Chapter 39 Drew
Drew
Ari could probably come up with a whole list of reasons why Drew wasn’t boyfriend material.
He smoothed things over instead of dealing with uncomfortable conversations, allowed things to pile up instead of handling them right away, and waited for things to unfold instead of chasing after what he wanted.
But even though he knew he couldn’t be the perfect boyfriend she needed, he wanted to find Ari and tell her that the only thing he really regretted about New Year’s was playing along with the whole this could never work out thing in the first place.
Because even though the part of him that doubted himself thought it was true, the braver, more important parts of him wanted to believe otherwise—wanted to believe that the way they talked, kissed, and looked into each other’s eyes when no one else was around meant that there was something there worth trying for.
Drew wanted to tell her how he really felt and try to convince her to stay.
But the determination with which she left the restaurant made it clear that this was where things ended.
Staying apart was probably for the best. Their situation had parameters, and because of his mistakes, it had reached an early expiration date.
So, he stared at the restaurant exit until his family dragged him back to reality.
“Andrew, sit down,” his grandma said softly, reminding him that he was standing in the middle of the restaurant, frozen in the state Ari had left him.
So, he sat down, tucked his chair in, and dipped a sad, not-so-toasty piece of bread into the fondue while trying to ignore his sister’s glare and his grandparents’ concern.
After a few moments of silence, his grandpa cleared his throat and spoke up.
“If you like her, you should tell her, kid,” he said softly, taking a sip of his Old-Fashioned.
“Wait a minute, is no one going to address the elephant in the room?” Thandie said, refusing to let them glaze over the facts of the situation. “Drew is dating—sorry, is fake-dating, sorry was fake-dating—Arikoishe Shumba. The girl who almost ruined my career. Can we address that first?”
“I didn’t know that when I met her,” he said, though he knew it wasn’t a good enough answer. If anything, the admission made things even worse.
“So, you’re saying that in all these years of talking about the defining moment of my adult life, you haven’t been listening to anything I’ve said?” asked Thandie, her annoyance turning to hurt. Thandie stared at him long and hard before telling him exactly how she felt.
“Do you know what, Drew? I’m sick of your shit.”
“Thandie,” warned their grandpa, shaking his head as he cut himself a forkful of schnitzel. The poor guy was just trying to have dinner.
“Why are we acting like my language is a bigger issue than the fact that Drew’s been in self-destruct mode for months?”
“What are you trying to say?” Drew asked, confused by the shift in the conversation. He thought she was annoyed about Ari, but now it just seemed like she was mad at him.
“That you’ve become such a quitter. You used to be this person I looked up to, but you’ve spent the past year getting in your own way, skipping out on all of your commitments, and self-sabotaging everything you care about,” she said. Drew felt like she’d just slapped him.
When Thandie wanted to hurt someone’s feelings, you could hear it in her tone. But as she spoke to Drew at the dining room table, she was calm and to the point. It made her words sting even more.
“You’re smart and talented and could make something of your life, but every time something is about to get good, you do everything in your power to stop it from working out,” she said plainly.
“No, I don’t.”
But Drew knew she had hit on something true. Thandie spooned some ?lplermagronen onto her plate, ate a bite, and then ran through her brother’s self-sabotage highlights reel.
“The degree? The minute you realized you weren’t going to be at the top of the class, you dropped out. Living in California? You didn’t have the grit to stick it out, but I’m sure you just convinced yourself you were leaving because Grandma’s sick.”
Drew froze. His grandma’s face crumpled, and his grandpa reached out for her hand. The mood in the room fell to a new low as the illness took the seat at the table that Ari had left behind.
“You know?” Drew asked, in shock.
“Of course I know,” Thandie said. There was a mixture of sadness and hurt in her eyes.
“Oh, sweetheart, you weren’t supposed to find out yet,” their grandma said, her eyes tearing up.
“How long have you known?” their grandpa asked, his expression troubled.
“Since the summer,” Thandie said, looking down at the table.
His sister had always been good at hiding her emotions, but Drew couldn’t believe she’d been able to go this long without talking to him about it.
If she’d known since the summer and he’d only found out in November, she’d successfully carried it alone for almost half a year without showing any noticeable trace of distress.
Meanwhile, he’d uprooted his life and embarked on a three-month crash-out.
“How did you find out?” Drew asked, leaning forward so he could study his sister’s face and figure out if she was actually okay.
“I noticed grandma was acting off, so I … read through her emails,” she admitted with a grimace as she used her fork to move food around her plate. She always fidgeted when she was worried.
“Thandie! That’s an invasion of privacy,” their grandma scolded.
“You kept asking me to go into your inbox to reset passwords.” She shrugged.
“Which password was I looking for?” their grandma asked, as if it was a crucial detail.
“That bingo website you were obsessed—”
“Alright, alright, we can move on,” their grandma cut in, looking slightly embarrassed.
She didn’t have a gambling problem as such, she just spent such an unreasonable amount of money on a bingo site she and her friends loved that it had become an inside joke.
But that wasn’t the point of the story. Thandie told them about how she’d spotted an email at the top of their grandma’s inbox with the subject line: URGENT, YOUR LAST APPOINTMENT WITH DR. KHAN.
She’d been too curious not to look but had kept her discovery a secret, thinking Drew didn’t know, either, until he started making erratic enough decisions for her to tell that something major must be throwing him off.
She could guess why her family had kept it a secret, but she was still disappointed in them for hiding the truth.
“We didn’t want to upset you or give you something to worry about in the lead-up to the Olympics,” said their grandpa, his eyes watering. He only ever cried tears of joy, so it was painful watching him like this. Watching them all like this.
“You were going through a lot last year, and we didn’t want to add to that, sweetie,” their grandma said, putting an arm around Thandie’s shoulder and pulling her into a hug.
When they pulled apart, he saw an expression on his sister’s face that he hadn’t seen since they were kids: She was scared.
But when she spotted him looking at her, she shook it off and redirected the conversation.
“If there’s anyone you should have been worried about, it was Drew. He’s the one who’s been spinning out for the past six months,” Thandie said.
Drew had always considered himself to be the older, more responsible sibling. The unflappable, confident son his grandparents confided in. So, Thandie’s words took him by surprise.
“Don’t tell me that’s the real reason why you dropped out?” his grandma said, disappointed. “You love what you do. You always did. And you only had two more weeks until graduation.”
Drew sighed and noticed his sister’s shoulders sag as she heard their grandma’s mistake.
“I was in my junior year, Grandma. I still had a year and a half to go,” he said gently.
“Oh, I just— That doesn’t matter,” his grandma said, sitting upright.
She looked a little embarrassed. Drew didn’t like to correct her—the doctor had told them it would only just upset her—but she was illustrating his point.
Things were changing, and he couldn’t waste a year and a half at college when things had changed so fast. But Grandma was insistent, telling them that even though she hadn’t grown up with the same options as they had, she’d made the most of her youth.
Traveling, taking risks, falling in love, and finding herself.
“So, I don’t want either of you to put your lives on hold for me. It would break my heart. I’m not going to get better with time, so you can’t just wait it out.”
“Don’t say that,” Drew said reflexively, looking over at the sad expression on his sister’s face.
“It’s true. There’s no use in pressing pause.
Some people get worse over months or years or decades.
” She said it casually, as if she was talking about the warranty on an electrical appliance, not her life.
Drew flinched. His grandma had always been pretty forthright, but this level of honesty was too much for dinner.
“She’s right,” his grandpa said, speaking up. Drew looked over at him, noticing the ways the past year had aged him. “We’ve made a decision. We love you and like having you at home. But you’re not allowed to move back in with us.”
Drew’s eyes widened.
“You’re kicking me out?” he said in shock, looking over to Thandie for backup. But she put her hands in the air as if this conversation was none of her business.
“Don’t be dramatic, honey. You can stay for a few weeks. Two months at most. But then you’ve got to come up with a plan. You can’t walk around Wisconsin feeling sad for the rest of your life,” his grandma said.
“With all the love in the world, you’re not math-minded enough to join the firm,” his grandpa added.
Thandie laughed at that, then caught Drew’s eye and pantomimed zipping her lips as she dipped some asparagus into the cheese fondue—a dinner combination that didn’t quite follow her Team USA nutrition plan.
Drew’s mind immediately began laying out options. Reenrolling and moving back to California, putting together a portfolio to apply for the Hans Leitner job. But no, he thought. He’d made his decision, and he couldn’t just waver. He was older and knew they needed help.
“I’m staying at home,” he said firmly.
“No, you’re not,” his grandma replied. “Life isn’t as long as you think it’s going to be.” She gently patted him on the shoulder.
Her words sent a chill down his spine. He looked over at his grandma. Her gray hair, her frail skin, her shrinking stature: He could feel her missing herself while she was still here.
“Things are going to change, Drew. But it’s not your responsibility to throw your future away. Plus, I’m turning your room into my home library. You’re not allowed to move back in,” his grandpa said with a hint of a smile.
“But—”
“He’s scared,” Thandie said, taking a bite of her schnitzel. He hated to admit it, but she was right. They’d known each other all their lives. “Going home means that if he doesn’t end up with the life he wants, he can blame it on Wisconsin.”
“That’s so cynical,” Drew protested.
“But she’s right. You quit while you’re ahead so you don’t have to risk it not working out,” his grandpa said as he took a bite of his ?lplermagronen, which was essentially just Swiss mac and cheese.
Drew sat and watched as his family ate their food, casually moving on from the confrontation-turned-intervention.
He looked at all the cheese on the table, the wooden paneling on the walls, and the low lights of the room.
Their house back home in Wisconsin looked nothing like this, but the scene before him reminded him of every family dinner he’d ever had.
Aside from the silence about Grandma’s health, his family was deeply honest. They loved each other too much not to say the truth and call each other out.
So, Drew took his first bite of food and thought about everything they’d said.
Maybe he did default to quitting before he had the chance to fail.
They were probably right about his moving back home to escape the imposter syndrome he’d felt in California.
Spending his life running away from what he loved to avoid failure wasn’t the path to feeling fulfilled.
Thandie noticed his empty glass and passed the jug of water over to him.
He could tell that she was still annoyed with him.
It was written all over her face, so he went to apologize.
“I’m sorry about Ari. If I’d known who she was from the start…”
“You don’t need to explain yourself. I’ll take my apology in the form of a lifetime’s worth of favors,” she said with a smile that promised she would find uniquely bizarre requests for him to fulfill as payback.
“But seriously, Drew. Get your shit together. If you’re not careful, you’re going to miss out on the best that life has to offer you. Like Ari.”
“You’d be okay with that?” he asked, surprised.
“No. But you do actually like her, don’t you?”
Drew nodded as he watched his sister’s face soften. “Yeah,” he admitted. His grandparents looked back and forth at them, then Thandie sighed and gave him a long, hard look.
“So … what are you going to do about it?”