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“What about you? Are you going home for the summer before law school?”
For the first time today he looks unsure and out of place. He rubs the back of his neck and blows out a slow breath. “I bombed the LSAT. My score wasn’t high enough and I haven’t been accepted to any of the law schools that I applied to. This last semester was really rough.”
I’m floored by his omission. Shocked actually, because that wasn’t anything that I expected him to ever say. I figured with all of his planning, studying and preparing he would have already had the next three years mapped out. If it’s one thing I do know, it’s things not going your way so I tell him something that always makes me feel marginally better. “It’s going to work out. Everything happens for a reason and I’m sure you’ll figure out your next steps. You’re smart and dedicated.”
“Yeah, I’m going to study for the LSAT more and take it again.I’ve got a paralegal-type job in a law firm back in my hometown that’s going to let me work there so it’ll give me time to study and get some experience so hopefully I can start law school in the fall of oh-seven.”
“I have no doubt that it’s all going to work out for you.” I don’t know if I’ll ever get another chance to tell him this so I just go for it.I mean what harm could it do at this point?I’ve got nothing to lose. “I’m still really sorry about everything that happened. I’m glad to know that you don’t hate me and that we aren’t enemies.”
He shakes his head. “You were never my enemy.”
“It felt that way. When we didn’t speak for so long, when you ignored my messages online. I just… I don’t know I felt like we went from liking each other to enemies and I’m sure I read too much into everything but I’m just sorry and I’m glad that we spent this day together. I still wish things would have turned out differently for us.”
He rubs his hand through his hair and never looks away from me. “Me too Nikki. I really wish things could have worked out. I think about that night a lot too but honestly, you hurt me but I was never your enemy. I’m just glad that we can do both of these ceremonies together. I wouldn’t have wanted to do these without you and it would have sucked.”
I roll my lips in to try and keep from smiling. It feels good to know how he feels and that he too wishes things could have worked out differently. If only I was brave enough to tell him that I’d give up Europe tomorrow if he asked me to stay, to be with him because the connection that I felt to him all those months ago, it’s still there and I still yearn for it. He doesn’t know how deeply I wish things between us could have worked out but I have to take my own words to heart. Everything happens for a reason and you just have to trust that everything is going to work out in the end.
I don’t want to leave him so I take out my phone and text my parents letting them know we have the second ceremony. If he’s not going to hang out with his parents between ceremonies, I’m happy to spend this time with him. Time never stops so when the second ceremony rolls around, I barely pay attention to it, all I can think about is the revelations that Brad gave me.
When the time comes to part ways I manage to hold back the tears. I don’t know if we will ever see each other again and that final thought has me crying in the car on the way to dinner with my family and closest friends. They all think I’m crying because of the milestone of graduating, but it’s really because my heart is breaking all over again.
I lay in bed unable to sleep. I have to be up in five hours to head to the airport. I can’t stop replaying today over and over in my head. The last few months I’ve been able to quiet down the constant thoughts that would plague me but tonight I’m unable to overcome them but for a different reason. I get out of bed and boot up my computer, logging in to my online profile. When I see that I have a message I click on the box. I slap my hand across my mouth to keep the gasp from waking up everyone in the house. I have an online message from Brad for the first time in almost nine months.
With a shaking finger, I click on it to open and begin reading it.
Nikki, I’m so glad that I got to experience today with you. I didn’t tell you today in person and I don’t know why I didn’t but I like you. I still like you and have liked you all of these months that we haven’t spoken. I don’t know why I didn’t just come out and say all these things to you over the course of the school year but it just never felt like the right time. I had so much going on this year and I know it’s no excuse now when I look back on it but I didn’t know how to organize it all in a way I thought I could give my best self to everyone and everything.
I know that you moved on eventually and I understand why. That night in the bathroom at the frat house, I shouldn’t have just shut you out and not cleared the air. I was drunk and I couldn’t trust my thoughts or my mouth. I knew that if I started to talk to you about us that I’d end up telling you that I liked you and wanted to be with you and I knew that I also wasn’t ready to do that because I was so focused on school and trying to make a better life for myself down the road with getting into a law school. If I could go back I would. I would have kissed you on that balcony when you wanted me to be your boyfriend and I would have said that your options didn’t matter because I was the only one for you.
I failed in more ways than one. I didn’t get into law school, and I didn’t get to be with you. Those two things are my biggest regrets. I know you are leaving for your trip and I hope you have a great time. Hopefully, we will see each other again someday because to me you are the one that got away and I wish that I had caught you because I think I might be in love with you.
At some point, while reading his message I’ve started to cry.Now he tells me. I cry and laugh at the same time because I meanreally, what else am I supposed to do? We have horrible timing. He’s pouring his heart out in this letter and I’m getting on a plane in just a few hours. I can’t cancel the trip and he’s not asking me to. Am I supposed to just walk away and hope that it all works out in the future? I mean he literally just told me in a message that he thinks he might be in love with me. Before everything went to shit that night we used to talk so much. We would text and call and message online and it wasn’t just generic stuff. It was deep things. Things that he wanted in life and how he was feeling. We’d shareall of that and then to have it ripped away like a Band-Aid was crushing for me.
Seeing him today and knowing he wanted to spend the day with me lifted me up so much. And now reading this message and knowing he still feels more for me… I feel elated but sad. Something I wanted for so long and being so close to having it—but not at all; I think it might be worse now than when he wasn’t speaking to me. At least when he wasn’t speaking to me I just imagined that he hated me. To know he might be in love with me, yeah that hurts. Because I think I might love him too.
SWEET HOME ALABAMA
March 2007
Honky-Tonk Tank’s Music Hallis just about what you’d think it looks like based on its name. Sawdust floors, black, high-top tables with bar stools and a mixture of country and rebel music, posters lining the walls. The one good thing the place has going for it is a live band on the weekends. It’s usually a mixture of country and other nights like tonight a cover band playing hits from the eighties, maybe even some tunes from the seventies. There’s just enough lighting to move around and dance so not a full club but not just a bar either.
I’ve been living and working in Huntsville, Alabama for three months now and this is the most happening place to be on a Friday night. I would never have come here on my own, but my co-workers love to come here on the weekends and introduced me to the place. It’s also the only place that has mixed drinks for less than six dollars. Sold. My co-workers do the two-step or some shit on the dance floor while I just bob my head and smile at them. This isn’t my kind of dancing, but I appreciate that they invite me out with them. Most of them are from the area, others having goneto college together. I’m the odd woman out where I knew no one coming here.
I moved down here right after Christmas and took a job working in a field completely unrelated to my degree. It’s in Aerospace and since I’m not an engineer it was clearly a situation of who I knew to get the job. Isn’t that why I joined a sorority in college? For the connections first and friends second. The hot guys that were my number three… well we know how that worked out. At least the first two on my list panned out.
I glance down to check my phone for the nineteenth time and see no new messages. Empty. When I got back from Europe in August, I found out that Brad got a late acceptance to a law school in Illinois. He had left two days before I got back into town. Not that it would have mattered because he was back in his hometown which was two hours away from mine but two hours is better than twelve. When I was in Europe I tried to focus on the trip and having a good time so even though it was extremely hard, I never got online while I was there. When I came back and saw his message about law school, I was genuinely happy for him, but knew that our time wasn’t then either, if ever.
When I got offered the job in December, I jumped at the chance. I packed most of my worldly possessions and hot-footed it down south past the Mason Dixon line; it’s another realm of life and living. I’ve tried not to look back but other than my family there wasn’t anything left for me in that town. My friends all dispersed for jobs or their hometowns. Either way, when I left, I knew I wasn’t going to miss anything by coming here. Brad and I have messaged a few times online and via text but it’s been a few weeks since I’ve heard anything from him. I get it. He’s in law school and studying hard. He’s focused on his career—just like he was in undergrad.
We’ve never talked about the message that he sent the night of graduation. Sometimes I wonder if he was drunk or if I made it up. I have to log in and read it again sometimes to really prove to myself that I didn’t dream it all up that night. I take a sip of my signature drink, coconut rum, and Sprite, and slip my phone back into my crossbody. There’s this cute guy named Robbie who’s been flirting with me since the first week I started working here but I haven’t given in to that idea. I don’t think it’s best to shit where you eat so I’ve been flirty but noncommittal.
Would I drop everything if Brad came out and told me that he wants us to be together? Yep. Sure would and that’s a dangerous thing to think about because hope can make you waste your life away and I don’t want that for me. I finish my drink and excuse myself from the group with apologies of having to work an extra shift early tomorrow. Really, I just want to go back to my tiny apartment and watch television until I fall asleep. As I walk out of the bar, I can hearSweet Home Alabamabeing covered by the band and I shake my head, because right now, Alabama sure doesn’t feel like home to me.
October 2007
I fall into my full-size bed and groan. I’ve been on my feet for the last twelve hours. When I started this job it was normal work hours which meant I could have a normal life. Recently, the company got a large contract and ramped up the production, which in turn has me working crazy hours. I’m part of the training team inside of Human Resources and it’s been our job to make sure everyone understands it. I barely understand it myself, but I’ve been taught enough to teach it. Since I’m a contract employee I’m notgoing to renew at the end of the year so I have until then to decide what to do.
I’m so tired, I don’t even bother changing my clothes into my pajamas. I just wrap the blanket around me, but when I see my computer on my desk still in idle mode, something inside me pulls me towards it. I haven’t talked to Brad on the phone in months and when we do speak it’s just been through text messages or online. I lay in bed and pull up our text thread on my new iPhone. It’s so fancy I can’t figure everything out and it’s weird to just tap a screen instead of using a real keyboard like on my Sidekick. When I see our message thread it’s been over a month since we last talked.
