“Maybe we’re going about this backwards,” Chloe says.
It’s the next morning. We’re sitting in a corner booth at a little café not far from campus and we just finished ordering our food. After the unsuccessful misdemeanor committed last night, we had no idea what to do next and decided to meet for breakfast after a night of sleeping on it.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“We’re looking for who spilled the beans to Jensen’s dad, and we’re starting with the suspects,” Chloe says.
“Yes, Captain Obvious,” Freya says with a mocking salute. “So what?”
“Maybe we should start with Jensen’s parents instead.”
Freya and I look at each other and then I look back at Chloe. “You’re right,” I say.
“That actually makes sense,” Freya says. “We could spend the rest of our lives searching for leads and find nothing. And then Lucy will never get laid again.”
“Hey!” I object.
“If we work backwards, we might actually get somewhere. Chloe, you’re a genius.”
“Also,” I add, “Professor Walker has a university e-mail so I can easily hack into that from my house and see what I can find.”
“No more breaking and entering?” Chloe sounds almost disappointed.
I shrug. “Perhaps if the e-mail proves fruitless.”
The food arrives. The waitress sets all our plates down and checks if we need anything before disappearing again.
“So tell me about this boyfriend of yours,” Freya says to Chloe. “Liam?”
Chloe flushes slightly while squeezing ketchup on her eggs. “Yes?”
“You and Jensen were dating when you and Liam hooked up right?” Freya asks before stabbing a pancake with her fork.
“Freya,” I say. “That might be a sensitive topic.” I focus on Chloe. “You don’t have to answer that.”
“It’s alright,” she says. “Jensen and Liam have been best friends since high school. Liam transferred our junior year and they bonded over their art. I was with Jensen at the time, so we all hung out a lot.”
“Liam’s an artist too?” I ask before taking a bite of potatoes.
“No, musician and writer. But his parents weren’t exactly supportive either; they would rather he get a real job.” She pushes her food around her plate with her fork. “We’ve all been friends since then. Liam went travelling overseas as he likes to do.” She smiles fondly. “After we graduated high school and when he came back, things were…different.”
“Different how?” Freya asks.
“It’s a long story, suffice it to say that Jensen and I had been growing apart for a long time and Liam,” she pauses. “He challenged me. He helped me figure out who I am.”
“That’s nice,” I tell her.
“Sounds like a bunch of bullshit,” Freya says.
Chloe just laughs. “I would have said the same thing a year ago. Well, maybe I would have thought it, probably wouldn’t have said it out loud.”
“Why not?”
“I was…different, before Liam.” She takes a big bite of food and that stops the questioning for the moment.
“So you guys hook up and he leaves the country? Doesn’t that worry you?” Freya asks.
She shakes her head no. “He had the tickets purchased long before we got together and he’s always had serious wanderlust. He’s coming back home next month and then I’m taking next semester off and we’re going to Europe together.”
“Where is he now?” I ask.
“Colombia,” she says.
Freya finishes chewing a bite, wipes her mouth and throws her napkin on the table. “You don’t worry about him hooking up with some Sophia Vergara look-alike?”
“No,” Chloe answers immediately.
“Why not?” Freya sounds almost offended.
Chloe shrugs. “He picked me. And I trust him.”
“Hmph,” Freya says.
“Don’t mind her,” I tell Chloe. “She lacks confidence in romantic relationships due to prior abandonment and trust issues.”
“No psychoanalyzing at the breakfast table,” Freya says, picking up her napkin and tossing it at my head.
Chloe laughs.
Soon after breakfast we end up at my place with the laptop open on the coffee table in front of us.
They watch as I hack into the school’s computer system and pull up Professor Walker’s file.
“You are freaky good at this,” Freya says.
I scan through the e-mails and read them quickly for anything relevant.
“There’s nothing,” I say finally.
“Does this mean we get to play ninja warriors again?” Freya asks.
“I don’t know. We have no other leads.”
We sit there, staring at the computer for a minute.
The silence is broken when Chloe’s phone starts ringing.
“It’s Liam!” she says, blue eyes lighting up and a wide smile making her whole face glow. She stands up from the couch, answering the phone and moving away from us, into the kitchen.
“Ugh.” Freya throws herself back on the couch. “You people are disgusting.”
“You’ll fall in love again,” I tell her, still staring at the computer screen and tapping gently on the keys, thinking.
“Not likely.”
I can hear Chloe murmuring on the phone, still in the kitchen.
“No, he didn’t go there for the holidays. There was a big storm and he got stuck here,” I hear her say after a minute.
There’s a beat of silence and then her voice escalates. “You did what?”
She runs out into the living room. “Guys,” she says. “It was Liam.”
Freya sits up. “What do you mean it was Liam?”
“He sent a card to Jensen’s grandparents’ house, thinking he would be there for the holidays. It was the orange head at a museum in Buenos Aires. And it said something about Jensen’s art show?” she asks into the phone incredulously.
We watch as she listens to something he says and then she looks back at us. “It was in an envelope. His parents must have opened it,” she says.
“Shitballs,” Freya says.
“Definitely,” I agree.
“You have to call him and tell him,” Chloe says into the phone. There’s a pause in the conversation and then, “It doesn’t matter if he won’t talk to you. Leave a message. Send a text. Or an e-mail. I don’t really care, but you have to fix this!” She’s silent while he’s saying something and then she smiles, a glow lighting up her face. “I love you, too. Alright. Bye.” She hangs up, still smiling, still glowing. “He’ll take care of it, and he apologizes profusely,” she says, sitting next to me on the couch.
I stare at the computer screen and after a moment I log out of the university system. “Now what?” I ask when that’s done.
Chloe shrugs. “Now we wait.”
My mind races with the possible consequences and variables of what could happen next. Or what might not happen next. “What if Liam tells him and it doesn’t change anything?” I ask, voicing the thought that terrifies me the most.
Chloe puts a hand on mine. “Everything will work out,” she tells me. “Don’t give up hope.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be obtained.
–Marie Curie