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“Grace, what if I found him?”
I refused to face him. I feared if I did, I would say things I would regret. Things like, Please find the boy I loved. I miss him. I want him. Thankfully, I held strong. “I think your family would love that.”
“What about you? Us?”
I rubbed my chest. It was as if I could feel my heart breaking. “There never was an us.”
“Could there be?” He said it like it was his last shot of hope.
I grabbed my stomach, holding back the sobs and my true feelings. “No, Brooks,” I whispered.Chapter Twenty-ThreeI finished arranging my two signs on the front desk. The one for Lorelai read, I donut want to go to my reunion with anyone but you. I placed it above a huge box of letter-shaped donuts that spelled out REUNION. For Colette I had a venti espresso and a sign that said, This is hard to espresso, but I’ll take a shot. Reunion?
After I got home last night and bawled my eyes out to my ever-faithful daddy, who had waited up for me, I stayed up half the night looking up cheesy ways to ask my two best friends to my reunion. Then I worked on the signs. The other half of the night, I watched my beloved Noah Drake tapes. And I might have consumed an entire pan of brownies. After a night like that, I looked dreadful this morning and would be treating myself to my own facial today. The day also called for lots of caffeine, not only in my eye cream but in the six-pack of Diet Pepsi I’d already halfway consumed. I’d peed like ten times this morning. But, hey, at least it meant I wasn’t dehydrated from shedding gallons of tears last night.
I kept telling myself that last night was a good thing. It was like a reset button. Now I never needed to worry about Brooks or the voice again. In fact, I might never worry about men, period. I was thinking of adopting a puppy and a baby. Or maybe hitting up a sperm bank. After all, I did have beautiful lady part mucus, and my ovaries were still working. I mean, why not? We could convert the extra bedroom into a nursery. I wondered what Daddy would think about that.
Actually, Daddy had surprised me last night. I’d thought he would be happy, or at least relieved, that I had committed fully to being a spinster. Instead he suggested that I not be so hasty. That perhaps Brooks would surprise me. Daddy had said he’d always had a feeling about Brooks and me. Yeah, so had I, and it hadn’t turned out very well.
I’d spent over half my life waiting for the voice to reappear. Waiting for a man to make me feel the way Brooks had. Come to find out, my old best friend was a bigger jerk than I thought. I was still sick thinking about him sleeping with Morgan while I was standing alone and devastated at prom. A few guys had asked me to dance, but I could tell the girls they had brought weren’t fond of the idea, so I had declined. My only dance that night was the obligatory one with the prom king. Of course, my girlfriends and I threw down a few numbers, but most of the night I felt small and humiliated. I had even worried something bad had happened to Brooks. I guess something awful had happened to him—Morgan. I shuddered thinking about the pair.
I needed to stop dwelling on this. I had things to look forward to, like dating my best friends and putting the final touches on the reunion. Sure, it was turning out a lot differently than I thought it would, but at least I knew I would have fun with Colette and Lorelai. There would be no worrying about whether there would be a good night kiss or if the date would lead to more dates. Brooks and Julian had given me a gift. It had come in a crappy package, but at least I knew the truth about them both before I wasted another second with either one of them.
A minute after I had everything neatly arranged, my best friends walked in, all smiles and looking like they had gotten a good night’s rest.
“Good morning,” I sang. It sounded pretty croaky, since I hadn’t slept a wink last night.
“Good morning,” they both responded, looking intently at my setup. They walked closer, reading the signs. They both kept looking between me and the words, confusion etched on their faces.
I leaned on the welcome desk for support. I wasn’t a spring chicken anymore, and the sleepless night was getting to me. “Well, don’t leave me hanging. Will y’all be my dates?”
They tiptoed toward me as if I were a wild caged animal.
