Chapter 1
Sadie
Fuckboy Lawyer: Did you know that the Moai (the Easter Island heads) have bodies.
In fact, I didn’t know that. I had follow-up questions, but I also knew where those would lead. So, just like when I received the text ten hours ago, I did not respond. Instead, I flipped my phone the middle finger, forgetting for a moment that I was in a crowded O’Hare airport terminal waiting to board, and shoved my phone back into my legging’s pocket.
Six in the morning was an ungodly hour for a flight. Judging by the hollow stares of the people around me, I was not the only person who thought so. I’d pushed my arrival to the airport as late as possible, meaning that by the time I got through security, all the little plastic seats were full. I was one of the lucky few leaning against a windowsill waiting to board. It was challenging to fall asleep standing up, but I was giving it my best shot.
It’s worth it, I told myself for...who knew how many times.
By the time I had the bandwidth, and funds—let’s be real, the funds were questionable—to purchase a ticket by the deadline my sister, June, had given me, this was the last flight available.
“You’re my maid-of-honor, I need you there,” she insisted, over and over. Even though I had promised to be there. It was so like her, and therestof my family, to assume that I wouldn’t be able to show up on time if she didn’t make a big deal of it.
I refused to be less indignant or see the irony that even with her pestering, I’d just managed to book one of the last seats for this flight. And if, God forbid, I had ended up on the next available plane it would have made me a day late.
But still.
I was a mostly functioning adult. They didn’t have to treat me like a nightmare adolescent.
I was hours away from the Hotel Bellwether, and ready to fulfill my big-sister duties—after a nap. I rubbed my fingers across my eyelids, wishing it would help me feel more alert.
It didn’t.
A few feet away, a baby wailed, piercing the silence and startling everyone. One of the dads bent to pick the infant out of the stroller, as the other dad grabbed a bottle from the diaper bag. I was turning away when I caught a glimpse between their arms of a shoulder and a strong jaw I could have sworn I recognized.
My stomach plummeted.
The blood drained from my face.
My heart skipped and then sped up.
I snapped my head back in that direction, but the dads had shifted, hiding whoever was behind them. I’d have to move to double check that he was who I recognized in that split second. But that would becrazy, because there was no way that this stranger was my fuckboy lawyer.
Notmy. Never mine.
Just a situationship that had strung along forwaytoo long.
Like clockwork, a flood of embarrassment washed over me as the memory of our last night together came back in vivid detail. His body, his touch, the woodsy scent of his skin. The terrible sinking feeling that it all meant so much more to me than it did him—if it meant anything to him at all. The shrug of one of his naked shoulders while eating a bowl of ramen barefoot in my kitchen after I’d opened up about wanting something more meaningful with him, and he’d let me down “gently.”
“My work is where I find meaning. It’s enough.” He’d left shortly afterward claiming to have an early day the next morning and needing sleep. Clearly, I did feel more for him than he felt for me. It happened, not that I’d ever been good at receiving rejection. But then, he should have had the decency to float into oblivion and not send non-work-related texts every couple of weeks. Reminding me every time that I missed him, that I still wanted him, and that I didn’t feel even the slightest blip of interest for anyone else.
Shaking my head, I forced a calming breath in and out of my lungs. At least his comment about life’s purpose had sparked a new desire in me to find mine.
What did I want out of life? Weeks later, I still had no idea.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket again, and fired off a text to my best friend, Alicia.
Me: It doesn’t mean anything that I just thought I saw Fuckboy, Attorney at Law, waiting for the sameflight as me?
I dropped my arm still gripping my phone tight and let my head fall against the window behind me.
To my surprise, my phone vibrated, before I remembered that Michigan was after Chicago by an hour and she was probably just waking up.
Alicia: Jamison is there?!
Me: Oh, God, no! It must be some shitty thing my brain is doing.
