Page 53 of Only After We Met
To: Ginger Davies
Subject: Life is long
True, you have to finish school. But when you do, there are still lots of summers left. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll catch a plane for Australia or somewhere else? You did do it once, remember?
From: Ginger Davies
To: Rhys Baker
Subject: RE: Life is long
Yes, I remember how I was lost until some dude looking bored with the world came up and rescued me. Rhys, let’s admit it, I’m not one of those adventurous chicks destined to take on the world. Probably the opposite. Probably I’m just waiting for the world to crush me. But it’s fine, I’ve got lots of other things going on. Not all of us have to be brave and independent and all that. I don’t know, I see you and I think, I just couldn’t live like that: grabbing a bag and taking off on my own. I’d probably lose my shit, break down in tears, and run for the first embassy I could find.
From: Ginger Davies
To: Rhys Baker
Subject: Routine
I feel weird when we go for more than a day without writing. Turning on the computer and not finding one of your emails makes me sleep badly, just so you know.
I told you already. I’m addicted to your emails.
25
Ginger
I was nervous. I always am on my birthday, plus I was expecting a package from Rhys. That’s why I’d woken up at 6:00 a.m. and hadn’t managed to get back to sleep despite hours of tossing and turning. I finally got up, trying not to make noise because I didn’t want to bother Kate, and I had a weird feeling in my chest as I reread our last couple of emails.
I felt like something wasn’t right.
Like I was backsliding.
That first semester, I’d been so busy thinking of my final project, my classes, and my future plans that I hadn’t devoted much time to myself. I was just someone who would settle as soon as I found a warm, comfortable nest, and that was what the nest I had built with Kate bit by bit over the past few months was: safe, stable. And so once again, I was turning in on myself.
And once again, there he was, reminding me of all the things that were out there. Other places, other countries. An entire world.
Part of me was bothered by it.
Another part of me liked that he was trying to shake me up.
Kate awoke sometime after nine and tackled me into bed, singing the happy birthday song while we laughed. Then she hopped in the shower, and I ate an energy bar and looked out the window at the leaden sky. It looked like snow. For a moment, I thought about how nice it would have been to celebrate my twenty-second birthday somewhere warm and far away, where there was no such thing as routine.
“You coming to breakfast?” Kate asked on her way out.
“No. I had an energy bar.”
“Are you really going to wait here for your present?”
“Don’t look at me like that, Kate. If I leave, and the mailman comes and I’m not here, I won’t get it till after Christmas vacation. I can’t wait that long.”
“Fine. Tell me if you change your mind. I’m going to have a coffee with the girls, and then we’re going to the same pub we were at the other night. Claire left her keys there.”
When I was alone, I grabbed two textbooks I hadn’t packed yet and looked back over some notes, trying to do something useful. I kept getting distracted though, looking out the window, watching some students laughing against the wall of the dorm building while they smoked. First-year kids, second-year, maybe. I had to remind myself that I was nearly done here. I still couldn’t accept it. Worst of all, I wasn’t especially excited.
Someone rang the doorbell.
I got up so quickly, I hit my knee on the corner of the table and cursed. I took a deep breath and didn’t bother putting on my shoes, thinking the mailman wouldn’t really mind if he saw me in my reindeer pajamas and a different-colored sock on each foot.