Chapter 31 #2
“Fuck yeah,” Maya says, holding up her champagne flute in toast. “Burn it all down.” When Maddy gives her a look, she shrugs. “Sorry not sorry. It’s one of my regularly scheduled man-hating weeks.”
“She doesn’t want to ask him to do that because this isn’t just about him.” Caitlin gives me one of her signature I can see straight into your head looks. “Is it?”
Laughing, I drain my champagne and set the glass aside. “You’re spooky Cait, you know that, right?”
She shrugs, crossing one leg over the other. “I just see what I see. Tyler is part of the reason you’re angsty about this interview. What’s the other part?”
“Do you really even have to ask?” I say, gesturing to the five of them.
“It’s this. Us. I needed an outfit for an interview, and you all dropped what you were doing to come help me find the perfect one.
A few months ago, we sat on an ice skating rink to remind Maddy she’ll always belong to us, and we ply Sarah with caffeine and moral support when she’s drowning in med school finals.
We’re there when Maya needs emergency tacos after a bad date and when Emmy needs fuel for an all-nighter because she procrastinated writing a brief until the night before it’s due. ”
I pause, trying to think of a time when Caitlin called and we came running, and I can’t think of a single one.
She’s front and center at all the needy moments of all our lives, concocting plans and dispensing her particular tough-love brand of support, but she’s never on the receiving end, and how is it possible I’m just realizing this now?
“Do you think that would stop just because you weren’t living here?” Caitlin asks, and I table those thoughts for later.
I shrug. “I mean, it’s kind of hard to drop everything to be here when being here would require air travel.”
“Is it though?” Emmy asks. “Your dad literally owns an airplane. You could just call him and be like, Gabe, gas up the jet, Sarah is having a crisis and Pittsburgh needs me. Six hours later, you’ll be right here.”
“Why am I the one having a crisis?” Sarah asks.
Emmy tosses an arm around her cousin’s shoulder. “Because you literally never do, so I wanted to give you a hypothetical one so you would know what it feels like to be us.”
Sarah’s eyebrows draw in like she’s considering this. “I think we’ve known each other for too long because that makes a weird sort of sense to me.” Sarah turns to me. “And you know your dad will basically park the plane in San Francisco to be at your disposal whenever you need it.”
“The plane is already parked in San Francisco,” I tell them.
“Located in San Francisco? Do planes park?” I shake my head.
“It’s not important. Anyway, it’s not his plane.
It belongs to his company that’s not really his company anymore even though they let him use the plane and the company is in the Bay Area. My dad grew up there.”
“I always forget about that,” Maddy says. “He’s so dug in here and so is Liv, and Amelia’s in Boston. It’s weird to think about them living anywhere else.”
I brace a little as Maddy’s words hit me hard.
“It’s hard to think about me living somewhere else.
I’ve never even been to Northern California.
My dad’s parents died when he was in college, and then he moved here to be with my mom and started the foundation.
Then he gave it to me.” I blow out a breath, suddenly feeling overwhelmingly sad.
“Tyler isn’t the only one with a legacy here.
My roots in this city are miles deep. My family is here.
The love of my life is here.” I look at all my friends, and the idea of leaving them is more than I can wrap my head around. “My people. I have a lot to leave.”
Caitlin stands from the couch and sits on the coffee table in front of me, laying a hand over mine.
“But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. I’m not telling you to go, but I am saying you owe it to yourself to get on that plane and make this decision with all the information and the clearest head you can muster.
We’re not going anywhere, Soph. We’re friends forever.
Family. Sisters. There’s nowhere in the world you could move that would make that less true.
And I suspect if you asked Tyler, he would tell you the exact same thing. ”
I laugh, grateful for Caitlin’s clear head and ability to cut right to the truth of things. “He already did say exactly that. He said it when we were pretty much naked outside on his patio, but I think it still counts.”
“I think it counts more because you were naked,” Maddy says with a grin. “Cam and I have our best heart to hearts naked.”
Maya rolls her eyes. “You would have to. The two of you are naked so often, if you didn’t talk naked you would never talk at all.”
Maddy shrugs, unbothered. “Listen, when your man is a professional football player, clothes are basically a travesty. Also, the stamina.” She does a mock shiver, and everyone laughs. “I bet Sophie can confirm.” She gives me a sly grin.
“One hundred percent can confirm. Literally everyone should get themselves a professional football player.”
Sarah sighs. “I could really use a football player to fuck me straight into the mattress a couple times a week. No feelings required.”
“Same,” Emmy says with a nod. “But who has the time?”
“I do,” Maddy and I both say at the same time and then burst out laughing.
Then everyone else joins in, and for a couple minutes, I’m not Sophie Sullivan, computer scientist with a massive career decision looming.
I’m just Sophie, hanging out with her best friends, drinking too much champagne and buying expensive clothes we don’t need and laughing our asses off, wishing it could always be like this.