Page 16 of Sunset on the Solstice

Shelby groaned, because she wasn’t sure how much she believed in her future any longer, not now that Jared wasn’t a part of it. She knew that was pathetic, but it was true, too.

When they reached Columbia, Lily helped Shelby move into the same apartment she’d vacated in May, back before she’d met Jared. The same roommate was already there, Molly, but she looked different. Her hair was blue, and she’d broken up with her boyfriend, too, and wanted to go out. “We’re both twenty-one, now!” Molly cried, because it was true that Shelby had just had a birthday, before the breakup. “We can go out!”

Molly convinced Lily to call a few of her city friends, and they headed to a bar to hang out and update one another about their summers. Molly’s energy was infectious and wild, and Shelby found herself laughing often, although each time she did, she reminded herself that she needed to be sad. Jared was gone.

Over their third drink of the evening, Lily raised her glass of wine and announced, “I want to make a toast. To Shelby and her freedom from, um, that guy.”

At this, Shelby gaped at her sister. “That guy?”

Lily tried to laugh it off, while Molly and Lily’s friends cackled.

“What do you mean by ‘that guy’?” Shelby pressed.

“I don’t know, Shelby,” Lily said. “I mean, were you really going to marry that guy? He was so, like…” She sipped her wine.

“What was he like?” Molly demanded, leaning over the table.

“Controlling? I guess? And he sort of hated women,” Lily said, wrinkling her nose.

“He did not hate women,” Shelby said.

“He could barely even name a woman writer he liked,” Lily pointed out.

“Oh, Shelby, that’s bad,” Molly said. “Don’t you love Virginia Woolf? What would she say?”

“He isn’t really like that,” Shelby insisted. “He’s read almost all the great writers. Women and men.”

“Okay, but when you were around him, you rarely talked,” Lily said. “You let him do all the talking. It was not great.”

“That isn’t true, either,” Shelby insisted.

“Shelby, it’s okay! We all date bad guys sometimes,” Molly said. “We can both start over fresh. Breakups are healing! I’m excited to get out there and date again. And Lily, I hear you’re the person to help me in that department.”

Lily smiled. “I’d be happy to hook both of you up with someone. But also, I know how fun it is to meet people in bars in the city. I know how fun it is to get out there and make a few dating mistakes and learn about yourself along the way, you know? My engagement taught me more than I knew I needed to know…”

“But the thing is, I can’t imagine having a better romance than the one I had with Jared,” Shelby insisted, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms. She felt like a child.

“He was your first love,” Lily said, making a face that meant she was growing tired of talking about Jared. “But I think soon, you’ll find someone else! You’ll be able to look back on this and realize how poisonous it was with Jared, sometimes! Seriously, sometimes, I think back on my relationship with Liam, and I shiver with dread. I’m so glad I didn’t end up with him.”

Molly nodded furiously, probably thinking about her own romance.

But Shelby struggled to think about Jared as anyone but someone who got away.

She got up and went to the bathroom, splashing water on her cheeks and making eye contact with herself in the mirror. He’s going to find a way back to you, she told herself. She had to believe it was true.

During the two weeks before fall semester began, Shelby did everything Lily and Molly said was “right,” given the fact of her breakup. She went to parties. She let boys flirt with her. She focused on herself and her time and her energy. She did this because she didn’t know what else to do. When she met with her professors, she fell back into the scholarly attitude that had been dormant during the summertime. She told herself: this is who I am now. this is who I’ve always been.

But throughout, she couldn’t believe Jared still hadn’t called her or texted her, not once. And it pained her to think that already, he was at Harvard, probably dating someone else, probably telling that girl everything he’d already said to Shelby as though Shelby had never existed. Why had he been so reckless with her heart? Why had she let him?

Shelby had the sense that she wouldn’t be able to get through this, not soon. Maybe she’d write her first novel about this breakup. Maybe she’d make a bunch of money on this heartache. Thinking this, of course, didn’t make anything better.

It often occurred to her that maybe she’d never love again, although when she said this to Molly, who of course already had another potential boyfriend lined up, Molly scoffed and said, “Don’t do this to yourself.”

At the start of September, Lily called her from Nantucket. “I have a guy for you.”

Shelby was in the middle of writing a paper, trying to make a big theoretical leap that probably didn’t totally work. “I don’t know,” Shelby said. In some ways, she was rather enjoying her anti-romantic life. She was certainly enjoying feeling bad for herself.

“I think you’ll like him,” Lily pushed. “Just go for one drink with him? You have to prove to yourself that Jared wasn’t the end-all, be-all of guys. Please.”