“I changed my mind,” Sarah said softly. “My favorite Scramblette memory is this one right now.”
“No crying,” Ellen warned, blinking bravely as she turned the wine bottle on its head and attempted to top off their mugs. Whereas Rae could always squeeze more toothpaste from tubes, Ellen’s special talent was shaking wine from empty bottles. But not tonight. There was nothing left.
“Don’t leave.” It took a moment for Rae to realize she’d been the one to say it.
“We always said New York wasn’t forever,” Sarah said.
“But couldn’t it have been for one more year?” Mina asked. She was reeling most, having been tied at the hip to Sarah since freshman year of college.
“We’ll still have the group chat,” Sarah said. “And I’ll come back and visit all the time.”
If they had still been in their early twenties, Rae realized, they would all nod and vow that yes, of course they’d always be this close. But from their late-twenties vantage point, having seen friendshipscome and go, dissolve and splinter, fizzle and fade, they all knew they’d never be as close as they’d been during these volatile New York years, stumbling side by side from adolescence into adulthood.
They’d clung to each other before finding boyfriends and girlfriends whom they’d started clinging to instead. Maybe that was all most twenties friendships were—training wheels and placeholders. The real-world truth was that friendship bonds and relationship stocks were inversely correlated. There was an unspoken acknowledgment that in the end, they’d all choose relationships. They had, in fact, already chosen them.
“Here’s to the Scramblettes,” Ellen said, raising her mug. It looked like she was about to say more, but she ended there before the crack in her voice became a full-blown break.
Sipping cold wine to the wistful line, the four of them clinked coffee mugs one final time.
“The Scramblettes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
IN THE RED
Not a good day,Dustin texted Rae the following Thursday.Don’t think I’m up for group dinner. I’m sorry.
Rae received the text at work while sitting around waiting for feedback on a model she’d built for a tech company that had been around for only six months and was already being valued at $800 million.
She and Dustin were finally supposed to have a double date with Aaron and Ellen tonight.
Sitting at her desk, she rechecked her Excel formulas while trying to fill in the full story behindnot a good day. Was he just having a stressful day at work, or was the depression gripping him?
Rae had hoped—naïvely, she now saw—that falling in love might be enough to cure him, to lift him up and keep him there.
She was beginning to feel like she was the third wheel in an exclusive relationship between Dustin and his depression. But it wouldn’t always be like this. The therapy would start kicking in soon. For now, she had to be patient.
That’s okay!she replied.Want me to come over or would you rather just have a night to yourself?
Come over,Dustin replied.But I’m not at my best.
Amid the losses, it felt like a small win. In time, he would get to know Ellen, but the most important thing was that he wasn’t pushing Rae away when he was hurting like he used to. He was inviting her in, and that was enough. It would have to be.
I love you,she replied.Will escape the office as soon as I can.
Then Rae texted Ellen to say that yet again, they wouldn’t be able to make it to dinner.
“Dustin?” Rae called out as she sat up in bed the next Monday, panicked that she was late for work.
Rae awoke to clanking from the kitchen. Sunlight was streaming through the Lorimer Loft windows, the thick curtains thrown open.
“Breakfast in bed for the birthday girl,” Dustin said, appearing in the doorway dressed in just boxers and an undershirt. He was carrying a plate of whipped-cream-topped pancakes, garnished with one of Phyllis’s leaves.
That’s when Rae remembered. She was twenty-seven today.
She’d taken the day off work. Dustin had, too, and now he handed her the plate and crawled back into bed beside her.
She ate happily, juxtaposing crackerless cheese on the floor at twenty-five against fluffy pancakes in bed with her boyfriend at twenty-seven. It was a pleasing midtwenties evolution.
