Chapter 6
I know I should call Matt so we could figure out a time to meet up. I should also call the hospital to confirm my appointment tomorrow, and the bank to find out just how much money I have in my account. But that can all wait. Right now, the only person I want to talk to is Sara.
I type her number into the small keypad, the same one I’ve had memorized since we both started working at Probus Recruiting five years ago—or six now, apparently.
Back when she and I were just two junior recruiters who shared the same small cubicle across from the bathrooms. By the end of that first month, we were best friends, and over the next few years, we saw each other through so much, I’m not sure how I went so long without her.
Even after she was promoted out of our department a few months before I was due to move, she still helped line up a position for me at the Boston office, because that’s just who she is. Sara solves everything.
I press call, just as another rusty gear clicks into place in my brain.
Wait. Do I still work at Probus? Did the Boston office know about my accident, or did they simply fire me after I didn’t show up for a week? Had Sara tried to cover for me? Did Sara even know? What if—
The phone connects.
“Hello?” Sara answers. Her voice is so familiar when nothing else in my life is that a sudden rush of emotion swells in my chest and all I can do is burst into tears.
“Oh my God, Marnie! Is that you?” she says. “I’ve been trying to call you for days! I was so worried! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say, my voice wobbly. “I mean, not fine, obviously. But I’m okay. Sort of. Just… happy to hear your voice.”
“Really? Because it sounds like you’re crying so hard you’re doing that sob-hiccup thing,” she says. I can hear the smile in her voice.
“You’re worth the sob-hiccup,” I reply, trying to smile, too.
“You have no idea how much I’ve been freaking out.
Matt called us a few days ago and told us about the accident, but he was cagey with details, which is just so annoying.
And whenever I tried calling you, it always went to voicemail, which had me even more worried.
Well, first I was pissed off, then I was worried. ”
I laugh. At least now the mystery behind the seventeen missed calls is solved. “Sorry. I can’t unlock my phone. I don’t remember the passcode.”
“What do you mean, you don’t remember the passcode?”
I tell her the whole sordid story in one long diatribe, all the broken bits and scraps that I have no idea what to do with. From the hospital to the new apartment to my retro burner phone. In true Sara fashion, she doesn’t interrupt, not until I deliver the final, devastating blow.
“And I cut my hair!”
An audible gasp fills the line. “No.”
“Yes. It’s so short, Sara.”
“Why would you do that without consulting me first?”
If I was being honest, I would tell her that is the only thing about this situation that does make sense.
During our five—six—years of friendship, Sara has become the closest thing to family that I have left.
She had been there as my grandmother’s health declined, opened up her home to me when I had to sell the bungalow.
She had helped plan the funeral, forced me to keep coming to work when the grief was too much.
She’s the best listener I had ever met, the big sister I never had.
But in true big sister form, she also tended to think she knew what was best, sharing her opinion and advice whether I asked for it or not, so for my own sanity, I had learned to keep some decisions to myself.
And choosing to lop eight inches of hair off would definitely fall under that category.
But now isn’t the time for honesty. It’s the time for lots and lots of tears.
“I don’t know, Sara!” I wail. “I don’t remember an entire year. That includes haircuts!”
Sara lets out a sympathetic sigh, like she recognizes that this is a rare moment to bypass the typical advice and head straight for compassion. “If it makes you feel better, I would be crying, too, Marn,” she says. “And not just about the hair.”
It does make me feel better. Sara is always so put together, so on top of everything. If this would reduce even her to tears, maybe I’m not doing so badly.
Then I catch sight of my bangs shooting out at a right angle from my forehead and give up on trying to console myself.
“Have you talked to Matt yet?” Sara asks carefully.
“Just for a few minutes in the hospital,” I mutter, wiping my eyes with the sleeve of my sweater. “And before you ask: Yes, he told me about the breakup.”
“He told you over the phone?”
I smile despite the tears. That’s one thing I’ve always loved about Sara: She expects only the best from everyone, even in the face of inconvenient medical emergencies.
“Well, he didn’t really have a choice. He’s out of town at this conference, so it was either that or I show up at an apartment that’s not ours and figure it out on my own.”
“Fine. I’ll give him a pass,” she huffs. “So how are you feeling about it? Are you okay?”
I know what she expects me to say. That I’m gutted, that these tears are for Matt just as much as for my lost memories. And part of me wants that, too, if only so I could have one emotional reaction that feels normal.
“I’m still working that out,” I reply, being as honest as possible.
“Of course you are. You don’t even remember breaking up with him.”
Ostensibly, this is true. I can almost feel the absence in the corner of my brain where the breakup should go.
But it doesn’t feel empty because of a lack of memory.
Not entirely. There’s a lack of emotion, too.
A space where the pain and heartache should be, but they’re missing.
All that’s there is the echo of all the awkwardness and stress that had accumulated between me and Matt during that last year in LA.
It had been a subtle shift. Anyone on the outside wouldn’t have even noticed.
But I did. As soon as Sara and Garrett were married, it felt like the same expectation was waiting on the threshold for us, but neither of us wanted to answer the door.
So we just pretended it wasn’t there. The same way we pretended not to notice how work monopolized our time, how we barely talked anymore.
And when we did, how we didn’t really have that much to say.
Maybe that’s why we broke up. We got sick of pretending.
“Did you and I talk about what happened?” I ask her.
“Are you kidding? I feel like it’s all we talked about for months.
How the move was really stressful for both of you, and he was working these long hours, while you were miserable at Probus.
It was a rough time, but I thought you two would get through it.
Then one day you called and said you broke up.
You moved into your own apartment, and then a few weeks later you told me you quit Probus and took a job in sales and distribution—”
“I work in sales and distribution?” I blurt out, interrupting her.
The idea that I quit Probus isn’t totally shocking.
Since Sara got promoted, leaving me alone in our windowless cubicle, I had struggled to remember why I’d spent so long there to begin with.
I never wanted to work in an office, proofreading résumés or creating PowerPoint slides that no one would ever look at.
It had simply been the most straightforward way to pay my grandmother’s ever-growing pile of medical bills.
After she was gone, I promised myself I’d start chasing my dreams again.
That’s half the reason I agreed to come to Boston with Matt; I needed a fresh start.
So why would I quit one office job just to take another?
“Yeah, for a beverage company or something like that? Meanwhile, Matt started dating this woman who was totally not his type, and it was like living in bizarro world.”
All thoughts about my apparent career change suddenly dissolve. “Matt has a girlfriend?”
“Had a girlfriend. They broke up,” Sara replies reassuringly.
I pause, waiting to feel something—sadness or anger or even just annoyance. Instead, there’s just that odd hollowness in my chest.
“He’s still crazy about you, Marn,” Sara continues. “In fact, you two just met up to talk about getting back together!”
The information sits at an odd angle in my brain, not quite slotting in where I know it should. “We did?”
“Yes! Right before the accident. I’m telling you, it wasn’t a breakup. Just a reroute.”
“A reroute?”
“You know, like GPS. If there’s a crash or traffic or something, it reroutes you. Yeah, it’s not the road you planned to take, but you still get to the same place.”
“And where’s that?”
“The house across the street from mine, married to Matt so our kids grow up together and everyone lives happily ever after, obviously.”
I let out a dry laugh. That had always been Sara’s plan. Since the first moment she mentioned her boyfriend’s best friend, the expectation had been written in stone: Sara and Garrett, Marnie and Matt. Two sets of best friends who live the rest of their lives together. Our collective happy ending.
After a moment, Sara sighs. “God, this sucks. I wish I could jump on a plane right now and come to see you but I’m in the middle of this stupid pitch deck about building out our New York team. It’s asinine but I need to do it if I’m going to get this promotion.”
“I thought you just got promoted before I moved?”
“I did, but this is for a VP title. I need to lock that in before Garrett and I start trying for a baby.”
I smile even as new tears prick my eyes. “A baby?”
“Don’t you dare! We can’t talk about it or we’ll jinx it.
” Sara’s voice is firm, the way it always is when she demands I knock on wood after saying something provocative, or when someone spills salt and forgets to throw it over their left shoulder.
“If it happens, it happens. In the meantime, we need to focus on you and how you’re going to get better, and then you and Matt will get back together, and everything will be great. ”