Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
SHE WAS NEVER MINE
Connor
Gretchen steps into the living room still wearing the pink dress from dinner, high heels swapped out for fuzzy slippers.
Long black waves are thrown into a messy knot on top of her head, a few rogue strands framing her face.
And there, on the bridge of her nose is a pair of tortoiseshell glasses I’ve never seen before.
“When did you get glasses?” I ask.
Gretchen grabs the ice bucket in the kitchenette and spins to me. “Um…” She pushes the glasses up a bit and there’s a modesty there that I find way too charming. “Couple years ago, I think. Apparently, reading too much leads to tired eyes. These are only for when I don’t have my contacts in.”
“They’re cute.” She avoids my stare, but I don’t miss her grin as she passes by me.
“You can have the bathroom first. I’m gonna go fill this up,” she says as she waves the empty bucket over her shoulder and swipes a room key off the entry table. I’m left smiling like a starry-eyed fool when she walks out the door.
I use the bathroom to brush my teeth and change into a pair of athletic shorts and a t-shirt, Gretchen schlepping in gobs of face and hair products as soon as I tell her I’m done.
Once I hear the shower turn on, I text Lauren.
Me
Can I call you now?
My anxiety as I wait for her to reply turns to frustration when I realize I forgot about the two-hour time difference since Arizona doesn’t observe Daylight Savings.
Several minutes later, her reply finally comes through.
Lauren
I’m up.
Stepping onto the balcony, I close the sliding door behind me and steady myself with a deep breath. She answers on the second ring.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi.” I settle on one of the patio chairs. “How are you?”
“I’m okay,” she exhales. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Sorry I scared you. I ended up having to leave town suddenly.”
“Oh—”
“And I forgot about the time difference. I’m sorry it’s so late.”
“That’s okay. Where are you?”
“I’m in Arizona.” I pause, momentarily paralyzed over how much I should tell her. Lauren’s insecurities got the best of her when she met Gretchen at dinner last month and I don’t want to give her a reason to spiral when there’s nothing to spiral over. But I don’t want to lie to her either.
“That trip with Drew and Gretchen?” Her subdued tone strikes my analyzing thoughts dead.
“Yeah, so…” I pinch the skin along my forehead. “Drew called this morning in a panic. Something’s going on with Reagan, but he wo n’t tell me what it is. Gretchen was already on her way here and he felt terrible for having to bail, so he asked me to come instead.”
I lean forward and rest a forearm on my bouncing knee.
“Oh.” The sound of defeat nearly guts me, but she goes on. “I guess that explains why Reagan hasn’t returned my calls.”
“Yeah. Drew promised they’re gonna be okay, but that’s all I know.”
“Well, that’s good, I guess.”
Her voice quivers, breaths shallow and tight. “Lauren, please don’t cry,” I plead, head in my hand. God , I hate making her cry.
She sniffles. “It’s okay. I’m fine. I promise.”
“I’m really sorry. Not just for today but…everything. It was really shitty of me to not return your calls or messages. You don’t deserve that.”
“Thank you,” she whispers.
For one, two, three beats, we sit in intimidating silence. Her sadness seeps through the line like a leaky faucet, every drip landing like burning acid on my heart. I’ve been a terrible friend to her over the past few weeks.
“Are you and Gretchen having fun?”
I sober immediately because there’s suspicion there.
Uncertainty over whether or not Gretchen and I have a future beyond friendship aside, the things she confided in me tonight, the truth behind this trip—it’s not my story to tell.
But Lauren deserves as much honesty as I can give her without breaking Gretchen’s trust.
“It’s not that kind of trip.”
“Oh. I thought Drew said it was some sort of birthday trip.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too, but it’s—” I stop to reorganize my thoughts. “Gretchen told me some things in confidence tonight that Drew doesn’t even know yet. I’m sorry, but I have to leave it at that for now.”
“Alright,” she says on a dramatic sigh. “Sooooo, how’s the weather out there?”
I snicker. “Is that the type of friends we are now? We don’t have anything better to talk about than the weather?”
“Shut up!” she laughs. “I’m trying here. ”
“Okay, okay.” I lean back in my chair and prop my feet on the table in front of me. “It’s a beautiful night here, actually. Seventy degrees, not a cloud in sight. I’m out on the balcony staring at a sky full of stars.”
For the next several minutes we volley from one random topic to another. I ask about a project at work she’s been worried about. She tells me about her family’s upcoming trip to the Bahamas. The more we talk, the easier it becomes.
When we reach our first lull in conversation, she says, “We never did this.”
“Did what?”
“This casual, easy chat. The way friends do.”
Four words. A single statement that packs a punch large enough to draw our entire relationship into focus as though we lived with blinders on for the past two and a half years.
The way friends do.
Your person should be your best friend. But I wasn’t hers and she was never mine—a reality that’s hard to stomach after spending so much of your life with someone.
“I know,” I respond.
Silence falls again and I scrape my nails over my jaw, searching for some combination of words to fill the abject void. When I come up empty, Lauren says, “I’m not mad at you, Connor. Not anymore, at least.”
“It’d be okay if you were, though.”
“I’m not gonna say it doesn’t still hurt, but I heard what you said. Everything about how there really was love there, but maybe not the kind I deserved. If I’m honest, I think I felt the same about you.”
I tuck a hand behind my head and crane my neck back against the headrest to take in the stars above that feel like a weighted blanket settling over me—a calm sort of pressure that soothes more than it burdens. The vises of stress that have held me bound for weeks uncoil one by one in real time.
She continues, “I mean, I do love you, but?— ”
“You’re not in love with me,” I finish. “I still should have been honest with you sooner. I’m sorry. You deserved better.”
Her words come on a hushed breath, genuine and sincere. “So did you, Connor.” A fissure in my heart cracks, like a bone that has to snap in order to heal.
“I’ll take the blame for this one,” I say. “Do you think we could start over from here as friends?”
“I’d like that,” she says. “And if we ever can’t find anything to talk about, we’ll always have the weather.”
The sound of her laugh—of us laughing together—soothes the last bits of guilt I had been holding on to. This closure, I realize, wasn’t only for her. I needed it, too.
A door opens at the other end of the balcony. “Deal,” I say as Gretchen steps outside dressed in a white cotton pajama set with shorts and a button-up sleep shirt. Her hair, still wet from the shower, hangs in a single braid over one shoulder.
I clear my throat to make my presence known and she turns to face me. She pads toward me at a determined pace. “Is that Drew?”
I shake my head as Lauren says, “Is that Gretchen?”
“Yeah it is,” I answer into the phone, before I point at it, look to Gretchen and say, “It’s Lauren.”
She slaps her hands to her cheeks, comically pushing them together in the most adorable way. The action nudges those librarian glasses farther up her nose as she mouths, “I’m sorry.”
“Tell her I said hi,” Lauren says. Whether she intended it to be an olive branch or not, my heart does something at her words.
I meet Gretchen’s stunned gaze and grin. “Lauren says hi.”
Gretchen straightens, hands falling to her sides like paperweights. Her expression turns quizzical. My shrug in response says it’s a surprise to me, too.
“Hi, Lauren,” Gretchen hollers toward the phone and immediately winces as though she’s been rehearsing the words for hours and it still didn’t come out right. It’s so endearing, I have to place a hand over my mouth to keep from smiling.
Two thumbs hiked over her right shoulder, she signals she’s going back inside.
She makes it two steps before she pauses and grabs the top of one of the empty patio chairs.
The look she gives me over her shoulder is adorably wicked.
Gretchen locks our gazes together as she stalks toward the balcony door, dragging the chair behind her.
The long-suffering sound of iron scraping concrete fills the air.
My chest quakes on a silent laugh. Nothing like a good Pitch Perfect reference to lighten the mood. The next breath I take is the easiest one I’ve felt in weeks.
“Gretchen says hi back,” I say into the phone, eyes on the woman in question as she abandons the chair and runs inside.
“So, listen, there is something I wanted to tell you all this time that you’ve been ignoring me,” Lauren says.
“Okay. Ouch. I thought we were friends.”
“Well, admittedly, the first few weeks I mainly just wanted to scream at you, but then I…um…I met someone.”
I definitely wasn’t expecting that.
“It’s not serious or anything,” she rushes to add. “We met a couple weeks ago and we’ve only gone out a few times, but I didn’t want you to hear it from somebody else.”
Of all the thoughts perking up in my brain like little meerkats, none of them are hurt or disappointment or jealousy or judgment. As true as the day is long, my next words come from the deepest, purest part of me when I say, “I’m happy for you.”
“I’m scared people will think it’s too soon.”
“Forget what everyone else thinks. You deserve to be happy.”
She lets out a sigh that sounds a lot like mine, full of contentment and hope for the future. “Thanks, Connor.”
The door to our relationship may be closed for good, but Lauren’s okay. We are okay. And if she’s able to move on, maybe it’s okay that I do the same.