Due to an unforeseen scheduling conflict, our meet-up on Friday will now start at 8:30 PM instead of the previously announced 6:00 PM. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Rest assured, we still have a full dinner planned, complete with after-dinner cocktails to help us all unwind and get to know one another better.
Best regards,
Oscar Calloway
Megs had been aboutto send Oscar—or Matt—an email thanking him for the opportunity but declining his offer to participate. But now . . . now shecouldattend. Her class ended at eight o’clock, which meant she’d be a bit late depending on traffic, but not by much.
Megs chewed on her lower lip. It was just one dinner, right? She could go, enjoy a free meal, meet the other contestants, and then politely explain to Oscar that she wouldn't be able to continue.
That familiar swirl of anxiety hit her stomach. Was she doing what she always did? Justifying this because it was exciting to her? Why was it so hard to tell? It was one thing not to trust advertising claims or news articles, but herself? How could she know what was real when her own brain and hormones lied to her?
Megs dropped her phone on the bed and continued cleaning. Sunlight streamed in through the window, casting a warm autumn glow on the scattered clothes and books that littered the floor. Her instructor for the certification course had agreed to let her back in, and she’d worked non-stop Thursday after her shift to finish her assignments. Today she was off, which meant she had to tackle all the tasks she’d been neglecting.
First, dejunk her room in preparation for packing. She’d texted her mother as soon as she got the email Thursday morning, and now everything was back on track. They would be apartment shopping on Saturday, and there was one place Megs was especially excited about after looking at the listings online. It was a shared house with a garden and a private room. The house was old, but well-maintained, at least from the pictures.
She tossed an old blouse in the box next to the door. It had taken her an hour to finally force herself to start sorting her things, but now it felt like the most thrilling thing in the world. She was making order out of chaos.How had she acquired so many pieces of clothing she never wore?
A wave of emotion rolled through her as she reached back into her closet. She’d moved out of this home before, but even then, she knew it stillexisted. It was still a place in the world she’d mapped by heart.
Megs knew the dent in the wall in the hallway from her elbow when she and Bobbi were trying to do handstands, and Bobbi had landed on her. She knew that if the power went out in the living room, someone had plugged a charger into the wrong outlet and had popped the breaker.
She knew not to flush the toilet in the powder room while someone was showering in the master . . . or to flush it if her sister happened to be in there. She’d memorized the under-counter light in the kitchen and the smell of coffee on weekday mornings before school or work in the middle of January when it was still dark as they woke.
The lilac bushes along the back fence. The fire pit she’d roasted marshmallows on. The swallows that made a new nest each spring under the eaves at the edge of the patio. None of it would exist after this month, at least not for her. She had so few things that she knew to the core in this world, and now she was losing one of them.
Megs swiped the tears from her eyes and finished going through her closet, then took her laptop to the kitchen for much-needed sustenance and task number two.
The next day,Megs was a ball of nerves. She’d submitted three out of five assignments for Professor Adams and was dying to see her grades. They’d be good. They had to be. Seeing high percentages pop up instead of the zeroes currently sitting in her profile would release the tension on the elastic band stretched tight in her chest.
But that wasn’t the only reason she was wound up. In just over an hour, she needed to head up to campus for her class. That meant facing Mr. Fletcher again, who was possibly annoyed at her complaining to Ms. Martinez, and then heading straight to the contestant dinner with Oscar Calloway.
The ladies in town had been calling all morning and tittering on the phone with her mom while she was eating breakfast.Can you believe she’s going to meet him in person? Should I have her ask him? Oh, I don’t know if he’d have time for something like that, but you never know.Her mom had to be thrilled that Megs and this competition were the height of drama in town, regardless of her feelings about Megs’ decision to audition in the first place.
Megs wouldn’t be asking Oscar anything, particularly since she would announce her departure from the competition as soon as she finished her free meal. The real problem was that she wouldn't have time to come home after her class, so she had to be ready to schmooze by the time she left at four forty-five.
She stood in front of her now-sparse closet, searching for an outfit that would strike the right balance between casual and chic. She finally settled on a flowy, mustard-yellow blouse tucked into high-waisted black jeans that hugged her slender frame. Paired with ankle boots, it was the perfect fall outfit that shouldn’t look too out of place in class or the restaurant.
Megs got dressed and walked into the bathroom. After washing her face, she moisturized and plucked a few wild eyebrows, then used a bit of concealer under her eyes. A swipe of mascara and a brush of bronzer completed her natural makeup look. Taming her wild auburn curls was another challenge altogether, but she managed to coax them into soft waves that framed her face.
She took one last look at her reflection, then retreated to her room and checked her phone. The videos she’d made about the audiobook competition the other day were getting more traction than she’d expected. She’d tagged Oscar’s newly made account, and he’d already commented.
Happy to haveyou in the running!
He wouldn’t behappy for long. She did a quick lip-sync video about one of the books Oscar had written and tagged him. Megs wasn’t fooling herself into thinking she mattered much to anyone at this point in the competition, but she didn’t want to take it without giving something back. This felt better.
The drive up to Champlain felt longer than usual. She turned on a podcast, but her mind kept zoning out. Usually landing on something related to Gideon.
When Megs was little, her mom adored puzzles and always had one out on the coffee table. Sometimes it would sit there for days, sometimes for weeks. Every time Megs passed it, she’d sit for a moment and try to find a few pieces that fit. Never did she leave that coffee table glad she’d sat down.
She hated the feeling of something missing—of something not being complete. It was torture to put in two, even five pieces, and then have to stand up and walk away with gaping holes in the picture.
That was how it felt with Gideon. They’d started a picture, however unintentionally, that Saturday night while they ate their sloppy burgers. That frame was sitting there on the coffee table just waiting to be filled in, and it was killing her.
At this point, she didn’t even care what the picture was, she just needed it to make sense. Would he be interested in picking up where they left off as soon as the semester was over on December 10th? Did he regret that night and now feel awkward when he saw herin class? Whatever it was, she wanted answers so she could put it to rest and stop thinking about his hands on her waist or his lips. His laugh . . .
She needed louder music.
Megs gripped the steering wheel and made it to the parking lot, then went into class early. Her instructor didn’t give her a second glance, which she appreciated. Just a lecture as usual.
