Shrugging off the slightly awkward feeling, I opened my laptop.
My eyes widened when I saw his green dot, indicating he was online. I hadn’t expected him for another hour or so. He usually came on fairly late, I assumed because he worked long days. Or late days. I wasn’t sure. We knew so little about each other outside of this online community.
I shook off the thought and opened the chat window eagerly.
CastGamer55: When you get online, take a look at this template I made for the player sketches we started last time.
SawyerRox4: Hi!
CastGamer55: Good evening.
SawyerRox4: Wow, the template is great! This will really help us.
CastGamer55: You said you were having trouble seeing how all the info fits together, so I hoped this would help.
He did that for me? I felt something warm and fuzzy float through me. Maybe it was the wine.
SawyerRox4: Thank you, really appreciate it
CastGamer55: You’re welcome.
SawyerRox4: So where do we start?
CastGamer55: I figured we’d try to discuss and come to agreement on some basics and then divide up the profiles to work on later.
CastGamer55: To begin with, we should finalize the names. Or at least agree on what we’ll use for now in the template.
SawyerRox4: In my notes, we already decided on seven of them .
CastGamer55: Yes, so we need three more. I made a list of suggestions we could start with.
SawyerRox4: OK, shoot
CastGamer55: For the character we’re modeling after Abbey, I was thinking about Valentina. Thoughts?
SawyerRox4: I love that!