“I’m not saying that’s what’s going to happen with you two,” Veronica clarifies. “All I’m saying is a pattern becomes a habit and a habit becomes resentment and resentment leads to nothing good.”
The sound of the front door scares me. My heart jumps into my throat with worry. I tell Veronica to hold on as I venture down the hallway and into the foyer, but nobody is there. “Pat?” I call to no response. It must’ve been the wind. The lightest breeze and this house groans. I shrug and take a deep breath.
“It’s probably just me,” I say to Veronica when I return, shoving aside any thoughts to the contrary. “It’s all in my head. It’ll be fine.”
Just like I made a promise to Patrick with our vows, I made a promise to myself that I would never end up like my parents.
But maybe divorce wasn’t the part I was supposed to be worried about. It was falling out of love with the one person I envisioned an entire life together with.
A text banner hovers over Veronica’s skeptical expression.
Patrick:Can you come outside for a minute and help me with the lights?
The oven temperature is still not where it needs to be, so I can step away from this kitchen and close this can of worms I never should’ve opened in the first place. It’ll probably do me some good.
Sure,I type back.Be right there.
5A BEAUTIFUL BEGINNINGQUINN
A MEMORY
Alongside a semi-blurry photo of a billboard advertisement for a company unfortunately named E.R.E.C.T. Architecture, I type out a text to one of the last numbers in my outgoing calls list:I guess architect isn’t just a job in the movies after all.
I’m in the passenger seat of Mom’s clunky car on our way to the Christmas tree farm. I told her dozens of times over the phone that she should go without me or buy a fake one from the store that we could put up together when I got home on the twenty-second of December for winter break, but she refused, which is why it’s Christmas Eve and we’re about to pay premium prices we can’t swing for waiting so long.
A response to the photo doesn’t come until we’ve already got the exorbitantly expensive spruce into our house and the rickety tree stand we dug out of a beat-up box.
Patrick:LMAO
I’m disappointed at first by the lackluster message until a second text rolls in.
Patrick:They couldn’t have arranged their initials in any other order? That’s a terrible name for a business!!!
I type back,Or a genius one. Nobody is ever going to forget it!
Patrick:THEY’RE MAKING A MOCKERY OF MY CHOSEN PROFESSION!!!!!!
I didn’t expect him to be such an effusive exclamation point user. It’s dorky, but adorable. I’ve been obsessing over whether to text the handsome, shaggy-haired guy in the Santa suit ever since we met outside Olive & Ivy. Now I’m unabashedly grinning at my phone, happy I did.
“Who are you texting?” Mom asks, setting out some ornaments.
“Nobody,” I say, quickly locking my phone and leaving the text thread for later when I’m in my room, alone, and my blushing can’t be dissected or judged or frowned upon.
Patrick and I end up texting all throughout winter break. When the spring semester starts and Street Week rolls around, I know Patrick’s favorite color (jade green), his favorite TV show (The Office), and that his first crush was the high school–aged lifeguard at the pool club he frequented with his family.
In March, I bicker for Olive & Ivy and get in. I thank Patrick profusely, even though he insists he had nothing to do with it.
“Everybody loves you. Stop thanking me!” he says when I have my first meal (an exquisite chicken piccata) at the clubhouse as an official member.
Loves. That word in his slightly raspy voice plays on repeat in my brain for countless sleepless nights.
From then on, I spend more time at the Olive & Ivy clubhouse than I do in my own dorm room. I most look forward to Thursday nights when we have members-only meals around a theme likeAsian fusion orAn Evening in Parisbecause Patrick never misses one, and we always sit together.
Aside from the Queer & Ivy affinity group, I join Bach & Ivy, a group dedicated to watchingThe Bachelorand all its subsequent spinoffs live each week from our TV room. I even go so far as to create blank brackets for us to fill out, so we can all place weekly bets on who is going to make it to the final rose ceremony.
Through some goading, I convince Patrick to join us. During the first episode, he’s grumpy, looking at his phone for half of it. By the third, he’s the most riveted, vocal viewer of the bunch.
It probably helps a little that some of the dates take place at various historic castles and estates, places of architectural interest, or as Patrick calls them, “Building porn.” Every time he says it, I blush.
