Beth
Char. I can feel you spiraling from here. Stop it.
Charlotte
I'm not.
Beth
You absolutely are. You have that energy. I'm getting spiral vibes through the phone.
Charlotte
That's not a thing.
Beth
It's definitely a thing. I invented it. It's called Beth-dar, and it's never wrong.
I laughed again, and this time it felt almost real.
Charlotte
Fine. I'll come.
Beth
YES. I knew the cheekbone argument would work.
Charlotte
It wasn't that, your blackmail sealed the deal.
Beth
Whatever works. Pick you up at 6:30. Wear something that makes you feel hot. And Char?
Charlotte
What?
Beth
It's going to be okay. It's just one night. You survived seven years of marriage to Drew. You can survive three hours of warm Chardonnay and nostalgic small talk.
She wasn't wrong. I'd survived worse than a high school reunion. I'd survived fertility treatments, a failing marriage, and finding out my husband had gotten another woman pregnant while I was still crying over negative test results. A room full of people I hadn't seen in fifteen years should be nothing.
‘Should’being the operative word.
Because beneath the dread, beneath the anxiety about questions and pity and having to perform okayness for an audience, there was something else. A small feeling, question, or even wonder that I couldn’t fully get out of my head.
Will Miles be there?
His name, remembering it still sent a jolt of emotion through me, a cocktail of old warmth and fresher pain that I couldn’t overcome.
Miles Cameron. My first love. The boy I'd been so certain I'd spend my life with, before ambition and family pressure and the vast, terrifying world beyond Riverside had pulled him away.
I hadn't seen him in fifteen years. Hadn't spoken to him since that final phone call, I still remembered it; his voice had been careful and distant and so unlike him that I'd known it was over before he even said the words.
