Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Molly
O nce I finish my one-woman pity party, I scrub every inch of my body until my skin is pink and the shower water runs cold. I get out and grab my fluffiest towel off the warmer attached to my bathroom wall and wrap it around myself. The towel warmer was the result of a sleepless night internet browse, and I have no regrets.
Because when your long-lost college boyfriend, who you thought you would be with forever, comes walking back into your life on a random Wednesday afternoon ten years after he walked out of it, and then you cry yourself dry in the shower, the least your towel can do for you is be warm.
I open my medicine cabinet and eye my much beloved skincare lineup on the bottom shelf, ignoring the cascade of half-used and maybe I’ll try this one day products stacked on the rest of the shelves. I’m fastidious about my skincare routine, but tonight, I’m bone tired and emotionally rung out. So instead, I down three ibuprofen to ward off the inevitable post-crying jag headache and walk out of the bathroom.
I make it three steps before I turn back.
“Don’t let the bastard win,” I mutter, yanking the cabinet back open and doing every damn step of my routine, even slathering on the painfully expensive facial oil I rarely use. I may still be teetering on the line between sadness and despair and thirty seconds away from a total mental breakdown, but I’ll be damned if my skin looks like it.
Especially because Gabe looked so fucking good. The years have been kind to that man. It’s not like I didn’t know what he looked like. You can barely read the news these days without being treated to a picture of him going full-tech CEO. But the pictures don’t catch the way his eyes sparkled when they met mine. Or the longing in his gaze. Or the tiny dimple in his cheek that seems only to appear when he smiles at me.
It’s been a decade since I’ve seen that dimple. None of the pictures of him over the years captured it. Not that I looked. That definitely doesn’t seem like something I would do.
Fine. It’s absolutely something I would do. And I did it. A lot. I was pining, okay?
Dressed in my favorite rainbow flannel pants and old University of Pittsburgh Law School hoodie, I shove my feet into the sparkly Crocs I use as slippers and walk downstairs. I head to the kitchen to raid my emergency candy stash but stop short in the living room, where my eyes immediately fill with tears again. Because Hallie, Julie, and Molly are sprawled on my massive sectional, pizza boxes, a huge takeout container of french fries, and a pitcher of what looks like margaritas on the coffee table.
When they see me, all three of them get up immediately. No one says a word; they just wrap their arms around me and let me cry all over them again. This is probably more than I deserve, considering they pretty much just found out there’s a huge part of my life I’ve never shared with them. I’m mostly an open book, but not about Gabe or anything connected to him. Never that. I’ve slipped a handful of times over the years. Alluded to it in small ways. But the way I react when they push me on it has always had them steering clear.
Those days are over.
“Fuck,” I say, unwinding myself from my friends and wiping under my eyes. “I just did a whole fucking skincare routine with the two-hundred-dollar oil. That was an expensive cry. How many tears does the human body even have? I figured I used them all up in the shower.”
“The limit does not exist,” Hallie deadpans.
The laugh is exactly what I need.
Emma puts her arm around me and guides me to the couch. Hallie covers me with my favorite blanket. Julie hands me a plate with a piece of pizza and a heap of fries on it and a margarita in a glass I don’t recognize. I honestly don’t know how anyone does life without girlfriends. I thought I wanted to be alone, but I was wrong. What I needed was to be taken care of a little, and I’m lucky enough to have the kind of friends who know me well enough to know that.
“From your house?” I ask Emma, gesturing with the glass.
“Yeah, you bet. Jeremy made the margaritas. He insisted that when you’re feeling your worst, you need a well-made margarita, and you need it in the right glass. Apparently, we’ve been making them wrong and drinking them out of the wrong glasses this whole time.”
I laugh a little. “Who knew?
“It’s okay that we’re here, right?” Hallie asks gently. “Emma said it would be, and well, Emma knows everything.”
“I’m so glad everyone in my life knows and appreciates that now,” Emma says with a grin.
“Well, your track record is pretty solid.” Julie grabs her own pizza and settles back on the couch. She ticks the reasons off on her fingers. “Knowing that something was going on with Hallie and Ben. Being able to tell even over the phone that I was okay with Asher keeping all our road trip stops a secret. Helping turn Jeremy from a guy who didn’t trust any of us to stick around into the man next door currently baking brownies with an eight year old and belting out Taylor Swift. I’d say you’ve earned your title.”
Emma smirks at us. “I’m about to earn it again.”
She turns to me, laying a hand on mine. “I know you said you didn’t want to talk about it, but I think you probably do. If I’m wrong, then we can just sit here and eat this pizza and more french fries than is probably reasonable, get a little drunk on tequila, and we’ll all go home. But I’m not wrong, am I?”
“Why are we eating pizza anyway?” I ask. “Weren’t there leftover tacos from the party?”
Julie shakes her head, giving me a pitying look. “You can’t reheat tacos without them getting all gross, and cold tacos are drunk food. Or maybe, occasionally, hangover food. You needed comfort food tonight, and your comfort food only comes in one variety.”
Hallie reaches over and hands me a couple of small containers. “We brought dips too. We know how you feel about the french fry dip variety.”
I take a long, slow breath, trying to get my emotions under control. “I really don’t deserve you guys,” I say, my voice wavering more than I would like it to.
“Don’t be insane,” Hallie says. “This is what we do. I know there’s a part of your life that you’ve always kept walled off from us, and it has to do with Gabe. We’ve always respected that, and we respect it now. It’s your life, and no one is entitled to your secrets or your feelings. We just want you to know that we’re here for you. If you want to tell us to get out, we’ll go, and we’ll leave the fries, or we can stay and talk about nothing. Whatever you need, we’re here.”
“So.” Emma’s voice is all business. “Am I wrong?”
I drop my head back, staring up at the ceiling, preparing myself to spill my guts to my friends. Then I look each of them in the eye, and all I see is love and support.
“No. You’re not wrong.”
“Good.” Julie nods her head and lines up dip containers on the coffee table like a beer flight. “If my instincts are right, you want to capital T Talk. So, you can start by telling us why the famous billionaire founder of one of the biggest tech companies in the world was standing in our office door today looking at you like a lost puppy dog and also like he wanted to devour you whole.”
I snicker at the accuracy of Julie’s assessment of the way Gabe was looking at me. It’s the comic relief I need to fully settle into the couch. This conversation is happening. I might as well have a reasonable amount of fun with it. And since the idea of seeing him again fills me with an unholy amount of dread, it will be good to have my friends on my side when I do.
“I mean, she’s not wrong, Mol,” Emma says. “Being able to accurately portray both of those emotions at once is a gift.”
“He’s always been gifted that way.” I shrug and reach for more fries, letting the greasy goodness comfort me.
“Always, huh?” asks Julie. “Exactly how long is always?”
I blow out a breath, ready to let it all out. “Since I was eighteen. I met Gabe the first day of our freshman year at Berkeley when he carried my mini-fridge up three flights of stairs because the elevator was too crowded. I fell in love with him about two weeks later. We were together until April of our senior year, when it all fell apart.”
I take a long, slow breath in and out, and then again, trying to keep it together.
“I’m sorry I’ve never opened up about this part of my life. I may have had to confront pictures of Gabe everywhere over the past decade, but thinking about our time together and how it ended…” I pause for a second to collect myself. I will not fucking cry again. “It’s just too painful.”
Emma speaks first. “You don’t have to talk about it now if it’s too hard.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I need to. Clearly, he’s back. And clearly, I’m going to have to talk to him at some point. I’d rather you have all the details now. I hate it, and it hurts, but it’s time.”
So, I tell them everything. About how we met and fell in love. About our trip to Iceland and Rory and the way he carved our initials into one of the Berkeley Redwoods. About how we were going to start making plans for our future. About how all we ever wanted was to be together. About the call he got, telling him his parents were gone. About the aftermath, when it all came crumbling down.
“That’s the worst part, I think.” I lay my head back on the couch cushions and kick my feet up onto the coffee table, letting my mind drift to a place I’ve kept walled off for a decade.
“There’s no one to blame. He was grieving so hard, and he suddenly had two sisters he had to take care of. Olivia was only eight. His parents’ estate was a complicated mess, and there were so many details to handle. I tried. God, I tried so hard to help. To take some of the logistical nightmare off his plate so he could focus on himself and his sisters. But he didn’t know how to let me help, and I didn’t know how to reach him. When he asked me to leave, I knew it was a request made in grief. The Gabe I knew would never have asked me to go, but that Gabe died with his parents. Temporarily, at least. So, I left. He didn’t come to find me, and my pride was too huge to go find him. I figured, if he wanted to let me go, it was on him to come and get me.”
“But he didn’t.” Hallie’s voice is full of sympathy and pain.
“He didn’t. I thought I was mostly over him by the time I met you guys. Then his brand-new company released that stupid phone, and all of a sudden, his face was everywhere. All anyone wanted to talk about during our first year of law school was the fucking Redwood phone and how it was going to change the world and why he released it in every single color except for pink. Forget death by a thousand cuts. It was death every time someone’s goddamn phone rang. I had to see his genius, miraculous, groundbreaking invention everywhere. There was no escape.”
“So I guess the reason you’ve never gone Redwood isn’t actually because you hate the way the home screen works.” Julie’s question isn’t really a question, but I answer it anyway.
“I could give a flying fuck what my home screen looks like as long as I get to slap a picture on it. I didn’t want a piece of him in my pocket all the time. I was too broken, and it was just too damn much. Every time I saw one of those phones he invented, or someone talked about him like he was the second coming of Steve Jobs but funnier and way hotter, I died just a little. Avoiding actually buying the phone felt like a small way to protect myself.”
Emma nods and lays a head on my shoulder. I can feel the wheels in her brain turning, and I know she’s trying to work something out. I shift, nudging her head.
“Just ask.”
She lifts her head to look at me. “Ask what?”
“Whatever it is you’re working out in your head. I don’t read minds like you do, but even I can see when you’re thinking hard.”
“You sure?”
“I’m wearing my lucky rainbow pajama pants, and you got me french fries and ten different dips. I’m sad, but I promise I won’t lose it.”
“Okay. I was trying to figure out the timeline. He released the first generation Redwood at the beginning of our first year of law school, but he started the company the year before. If he started the company after you already broke up, that means you would have graduated college more than a year before we met you. What did you do in the year between college and law school?”
Shit. I was hoping they wouldn’t put all that together, but that’s what you get for being friends with the smart girls. I guess I’m spilling all my secrets today.
“I was going to be a dancer.”
I see Julie’s back straighten, and she whips her head around to look at me. “Wait. You mentioned this on Halloween when we were at Em’s but wouldn’t tell us why you stopped. Gabe is the reason you quit.”
“We were in the dance studio when he got the call. I used to go there a lot when I needed to unwind from school or finals. I danced contemporary professionally, but ballet was my first love.”
“I can’t picture you as a ballerina,” Hallie muses. “There’s way too much…conformity for you.”
I nod at her, warmth filling my chest at being so well understood. “That’s why I chose to pursue contemporary as a profession. I loved ballet so much, but the black leotards and pink tights and no food, like, ever would have killed me slowly. I would have kept ballet in my life forever, but the day we found out about Gabe’s parents…” I break off and reach for my margarita, downing the rest of it to clear the lump in my throat. Hallie immediately fills my glass up and I give her a grateful look.
“He met me in the studio that day, and we had a…moment.”
“The toe shoe ribbons and the barre,” Julie says it matter-of-factly.
I laugh despite myself. “Yeah. Anyway, as soon as we were finished, his phone rang, and it was all a blur of grief and horror after that. After he told me to leave his house, I tried dancing again. I tried dancing so many times, but I couldn’t do it. I literally couldn’t walk into the studio without wanting to throw up. My feet wouldn’t do what I needed them to do, and at that point, dancing became dangerous. Because if your feet don’t trust your brain and you lose your muscle memory, you risk getting seriously injured. I had already completed all the requirements for my major, so I finished school remotely, and I graduated on time, but I withdrew from the company that was expecting me to join that summer. I lost Gabe and I lost dance, and I was adrift. I went home and let my parents and my sisters take care of me.
“I was in a bad place, but the one thing that kept coming back to me was how helpless I felt when Gabe was trying to wade through the morass of his parents’ estates, and I didn’t know what any of it meant. I know it’s stupid, but I got it into my head that if I had been able to help with that, I wouldn’t have lost him in the first place. So, I signed up for the LSAT and applied to law school so I could learn. It’s stupid, but my brain was in a weird place.”
“It’s not stupid, Mol,” Julie says, squeezing my leg.
“Why Pittsburgh?” asks Hallie. “Julie and I are from here, and Emma grew up in Cleveland, so the University of Pittsburgh made sense for her. But I always wondered how you found your way here.”
I shake my head. “It’s an even stupider reason than going to law school because I couldn’t help my ex-boyfriend administer his parents’ estates.”
“I swear we won’t think it is,” Emma says, squeezing my shoulder.
I shrug a shoulder. “I liked the Cathedral of Learning. There’s a picture of it on the Pitt homepage. It’s so soaring and regal and gorgeous, and it looks like a place where important learning happens. I love to learn, and it’s weird, but seeing a picture of that building gave me the first comfort I felt since Gabe ended us. The Cathedral just spoke to me. Once I saw it, I had a one- track mind. It was Pitt or nothing. I sometimes think…” I break off again because this time I really am afraid I’ll lose it. When I speak again, my voice is quiet, my eyes fixed on the blanket on my lap.
“I sometimes think it called to me because that’s where you guys were going to be. Like I was supposed to come here and find you. Meeting you put me back together. You gave me back pieces of myself I thought I had lost forever. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you all this before. It was too painful to talk about. But I should have. I should have told you a million times over the past eight years how much you mean to me. How I never could have gotten through those first few years after the break-up without you. Or any of the years since.”
The room is silent for a full minute before I’m attacked on all sides by my friends. For five full minutes we’re a tangled pile of limbs and tears and crumpled tissues, and I think again for the hundredth time today how lucky I am that I have this. I may have lost the love of my life, but I gained this. I’ve learned how to live without him, but I could never, ever live without them.
“So, what are you going to do, Mol?” Julie asks once we’ve stopped crying and unwrapped ourselves from our dog pile on the couch. “That man was determined. I’d be surprised if he hasn’t already called and left a message requesting a meeting.”
I straighten my shoulders in determination. Molly Jenkins’ shoulders slump for no man.
“If he wants to meet, we can meet. I don’t even know why he’s here. Who’s to say he’s even here to get me back?”
“Uh, his face when he saw you,” Hallie mumbles.
Emma snorts out a laugh. “Sorry, I’m with Hallie on this one. That man is definitely here for you.”
“He might be here to get me, but I’m not available to be gotten. I’ll meet with him when he calls to schedule a meeting because it would be rude not to. I’m not the one who bounces people out of their lives. He is.”
Even as I say it, I know that’s not quite fair, but I’m a little tequila tipsy, and I don’t care about fair right now when I can’t get Gabe’s fucking dimple out of my head.
“Okay.” Julie gives a satisfied nod. “I gave him my card so he would call me to schedule the meeting. I wanted to be able to gatekeep for you if you needed me to. If he calls, I’ll set it up. I can be there with you if you want me to.”
“We all can,” Emma says.
“I love you guys, but that’s not necessary, I’m sure I can handle one meeting with him on my own.”
Also lies. I’m fairly sure being in the same space with him is going to be unbearable, but I’m a fucking professional. Good thing I picked my pink suit up from the dry cleaners.
“Okay, but you know if you need us, we’ll be there, right?” Hallie picks up her glass again and hands me mine.
“I know. I love you all for it. Now, should we finish eating? It’s a well-known fact that reheated french fries suck, so we need to eat them now.”
We all grab our plates again, and it’s only when we’re digging back in that Julie asks the question I’m shocked no one has already asked.
“The Redwood phone. That’s a nod to you, right? You said he carved your initials in a Redwood when you were at school. He named the most profitable electronic device in human history—the device that made him a billionaire a hundred times over—after you.”
There was a time I knew Gabe better than I knew myself. I could hedge and equivocate or outright deny it, but what’s even the point.
“Yeah,” I sigh, sinking back into the couch and wondering what the fuck happens now.