Chloe launched into some answer, but my eyes were on Megan. She continued to watch Chloe like she was her mother and was waiting to see if her kid displayed good manners. Once her eyes narrowed, but then she seemed to relax and took her eyes off her roommate.
And put them on me.
“They seem engaged enough. So, about Intro to Philosophy?”
I took a glance at Connor and Chloe, and they indeed were immersed in a back-and-forth that seemed like it would go for a while. Maybe even a little flirting was going on, given the occasional giggle from Chloe and Connor’s wide grin.
I leaned closer to Megan, and she did to me. It was embarrassing enough to spill the truth to Megan; I didn’t need Chloe and Connor in on it too. Connor would probably try to fist-bump me again.
“So, yeah, nothing changes the way I feel about you. But kind of…”
“Just say it,” she said.
“Our origin story is a little different than you think it is.”
“As in that first Friday night at your house? When we got interrupted?”
“As in, that was the night I couldn’t believe I’d finally found you.”
“In, like, a metaphorical way?” she asked, confused. I didn’t blame her. It had been confusing as hell for me at the time.
Still was.
“In, like, I was sitting behind you in class when you got the call from your dad.”
Her head tipped back like she was trying to avoid a punch.
“Yeah. When I walked into my house and saw you, I couldn’t believe my luck.”
“Start at the beginning.”
I told her about it all. Seeing her. Wanting to ask her out. Not seeing her again. Trying to find her all over campus. Finding out about J’s cancer coming back shortly after. His leaving school. Having the longest freshman year ever as I waited for J’s condition to improve.
And then it didn’t.
“So, your feelings for me are all tangled up with J getting sick and leaving school? And then we meet again in a grief group? No wonder we—”
“No. I mean, not entirely. You were… The search for you was something J and I had that fall. It became kind of a game. He’d text me pics of girls he saw on campus that had hair like I’d described yours and ask me if it was you. He’d ask for updates on if I saw you in the dining halls or the dorm.”
“A game,” she said, rolling the word like she wasn’t sure how she felt about it.
“Not a game, like frivolous or anything. More like a bonding thing. And then when he started getting tired and weak, he used it, I think, as a distraction. For himself, but also for me so I couldn’t see how sick he was getting. If I started asking him about his lack of energy on the ice, he’d bring you up, asking me what I thought your name might be, or what class you were in instead of Philosophy. Stuff like that.”
“That night at your house—it was important to you that you knew my name,” she said, her mind replaying the night when we’d gone to my room but Ches had barreled in.
“I didn’t hear, or didn’t register, your name when they called you out of class. And it drove me fucking crazy that I didn’t have it once I realized you weren’t coming back. So that was part of our thing.Where is she? What’s her name? Why didn’t she come back?”
“So, I was someideafor you. Like a talisman or something?”
I knew I was on thin ice here. And I’d need to get this right. The stakes were too high now. Now that I knew what a relationship—arealrelationship—with Megan would be like—and that it was exactly what I wanted.
“The idea of you gave my dying brother something to talk about. Something to bond over. Our first words when FaceTiming weren’t about treatment or side effects or losing hair due to chemo. They were about if I’d seen you again.”
Her face softened, and the racing in my heart slowed just a little.
“I flew home when I could, but everyone was adamant that I stay here and be on the team. I felt both helpless that I couldn’t be there, and also happy I didn’t have to be there, you know?”
She nodded and reached out for my hand, which she took in hers. Chloe and Connor were leaning toward each other, her showing him something on her phone, totally oblivious to us, so I continued.
