Epilogue
The November air had turned wintry, the damp off the Charles sharpening its bite, and the woman turned her collar up around her ears, a feeble protection against the cold. She should have worn a warmer coat—she had an entire closet full of slim-fitting puffer jackets in different lengths and fills, not to mention half a dozen formal options in camel hair and dark wool, perfectly tailored but unobtrusive, in what she’d used to believe was the personification of taste .
Lately most of her life felt like something she used to believe.
Tonight, for example, she wasn’t heading out to yet another technically brilliant dinner at some buzzy restaurant, most of the oh-so-highly-sought-after seats filled by variations on herself—sparkling (if recently gappy) résumé, significant disposable income, a certain kind of status gained with every new reservation, as if all of them were hoping they’d eventually win at bougie bingo.
Instead, she turned down Mass Ave, making for the music venue she hadn’t been to in years, where she would be meeting Aurora—at best a sorta-friend from the marketing job she’d just started—for a night out she might have planned herself five years ago but hadn’t really considered an option since.
The narrow bar attached to the venue was packed with groups of twentysomethings gripping cheap beers and half-shouting at one another, the excitement of the weekend palpable. She could almost feel the energy coming off them, the youth . Though…they weren’t any younger than she was. They just looked less…finalized than she felt—at least until recently—like they might still become someone different.
But fuck it. She was here, and she was wearing a totally-wrong-for-the-weather leather moto jacket, and she was probably going to have a couple drinks too many to smooth over the fact that she and Aurora didn’t actually know each other all that well. She wasn’t set in stone yet. Hell, she wasn’t even thirty yet.
But by the time she managed to elbow her way to the bar, Aurora had texted that she’d be at least an hour late, “it’s a whole thing I’ll tell you when I get there UGHHH.” She didn’t want to just sit there drinking alone—if she was going to be alone regardless, she might as well pop down the street to the chichi speakeasy she knew was tucked away beside a parking garage and get her liquid courage without constant elbows in the boob and drinks splashing onto the boots she was working really hard to be casual about. After all, it wasn’t any of these people’s fault that she’d stupidly worn $500 boots to a rock show. Breath coming a little short—suddenly it felt like everyone could see what an imposter she was, like it must be written in neon, flashing over her head at precisely the angle where only she couldn’t see it—she squeezed her way back through the thicket of limbs and hair and secondhand clothing that would never look that effortlessly cool on her and emerged onto the street, not stopping until she was halfway down the block, protected by the darkened entryway of a shoe repair shop.
“Sorry…don’t I know you?”
She startled at the voice to her left, the spike of social anxiety she’d felt inside forming blinders that were only just starting to drop away.
“Maybe?” The man leaning against the darkened window was vaguely familiar, with his too-long dark curls, lean frame, and large, slightly hooded eyes, but she couldn’t place him. More importantly, couldn’t imagine how she would know someone like him, the tight black jeans and distressed biker jacket—you could tell it was because he’d actually worn it that much, not because he’d paid some extremely high-end designer for that aesthetic—would have fit in perfectly in the bar she’d just escaped. The one she’d been playing dress-up in. Heat rose to her cheeks as she pulled her own leather jacket more tightly around her body, so new it still had a distinct smell. “Probably not.”
“It’s…Laurel, right? We ran into each other what…a couple months ago? Give or take? At that restaurant outside Central Square.” He smiled in a way that, alone in the darkened entryway, felt dangerously intimate. “As in we literally ran into each other. Though I think we went on a couple dates, like…years ago now.” He gave her a sheepish look.
“Oh, right .” She knew the night he was talking about, could picture his face hovering a few feet away, a concerned onlooker to the scene, familiar at the time but unplaceable, but the moments just before she had… awakened was really the only word she could put to it, almost like she’d had a brief out-of-body experience—had been a total blank. It was disorienting, and more than a little terrifying. She’d been far too worried about what the hell was happening to her to puzzle out the familiar-looking man who had checked with Drew that she was okay, then hurried off.
The scariest part was that it wasn’t the first time it had happened. She had been losing random chunks of time for days, and after the third…“incident,” she started lining up visits to specialists, brain scans, led herself down terrifying internet wormholes that pretty much always ended in cancer.
And then it had just…resolved itself. She waited a week for it to come back, then another, but it never did, and the scans agreed there was nothing to see, and finally she’d chalked it up to stress. After all, realizing you had to break up with the man you’d thought you were going to marry, the one you’d bought a condo with, was enough to throw anyone off.
“Sorry about that. I was…going through a thing that night.”
“No worries. Honestly, I’m just glad I ran into you again.” He smiled, eyes flicking down, and something glimmered just beneath her sternum. Was it desire? She and Drew had ended things amicably enough, she even thought they might go back to being friends someday. Not someday soon, but eventually. But still, almost five years is a long time to be with one person. The idea that she might feel this for someone new, already, felt a little traitorous.
But also exciting.
“Remind me of your name?” she prompted.
“Oliver. Hughes.”
“Nice to meet you, Oliver Hughes. Properly, that is.” She extended her hand and he laughed, then took it.
“Nice handshake you’ve got there, Laurel…”
“Everett. And I’m glad you noticed. My dad has always been very clear about the importance of a good handshake.”
“Mine too, actually,” Oliver said. He wasn’t shaking her hand anymore, but he hadn’t let go of it either. “I don’t meet many people who shake hands.”
“Clearly you run with a bad crowd.” She arched an eyebrow. He laughed again. She never thought a sound so gentle would stir her blood so much. Though maybe that was really more about the shape of the mouth that was laughing, the knowing curl of the lips, the way he was hooking the corner of the bottom one between his teeth, the tiniest hint of… something in the motion.
“You’ve got me pegged, Laurel Everett.” Finally he let go of her hand and glanced past her shoulder, out at the street, and she realized that the moment, if you could even call it that, was about to end. She shouldn’t feel so disappointed. It was just some remnant of the breakup. It had to be. That, and lingering embarrassment over her ridiculous plan to cosplay as a completely different sort of person tonight. “I’m sure you have somewhere to be. Probably meeting your boyfriend?”
His eyes hooked on hers and for just a moment she was certain: He felt it too.
“Actually…I’m single. And ditched, apparently. At least for now.” She waved her phone in the air, pulling a wide-eyed What can you do? face.
“Does that mean you’re free for a drink?”
“That depends. Can we have it at a bar where I can actually hear myself think?” He must have caught the grimace she threw back at the music venue, because he laughed easily.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
It was way too early to know, obviously—she knew she was being ridiculous—but as they walked down the darkened street together, the conversation flowing easily even before the drinks had started to, it felt like the beginning of something important. Almost as if this exact place, with this exact person, was precisely where she was meant to be.