“Do you know anyone who’s in love beside your own parents?” I asked.
Jo shrugged. “In real life?”
“What other life is there?”
She looked at me, then at her hands. Her fingers ran over her comforter. “Books, TV. So many lives.”
I wanted to correct her, to make sure she didn’t actually think that words in a book from the inside of an author’s mind or actors on a screen in our living room were the same thing as reality. I thought she had to know better; she was just being her whimsical, artsy self.
“Oh, Jo, you have no idea what you’re talking about.” I sighed. I loved her, so I would be gentle with her, but she was a child. She was smart about some things for sure, but she knew nothing about relationships. It worried me. Imagining Jo as a mother to a newborn was like imagining Shia King wearing a crisp black suit in a courtroom.
“I disagree, Meg.” Jo picked at her nails, not looking at me.
I made a little noise of annoyance. “Okay.” I laughed a little. Sometimes she thought that she knew everything. “That doesn’t mean you’re right. You haven’t had any experience dating at all.”
Jo sighed and her hands lifted from her lap and she ran her open fingers over the front of her hair. When we were young, Jo had the worst cowlick right in the front, just next to her middle part. At sixteen it was still there, but slightly less noticeable, her hair was so thick.
“Do we have to keep talking about this?”
“What?” My insides felt like I was hollow. Hollow and anxious at the mention of John’s name. I felt pathetic and confused. “My boyfriend who is supposed to here in a few hours just broke up with me via email!” My voice rose and my throat burned.
I stared at my phone by Jo’s lap. It hadn’t gone off in a while, but somehow I could still hear the email notification echoing in the silence in my room.
My chest rose and fell—and Jo wasn’t even trying to comfort me. She was just sitting there with her eyes slowly moving around the room and her hands calmly folded on her lap. Oblivious and righteous.
“Just go, Jo.” I sighed.
I didn’t know what else to say to her, and I knew better than to think Jo would say any of the things I needed to hear.
Where was Beth?
20
I was done crying by the time I settled on the couch between Beth and Amy. Meredith made comfort food for us, and I sat there with a blanket pulled up to my chin and a bowl of mac and cheese on my lap. My feet were stretched out on Amy’s lap, and she was almost asleep. It wasn’t even eight yet but I was ready to go to bed, too. Jo was sitting on the floor with her laptop on her legs, and I wasn’t mad at her anymore. I couldn’t blame her for not caring about something she didn’t understand.
Selfishly, I wished for someone to break her heart, but then I took it right back. I wouldn’t wish that on her. I changed the name in my head and wished into the universe that Bell Gardiner would have her heart broken. I didn’t take that back.
“There’s a car in the driveway,” Meredith said. She leaned over and pulled back the thick curtain covering the front window.
I took another bite of noodles and cheese and waited for the headlights to disappear in the window. Since we lived in a cul-de-sac, people often used our driveway to turn around.
I heard a car door shut, and Meredith used her legs to push in the footrest of Dad’s recliner.
“It’s a man,” she said.
My first thought was that my dad was home early to surprise us, but that wasn’t likely; he knew how much Meredith hated surprises.
“Who is it?” Beth asked.
“I can’t tell . . . it looks like John—”
I shot up from the couch and ran to the window, bowl in my hand and all. I saw John Brooke walking up my yard, wearing his uniform and a serious expression across his familiar face.
“What is he doing here!” My voice came out as a screech, and Beth was by my side in an instant.
Amy’s face twisted in horror. “Oh, no! Meg, he’s here and you’re wearing that.”
I looked down. My flower-print shorts and pink tank top couldn’t have been further from what I had planned on wearing when I saw him again. Why the hell was he here? Wasn’t his string of emails enough?
Beth took the bowl of mac and cheese from me just as his knuckles started tapping on the front door.
“Don’t let him in!” I shouted into the panic filling the room.
“That son of a—” Meredith started.
“Why not? Maybe he—” Jo started, too.
I couldn’t think straight. Why did I take my makeup off? My eyes had to be swollen. Why was he here?
“Yes or no, Meg?” Meredith asked when she was on her feet.
I thought about it for a second. Should I say my piece to John Brooke? Should I let him have it for breaking up with me over email, then showing up to my house?
He knocked again.
“Let him in,” I said, hating that I looked like shit.
Jo was a statue, sitting on the floor still, typing away.
My mouth tasted like truffle, and I knew I smelled like a mushroom and looked like hell. My fingers smoothed over my hair as Meredith opened the front door.
“Hey, Meredith, how are you?” John’s voice was so deep.
Meredith turned to look at me, and John stepped into the light. He was wearing his West Point uniform, and his hair was cropped shorter than I’d ever seen it. His blue eyes found me, and I couldn’t help the cry that ripped through my lungs and splattered all over the floor. John’s face fell and he moved toward me, his hat in his hands.
I turned around and rushed down the hallway to my room and slammed the door behind me. Heavy footsteps pounded toward me, and a soft knock touched the door, but John opened it before I could respond.
“Hey,” he said shakily.
I stared at him in all his West Point glory. His entire body seemed to have grown from the last time I’d laid eyes on him. The gold buttons on his gray uniform were so shiny. He looked so polished, and I . . . well, I looked like a damn mess.
“What do you want, John?” I hoped that I sounded intimidating and in control, not like a nineteen-year-old who’d just spent the last two hours crying over a boy.
Except John didn’t look like a boy anymore. He looked like a man.
“What? Meg, what’s going on?”
I ignored the voice in my head telling me to look in the mirror on my vanity. Seeing my mess of a self would only make things worse.
“What’s going on?” I laughed. “You tell me, John. What the hell is going on? Why did you even come here?”
His reddish-blond brows pulled together over his light eyes, and he took a step backward, toward my door.
“Go ahead and leave if you want to!” I yelled at him, all sense of sanity going out the window closest to me.
“What the hell? You knew I was coming. We had plans, remember?”
“Yes! We did. But you’re confused, remember? You must be so confused that you forgot to email me and say you’re coming after all!”
I felt my legs getting weaker the louder my voice went. I sat down at the edge of my bed and put my head in my hands.
“Meg.” John’s voice was soft. “I don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I came to pick you up so we could go to the Quarter for the weekend. I just got in, picked up my car, and came here.”
I looked up at him. What?
Was he lying? I looked at the clear confusion on his face and the tiny movement in his shaking hands. I didn’t know what to make of this.
“Are you trying to tell me that you changed your mind?”
John walked toward me, and I flinched when he grabbed my hands. He dropped them. He knelt in front of me and I focused on the structure of his gray uniform, the brown stitching, the high collar reaching up under his neck. His face was red, it always was a little, but he really did look confused.
“Meg
, please tell me, what’s going on?” John’s soft voice touched me in featherlight caresses, soothing my anger from his rejection.
“You emailed me.” I grabbed my phone from under my pillow where it was charging and yanked it toward me.
“Emailed you?” His freckled hands grabbed mine and wrapped around the phone and my trembling hands. I pulled away and he let me, and I opened the email chain.
Holding the phone in my hand, I lifted the screen to him. His fingers wrapped around the sides of my iPhone and his eyes strained to read the small font.
A few seconds later he started shaking his head. “I didn’t send that. I didn’t. I wouldn’t do that, Meg.”
I looked at him and let his claim sink in. Was he lying? I searched his eyes and I couldn’t tell. Who would do this to me if he didn’t?
Shia was the first person who popped into my head.
Was that possible?
“Meg, look at me.” John’s fingers lifted my chin so I looked into his eyes. “Meg, I’ve missed you so much. I came here expecting you to be happy to see me.”
He half laughed and my mortification sank in. Of course John wouldn’t do that to me.
I took my hands from my lap and brought them up to his head. “Oh, God, I’m sorry! I’m happy to see you.” I ran my long nails over the sides of his short hair and down his smooth, freshly shaved face. “I missed you so much.”
His eyes closed when my fingers ran over his mouth, and his lips parted under my touch, blooming into a smile. I didn’t kiss John, even though I wanted to. He didn’t kiss me either, but he was never the most affectionate anyway.
I heard a voice outside the door, and it didn’t even bother me that my sisters were being nosy little shits. I didn’t care. John was here, right in front of me, and freshly minted from West Point.
I sighed, remembering my ungodly appearance. “I looked very, very different earlier before the whole email thing.”
“You look fine. Beautiful.” John reached for my cheek and ran his knuckles across my skin. “I’ve never seen you like this.”
Anxiety swirled in my chest. I hadn’t planned on letting John see me without makeup anytime soon, if ever.
I asked him to give me a few minutes to pack my bag for the weekend and sent him out to socialize with my family. When he opened the door, Amy and Jo were busted eavesdropping, but he just laughed and gave Amy a salute. As they walked down the hallway, I heard John explaining his old-fashioned uniform to Amy, and my mind immediately had me wondering how he would fit into my family. He was so calm, even after my yelling at him in front of them.
If that had been Shia and I accused him of something he didn’t do, he would fight me tooth and nail and make me grovel for his forgiveness. Shia was too emotional, too headstrong. John Brooke was strong, too, but in a gentle way.
John Brooke was good for me, he really was.
21
John thought of everything. He’d hired a town car for us to be chauffeured to the Quarter in, and we sat in the back of the car, all heart-eyed and naïve love. It felt like prom without the awkward blow job in the back of River’s car. John had a bottle of grocery-store champagne that tasted like strawberries and bliss. During the dark drive, he held my hand between his on his lap, and I sipped the bubbly from a plastic flute.
“Tell me about your graduation. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it.”
“It’s okay.” His smile reminded me that he didn’t exactly invite me in the first place, but I wasn’t upset about it anymore.
I wasn’t.
We were only boyfriend and girlfriend, so I understood why he wouldn’t want me to come to New York and have a great weekend with him, getting to know his family and new friends.
Sometimes I hated that military girlfriends didn’t get the attention or recognition that the wives did. And other times, I sort of believed what Jo said about the military culture forcing soldiers to get married young. At the same time, these men and women go through so much for their country, why should they do it alone? The saddest soldiers I knew were the ones who didn’t have wives or kids waiting for them back home. Sure, most of them had parents, but it just wasn’t the same.
Would John Brooke still want to marry me after my meltdown? He didn’t send those emails. I knew he didn’t. To reaffirm, I looked over at his face. Were there changes since I had seen him last? Our entire relationship had been long-distance. That should have been a sign, but it wasn’t. Rather, it made us stronger; that’s how it was with the military. He seemed the exact same, even less outspoken, if that was possible. His hands were still covered in light brown freckles, and his nose still had that little dip in the end of it.
I looked beyond him, to my own reflection. My bare face stared back at me, and even in the dark I could see the circles under my eyes. I never went anywhere without makeup, and there I was with John, on my way to the Ritz looking like a complete hag.
He continued to tell me about his graduation ceremony and how he could hear his mom’s proud sobs as he crossed the stage. I imagined that any parent would be proud as hell of their child for graduating from West Point, though not having met her, I wondered what kind of woman she truly was. He squeezed my hand and lifted his lips into a smile when I looked at his smooth face. He looked so good in his uniform. It was special. He was special and his uniform helped show that.
“I would love for you to meet my mom someday,” he told me when our town car pulled onto the main highway. The car glided smoothly in and out of the lanes; it all felt so different from my Prius or my parents’ purple Cherokee, like we were floating over the pavement. “She would love you.” His thumb brushed over my skin, a little pattern that felt like comfort and the affection that I was in need of.
She would? I wanted to ask, but I would have seemed insecure, and a woman should never, ever, let a man know she’s insecure. Meredith taught me that, and there I was practicing what she preached, finally, after nineteen years. Her advice was coming in handy now, especially when the man in question just encountered me in my pajamas with mascara rings around my eyes. I needed confidence to erase that image from his mind.
I looked up at John, and he leaned down to kiss my cheek. He couldn’t have sent the emails. I didn’t have a clue who did, but I knew it wasn’t him. It couldn’t have been.
I tilted my chin toward him, and I liked the way the passing streetlights lit up his face as we sped past.
“I would love to meet her.” I made sure my lips touched the corner of his, just enough to let him feel their warmth, but not enough to be satisfied.
When we arrived at the hotel, the car pulled into a covered driveway, and two valets rushed over. One of them looked like a guy I went to high school with, and I tried not to hold it against him. Our bags were scooped up, even my makeup case, and I tried not to cringe when the familiar-looking one roughly dropped it onto the cart.
John held my hand as we walked through the maze to get to the lobby and the elevators. Couples were everywhere, older white couples that smelled like hair spray and money; each man we passed had a thick watch around his wrist. I wasn’t in Fort Cyprus anymore.
The woman behind the desk was friendly, with deep-rose lipstick and fake eyelashes. She asked if we wanted to upgrade to a Club room, and John said we did. She began to explain the benefits of the Club level, like we got our own open type of area. I think she called it a lounge, and the lounge was full of fridges of water and soda, and in the center of the lounge was a table full of food being served buffet-style.
I just focused on absorbing the energy of the place and trying to erase any tension still left in me from the email mishap. I looked at John the whole time she talked, and while the bellhop took our bags, and while we rode the elevator and walked the long hallway.
Our room was beautiful, just like I knew it would be. I decided that I was going to pretend that I didn’t feel all mixed up inside, and I was going to talk myself out of the throbbing headache that was haunting me from earlier
. John was there with me, right next to me, holding my hand and doing things to make me happy. I owed him more than puffy eyes and a sad look on my face.
The bellman finally left us alone after he explained nearly every inch of the room and its amenities. The bed was already turned down, and I laughed at a memory from a few summers ago.
“What?” John asked. He wasn’t holding my hand, but he couldn’t because he was unpacking our stuff.
“I was thinking about this time when my family was staying at a hotel in Houston, and they turned the room down while we were at dinner, and Jo was convinced there was a ghost in the room.” I laughed again, remembering how wild she was over it. “She made my dad check the closets and under the bed, but it didn’t really make sense, since you can’t see ghosts.”
I looked at John and he had a smile on his face. “Jo is something else,” he said with a soft look on his face.
I shook my head. “Yes. Yes, she is.”
“Are you hungry? Did you eat dinner?”
I didn’t remember if I had eaten or not. I couldn’t have even guessed what time it was.
“Are you hungry? You just got off a long flight. I bet you are.”
He nodded. “A little. Do you want to go out? Or order in?”
Room service was a lavish novelty that I wanted every part of.
“Would you mind if we ordered in? I’m not ready or anything . . .”
He looked down at his own clothes, his perfectly tailored uniform, and back to me, in my leggings and sweater.
“The email thing really ruined my carefully orchestrated plan.” I tried to swallow the burning in my throat.
I was still so confused and still angry about being fucked with in such a hurtful, pointless way. It had had such an effect on our night together—I wanted to try to forget that it happened. Until tomorrow at least.
“Room service, it is.” John nodded and climbed into the bed. “What do you want to eat?” He began reading off the room-service menu.
22
jo