If Gabe had still been throwing the baseball, I think it would have hit him in the face again. Maybe rounded out his forehead welt with a nice black eye.
“Buy The Coffee Shop? It’s not for sale.”
“It can be… I have it on good authority that Ethel and Albert are ready to retire. You know Jules is unhappy in his job. Let’s go in on it together. Jules can do the menu—all the frou-frou coffee stuff. I’ll run the business side of things.”
Gabe looks off put when I don’t continue. “What about me?” he questions, displeasure written all over his face.
I raise an eyebrow at him. “What about you? I thought you were happy at work?”
His bottom lip juts out. “I am. But I still want to be involved! I don’t like being left out.”
“Fine,” I concede. “You can be an investor.”
He seems to be satisfied with that answer because he flips back over and starts tossing the ball again. “Where are you going to live?”
I hadn’t thought that far yet. I don’t particularly want to live with Mom and Dad. Jules would probably welcome me out of some made up sense of obligation. I’m sure I could find an apartment fairly quickly but?—
“Just move in with me,” Gabe continues before I have a chance to answer him. “Like I said, I don’t like being left out. Noone has lived with me since Anders moved out, and I think I’d like having a roommate again.”
Gabe lives in the same apartment he’s lived in since he and Anders—his best friend and our sister’s husband—were in college. It’s right above Louie’s, our favorite bar, which makes it an easy yes.
“You sure?” I check.
“Wouldn’t want you to be homeless.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be homeless. I’m sure Mom and?—”
“Look at me, saving the day,” Gabe interrupts. “You’re welcome.”
“Thank you, big brother. What would I do without you?”
He grins back at me, lopsided and upside down. Looks like I’m officially moving back to Sassafras.
The rest of the holiday flies by—full of Christmas decoration competitions, time at the skating rink, and a really scraggly looking Christmas tree. On Christmas morning, my sister Bex and her husband, Anders, announce that they are pregnant with a girl, which means I get another niece. Their oldest daughter, Elodie, is one of my favorite people.
I don’t want kids of my own, but damn I love being an uncle to her. Kids are really fucking cute,andI really love being able to do whatever the fuck I want all the time.
A few days after Christmas, I head back to Boston to prepare for the move. The sound of my keys hitting the counter echoes through my threadbare apartment. I can honestly say I won’t miss the place.
Looking around I see it with a fresh set of eyes. There’s nothing wrong with it, per se. I just never bothered to hang muchon the walls or pull together any semblance of style when it comes to furniture. The mismatched couch, coffee table, and TV stand were all hand-me-downs from friends or items I found at the thrift store.
Plopping on the couch, I kick my feet up. The city noise filters in through the thin windows, only slightly distracting me from my thoughts.
When I told the family I was moving back to Sassafras, I was greeted with mixed reactions. For the most part, I think everyone is excited. Bex and Anders seemed jealous—they live in New York City now, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they eventually moved home, too. Jules immediately got choked up and excused himself from the room. It really is time someone did something for him, and I’m glad it could be me.
But I’d be lying if I said my intentions were purely selfless. Even now, my thumb hovers over my phone, the habit of opening Instagram to check on her is ingrained.
I don’t know if it was luck or fate that she never removed me as a follower. It’s allowed me the smallest look into her life over the past twelve years. We’ve crossed paths occasionally—mostly when both of us were home for some holiday or another. It was more often when we were in college and Maya would throw parties when we were all home. But then she stopped showing up to those… so I did too.
Fuck it. I open the app and see if she’s posted anything with Finance Bro Ken—the irony is not lost on me that I could also be considered a Finance Bro Ken. But with brown hair. Is there a brown-haired Ken?
Doesn’t matter. I navigate to her page, happy to see no evidence of their coffee-shop date having led to anything. Not that she would post it if it had. I check the date of her last post… November fifteenth. A selfie of her and her dog that I’ve practically memorized. Exasperated and fed up with myobsession, I close out and toss my phone aside. Instead, I pull out a small moleskin from my back pocket and add another tally mark.
That makes four thousand one hundred and ninety seven days since we made our pact.
Only two hundred and three more until I finally get to call it in.
Starting over at twenty-nine isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I feel ancient in my classes full of students that are only about seven years younger than me, but they look like children. They jumped straight from undergrad to this graduate program with zero life experience.
