Maybe in another life : a novel
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- ISBN: 9781476776880
- ISBN: 1476776881
-
Physical Description:
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336 pages ; 21 cm - Edition: First Washington Square Press trade paperback edition.
- Publisher: New York : Washington Square Press, 2015.
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Genre: | Chick lit. Fiction. Romance fiction. Romance fiction. Love stories. |
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Chapter 1
Itâs a good thing I booked an aisle seat, because Iâm the last one on the plane. I knew Iâd be late for my flight. Iâm late for almost everything. Thatâs why I booked an aisle seat in the first place. I hate making people get up so that I can squeeze by. This is also why I never go to the bathroom during movies, even though I always have to go to the bathroom during movies.
I walk down the tight aisle, holding my carry-on close to my body, trying not to bump anyone. I hit a manâs elbow and apologize even though he doesnât seem to notice. When I barely graze a womanâs arm, she shoots daggers at me as if I stabbed her. I open my mouth to say Iâm sorry and then think better of it.
I spot my seat easily; it is the only open one.
The air is stale. The music is Muzak. The conversations around me are punctuated by the clicks of the overhead compartments being slammed shut.
I get to my seat and sit down, smiling at the woman next to me. Sheâs older and round, with short salt-and-pepper hair. I shove my bag in front of me and buckle my seat belt. My tray tableâs up. My electronics are off. My seat is in the upright position. When youâre late a lot, you learn how to make up for lost time.
I look out the window. The baggage handlers are bundled up in extra layers and neon jackets. Iâm happy to be headed to a warmer climate. I pick up the in-flight magazine.
Soon I hear the roar of the engine and feel the wheels beneath us start to roll. The woman next to me grips the armrests as we ascend. She looks petrified.
Iâm not scared of flying. Iâm scared of sharks, hurricanes, and false imprisonment. Iâm scared that I will never do anything of value with my life. But Iâm not scared of flying.
Her knuckles are white with tension.
I tuck the magazine back into the pouch. âNot much of a flier?â I ask her. When Iâm anxious, talking helps. If talking helps her, itâs the least I can do.
The woman turns and looks at me as we glide into the air. â?âFraid not,â she says, smiling ruefully. âI donât leave New York very often. This is my first time flying to Los Angeles.â
âWell, if it makes you feel any better, I fly a fair amount, and I can tell you, with any flight, itâs really only takeoff and landing that are hard. Weâve got about three more minutes of this part and then about five minutes at the end that can be tough. The rest of it⦠you might as well be on a bus. So just eight bad minutes total, and then youâre in California.â
Weâre at an incline. Itâs steep enough that an errant bottle of water rolls down the aisle.
âEight minutes is all?â she asks.
I nod. âThatâs it,â I tell her. âYouâre from New York?â
She nods. âHow about you?â
I shrug. âI was living in New York. Now Iâm moving back to L.A.â
The plane drops abruptly and then rights itself as we make our way past the clouds. She breathes in deeply. I have to admit, even I feel a little queasy.
âBut I was only in New York for about nine months,â I say. The longer I talk, the less attention she has to focus on the turbulence. âIâve been moving around a bit lately. I went to school in Boston. Then I moved to D.C., then Portland, Oregon. Then Seattle. Then Austin, Texas. Then New York. The city where dreams come true. Although, you know, not for me. But I did grow up in Los Angeles. So you could say Iâm going back to where I came from, but I donât know that Iâd call it home.â
âWhereâs your family?â she asks. Her voice is tight. Sheâs looking forward.
âMy family moved to London when I was sixteen. My younger sister, Sarah, got accepted to the Royal Ballet School, and they couldnât pass that up. I stayed and finished school in L.A.â
âYou lived on your own?â Itâs working. The distraction.
âI lived with my best friendâs family until I finished high school. And then I left for college.â
The plane levels out. The captain tells us our altitude. She takes her hands off the armrest and breathes.
âSee?â I say to her. âJust like a bus.â
âThank you,â she says.
âAnytime.â
She looks out the window. I pick up the magazine again. She turns back to me. âWhy do you move around so much?â she says. âIsnât that difficult?â She immediately corrects herself. âListen to me, the minute I stop hyperventilating, Iâm acting like your mother.â
I laugh with her. âNo, no, itâs fine,â I say. I donât move from place to place on purpose. Itâs not a conscious choice to be a nomad. Although I can see that each move is my own decision, predicated on nothing but my ever-growing sense that I donât belong where I am, fueled by the hope that maybe there is, in fact, a place I do belong, a place just off in the future. âI guess⦠I donât know,â I say. Itâs hard to put into words, especially to someone I barely know. But then I open my mouth, and out it comes. âNo place has felt like home.â
She looks at me and smiles. âIâm sorry,â she says. âThat has to be hard.â
I shrug, because itâs an impulse. Itâs always my impulse to ignore the bad, to run toward the good.
But Iâm also not feeling great about my own impulses at the moment. Iâm not sure they are getting me where I want to go.
I stop shrugging.
And then, because I wonât see her again after this flight, I take it one step further. I tell her something Iâve only recently told myself. âSometimes I worry Iâll never find a place to call home.â
She puts her hand on mine, ever so briefly. âYou will,â she says. âYouâre young still. You have plenty of time.â
I wonder if she can tell that Iâm twenty-nine and considers that young, or if she thinks Iâm younger than I am.
âThanks,â I say. I take my headphones out of my bag and put them on.
âAt the end of the flight, during the five tricky minutes when we land, maybe we can talk about my lack of career choices,â I say, laughing. âThat will definitely distract you.â
She smiles broadly and lets out a laugh. âIâd consider it a personal favor.â
Maybe in Another Life
When I come out of the gate, Gabby is holding up a sign that says âHannah Marie Martin,â as if I wouldnât recognize her, as if I wouldnât know she was my ride.
I run toward her, and as I get closer, I can see that she has drawn a picture of me next to my name. It is a crude sketch but not altogether terrible. The Hannah of her drawing has big eyes and long lashes, a tiny nose, and a line for a mouth. On the top of my head is hair drawn dramatically in a high bun. The only thing of note drawn on my stick-figure body is an oversized pair of boobs.
Itâs not necessarily how I see myself, but I admit, if you reduced me to a caricature, Iâd be big boobs and a high bun. Sort of like how Mickey Mouse is round ears and gloved hands or how Michael Jackson is white socks and black loafers.
Iâd much rather be depicted with my dark brown hair and my light green eyes, but I understand that you canât really do much with color when youâre drawing with a Bic pen.
Even though I havenât visited Gabby in person since her wedding day two years ago, I have seen her every Sunday morning of the recent past. We video-chat no matter what we have to do that day or how hungover one of us is feeling. It is, in some ways, the most reliable thing in my life.
Gabby is tiny and twiglike. Her hair is kept cropped close in a bob, and thereâs no extra fat on her, not an inch to spare. When I hug her, I remember how odd it is to hug someone so much smaller than I am, how different the two of us seem at first glance. I am tall, curvy, and white. She is short, thin, and Black.
She doesnât have any makeup on, and yet she is one of the prettiest women here. I donât tell her that, because I know what sheâd say. Sheâd say thatâs irrelevant. Sheâd say we shouldnât be complimenting each other on our looks or competing with each other over who is prettier. Sheâs got a point, so I keep it to myself.
I have known Gabby since we were both fourteen years old. We sat next to each other in earth science class the first day of high school. The friendship was fast and everlasting. We were Gabby and Hannah, Hannah and Gabby, one name rarely mentioned without the other in tow.
I moved in with her and her parents, Carl and Tina, when my family left for London. Carl and Tina treated me as if I were their own. They coached me through applying for schools, made sure I did my homework, and kept me on a curfew. Carl routinely tried to persuade me to become a doctor, like him and his father. By then, he knew that Gabby wouldnât follow on his path. She already knew she wanted to work in public service. I think Carl figured I was his last shot. But Tina instead encouraged me to find my own way. Unfortunately, Iâm still not sure what that way is. But back then, I just assumed it would all fall into place, that the big things in life would take care of themselves.
After we went off to college, Gabby in Chicago, myself in Boston, we still talked all the time but started to find new lives for ourselves. Freshman year, she became friends with another Black student at her school named Vanessa. Gabby would tell me about their trips to the nearby mall and the parties they went to. Iâd have been lying if I said I wasnât nervous back then, in some small way, that Vanessa would become closer to Gabby than I ever could, that Vanessa could share something with Gabby that I was not a part of.
I asked Gabby about it over the phone once. I was lying in my dorm room on my twin XL bed, the phone sweaty and hot on my ear from our already-hours-long conversation.
âDo you feel like Vanessa understands you better than I do?â I asked her. The minute the question came out of my mouth, I was embarrassed. It had seemed reasonable in my head but sounded irrational coming out of my mouth. If words were things, I would have rushed to pluck them out of the air and put them back in my mouth.
Gabby laughed at me. âSome things, sure. But overall, no. Do you think white people understand you more than I do just because theyâre white?â
âNo,â I said. âOf course not.â
âSo be quiet,â Gabby said.
And I did. If there is one thing I love about Gabby, it is that she has always known when I should be quiet. She is, in fact, the only person who often proves to know me better than I know myself.
âLet me guess,â she says now, as she takes my carry-on bag out of my hand, a gentlemanly gesture. âWeâre going to need to rent one of those baggage carts to get all of your stuff.â
I laugh. âIn my defense, I am moving across the country,â I say.
I long ago stopped buying furniture or large items. I tend to sublet furnished apartments. You learn after one or two moves that buying an IKEA bed, putting it together, and then breaking it down and selling it for fifty bucks six months later is a waste of time and money. But I do still have things, some of which have survived multiple cross-country trips. It would feel callous to let go of them now.
âIâm going to guess thereâs at least four bottles of Orange Ginger body lotion in here,â Gabby says as she grabs one of my bags off the carousel.
I shake my head. âOnly the one. Iâm running low.â
I started using body lotion somewhere around the time she and I met. We would go to the mall together and smell all the lotions in all the different stores. But every time, I kept buying the same one. Orange Ginger. At one point, I had seven bottles of the stuff stocked up.
We grab the rest of my bags from the carousel and pack them one after another onto the cart, the two of us pushing with all our might across the lanes of airport traffic and into the parking structure. We load them into her tiny car and then settle into our seats.
We make small talk as she makes her way out of the garage and navigates the streets leading us to the freeway. She asks about my flight and how it felt to leave New York. She apologizes that her guest room is small. I tell her not to be ridiculous, and I thank her again for letting me stay.
The repetition of history is not lost on me. Itâs more than a decade later, and I am once again staying in Gabbyâs guest room. Itâs been more than ten years, and yet I am still floating from place to place, relying on the kindness of Gabby and her family. This time, itâs Gabby and her husband, Mark, instead of Gabby and her parents. But if anything, that just highlights the difference between the two of us, how much Gabby has changed since then and how much I have not. Gabbyâs the VP of Development at a nonprofit that works with at-risk teenagers. Iâm a waitress. And not a particularly good one.
Once Gabby is flying down the freeway, once driving no longer takes her attention, or maybe once she is going so fast she knows I canât jump out of the car, she asks what she has been dying to ask since I hugged her hello. âSo what happened? Did you tell him you were leaving?â
I sigh loudly and look out the window. âHe knows not to contact me,â I say. âHe knows I donât want to see him ever again. So I suppose it doesnât really matter where he thinks I am.â
Gabby looks straight ahead at the road, but I see her nod, pleased with me.
I need her approval right now. Her opinion of me is currently a better litmus test than my own. Itâs been a little rough going lately. And while I know Gabby will always love me, I also know that as of late, I have tested her unconditional support.
Mostly because I started sleeping with a married man.
I didnât know he was married at first. And for some reason, I thought that meant it was OK. He never admitted he was married. He never wore a wedding ring. He didnât even have a paler shade of skin around his ring finger, the way magazines tell you married men will. He was a liar. A good one, at that. And even though I suspected the truth, I thought that if he never said it, if he never admitted it to my face, then I wasnât accountable for the fact that it was true.
I suspected something was up when he once didnât answer my calls for six days and then finally called me back acting as if nothing was out of the ordinary. I suspected there was another woman when he refused to let me use his phone. I suspected that I was, in fact, the other woman when we ran into a coworker of his at a restaurant in SoHo, and rather than introduce me to the man, Michael told me I had something in my teeth and that I should go to the bathroom to get it out. I did go to the bathroom. And I found nothing there. But if Iâm being honest, I also found it hard to look at myself in the mirror for more than a few seconds before going back out there and pretending I didnât know what he was trying to do.
And Gabby, of course, knew all of this. I was admitting it to her at the same rate I was admitting it to myself.
âI think heâs married,â I finally said to her a month or so ago. I was sitting in bed, still in my pajamas, talking to her on my laptop, and fixing my bun.
I watched as Gabbyâs pixelated face frowned. âI told you he was married,â she said, her patience wearing thin. âI told you this three weeks ago. I told you that you need to stop this. Because itâs wrong. And because that is some womanâs husband. And because you shouldnât allow a man to treat you like a mistress. I told you all of this.â
âI know, but I really didnât think he was married. He would have told me if he was. You know? So I didnât think he was. And Iâm not going to ask him, because thatâs so insulting, isnât it?â That was my rationale. I didnât want to insult him.
âYou need to cut this crap out, Hannah. Iâm serious. You are a wonderful person who has a lot to offer the world. But this is wrong. And you know it.â
I listened to her. And then I let all of her advice fly right through my head and out into the wind. As if it was meant for someone else and wasnât mine to hold on to.
âNo,â I said, shaking my head. âI donât think youâre right about this. Michael and I met at a bar in Bushwick on a Wednesday night. I never go to Bushwick. And I rarely go out on a Wednesday night. And neither does he! What are the odds of that? That two people would come together like that?â
âYouâre joking, right?â
âWhy would I be joking? Iâm talking about fate here. Honestly. Letâs say he is married . . .â
âHe is.â
âWe donât know that. But letâs say that he is.â
âHe is.â
âLetâs say that he is. That doesnât mean that we werenât fated to meet. For all we know, Iâm just playing out the natural course of destiny here. Maybe heâs married and thatâs OK because itâs how things were meant to be.â
I could tell Gabby was disappointed in me. I could see it in her eyebrows and the turn of her lips.
âLook, I donât even know that heâs married,â I said. But I did. I did know it. And because I knew it, I had to run as far away from it as I could. So I said, âYou know, Gabby, even if he is married, that doesnât mean Iâm not better for him than this other person. Allâs fair in love and war.â
Two weeks later, his wife found out about me and called me screaming.
Heâd done this before.
Sheâd found two others.
And did I know they had two children?
I did not know that.
Itâs very easy to rationalize what youâre doing when you donât know the faces and the names of the people you might hurt. Itâs very easy to choose yourself over someone else when itâs an abstract.
And I think thatâs why I kept everything abstract.
I had been playing the âWell, Butâ game. The âWe Donât Know That for Sureâ game. The âEven Soâ game. I had been viewing the truth through my own little lens, one that was narrow and rose-colored.
And then, suddenly, it was as if the lens fell from my face, and I could suddenly see, in staggering black-and-white, what I had been doing.
Does it matter that once I faced the truth I behaved honorably? Does it matter that once I heard his wifeâs voice, once I knew the names of his children, I never spoke to him again?
Does it matter that I can see, clear as day, my own culpability and that I feel deep remorse? That a small part of me hates myself for relying on willful ignorance to justify what I suspected was wrong?
Gabby thinks it does. She thinks it redeems me. Iâm not so sure.
Once Michael was out of my life, I realized I didnât have much else going for me in New York. The winter was harsh and cold and only seemed to emphasize further how alone I was in a city of millions. I called my parents and my sister, Sarah, a lot that first week after breaking up with Michael, not to talk about my problems but to hear friendly voices. I often got their voice mails. They always called me back. They always do. But I could never seem to accurately guess when they might be available. And very often, with the time difference, we had only a small sliver of time to catch one another.
Last week, everything just started to pile up. The girl whose apartment I was subletting gave me two weeksâ notice that she needed the apartment back. My boss at work hit on me and implied that better shifts went to women who showed cleavage. I got stuck on the G train for an hour and forty-five minutes when a train broke down at Greenpoint Avenue. Michael kept calling me and leaving voice mails asking to explain himself, telling me that he wanted to leave his wife for me, and I was embarrassed to admit that it made me feel better even as it made me feel absolutely terrible.
So I called Gabby. And I cried. I admitted that things were harder in New York than I had ever let on. I admitted that this wasnât working, that my life was not shaping up the way Iâd wanted it to. I told her I needed to change.
And she said, âCome home.â
It took me a minute before I realized she meant that I should move back to Los Angeles. Thatâs how long itâs been since I thought of my hometown as home.
âTo L.A.?â I asked.
âYeah,â she said. âCome home.â
âYou know, Ethan is there,â I said. âHe moved back a few years ago, I think.â
âSo youâll see him,â Gabby said. âIt wouldnât be the worst thing that happened to you. Getting back together with a good guy.â
âIt is warmer there,â I said, looking out my tiny window at the dirty snow on the street below me.
âIt was seventy-two the other day,â she said.
âBut changing cities doesnât solve the larger problem,â I said, for maybe the first time in my life. âI mean, I need to change.â
âI know,â she said. âCome home. Change here.â
It was the first time in a long time that something made sense.
Now Gabby grabs my hand for a moment and squeezes it, keeping her eye on the road. âIâm proud of you that youâre taking control of your life,â she says. âJust by getting on the plane this morning, youâre getting your life together.â
âYou think so?â I ask.
She nods. âI think Los Angeles will be good for you. Donât you? Returning to your roots. Itâs a crime weâve lived so far apart for so many years. Youâre correcting an injustice.â
I laugh. Iâm trying to see this move as a victory instead of a defeat.
Finally, we pull onto Gabbyâs street, and she parks her car at the curb.
We are in front of a complex on a steep, hilly street. Gabby and Mark bought a townhouse last year. I look at the addresses on the row of houses and search for the number four, to see which one is theirs. I may not have been here before, but Iâve been sending cards, baked goods, and various gifts to Gabby for months. I know her address by heart. Just as I catch the number on the door in the glow of the streetlight, I see Mark come out and walk toward us.
Mark is a tall, conventionally handsome man. Very physically strong, very traditionally male. Iâve always had a penchant for guys with pretty eyes and five oâclock shadows, and I thought Gabby did, too. But she ended up with Mark, the poster boy for clean-cut and stable. Heâs the kind of guy who goes to the gym for health reasons. I have never done that.
I open my car door and grab one of my bags. Gabby grabs another. Mark meets us at the car. âHannah!â he says as he gives me a big hug. âIt is so nice to see you.â He takes the rest of the bags out of the car, and we head into the house. I look around their living room. Itâs a lot of neutrals and wood finishes. Safe but gorgeous.
âYour room is upstairs,â she says, and the three of us walk up the tight staircase to the second floor. There is a master bedroom and a bedroom across the hall.
Gabby and Mark lead me into the guest room, and we put all the bags down.
Itâs a small room but big enough for just me. Thereâs a double bed with a billowy white comforter, a desk, and a dresser.
Itâs late, and I am sure both Gabby and Mark are tired, so I do my best to be quick.
âYou guys go ahead to bed. I can get myself settled,â I say.
âYou sure?â Gabby asks.
I insist.
Mark gives me a hug and heads to their bedroom. Gabby tells him sheâll be there in a moment.
âIâm really happy youâre here,â she says to me. âIn all of your city hopping, I always hoped youâd come back. At least for a little while. I like having you close by.â
âWell, you got me,â I tell her, smiling. âPerhaps even closer than you were thinking.â
âDonât be silly,â she says. âLive in my guest room until weâre both ninety years old, as far as Iâm concerned.â She gives me a hug and heads to her room. âIf you wake up before we do, feel free to start the coffee.â
After I hear the bedroom door shut, I grab my toiletry bag and head into the bathroom.
The light in here is bright and unforgiving; some might even go so far as to describe it as harsh. Thereâs a magnifying mirror by the sink. I grab it and pull it toward my face. I can tell I need to get my eyebrows waxed, but overall, there isnât too much to complain about. As I start to push the mirror back into place, the view grazes the outside of my left eye.
I pull on my skin, somewhat in denial of what Iâm seeing. I let it bounce back into shape. I stare and inspect.
I have the beginnings of crowâs-feet.
I have no apartment and no job. I have no steady relationship or even a city to call home. I have no idea what I want to be doing with my life, no idea what my purpose is, and no real sign of a life goal. And yet time has found me. The years Iâve spent dilly-dallying around at different jobs in different cities show on my face.
I have wrinkles.
I let go of the mirror. I brush my teeth. I wash my face. I resolve to buy night cream and start wearing sunscreen. And then I turn down the covers and get into bed.
My life may be a little bit of a disaster. I may not make the best decisions sometimes. But I am not going to lie here and stare at the ceiling, worrying the night away.
Instead, I go to sleep soundly, believing I will do better tomorrow. Things will be better tomorrow. Iâll figure this all out tomorrow.
Tomorrow is, for me, a brand-new day.
Maybe in Another Life
I wake up to a bright, sunny room and a ringing phone.
âEthan!â I whisper into the phone. âItâs nine oâclock on a Saturday morning!â
âYeah,â he says, his gritty voice made grittier by the phone. âBut youâre still on East Coast time. Itâs noon for you. You should be up.â
I continue to whisper. âOK, but Gabby and Mark are still sleeping.â
âWhen do I get to see you?â he says.
I met Ethan in my sophomore year of high school at Homecoming.
I was still living at home with my parents. Gabby was offered a babysitting job that night and decided to take it instead of going to the dance. I ended up going by myself, not because I wanted to go but because my dad teased me that I never went anywhere without her. I went to prove him wrong.
I stood at the wall for most of the night, killing time until I could leave. I was so bored that I thought about calling Gabby and persuading her to join me once her babysitting gig was over. But Jesse Flint was slow-dancing with Jessica Campos all night in the middle of the dance floor. And Gabby loved Jesse Flint, had been pining away for him since high school began. I couldnât do that to her.
As the night wore on and couples started making out in the dimly lit gym, I looked over at the only other person standing against the wall. He was tall and thin, with rumpled hair and a wrinkled shirt. His tie was loose. He looked right back at me. And then he walked over to where I was standing and introduced himself.
âEthan Hanover,â he said, putting out his hand.
âHannah Martin,â I said, putting out my own to grab his.
He was a junior at another school. He told me he was just there as a favor to his neighbor, Katie Franklin, who didnât have a date. I knew Katie fairly well. I knew she was a lesbian who wasnât ready to tell her parents. The whole school knew that she and Teresa Hawkins were more than just friends. So I figured I wasnât hurting anyone by flirting with the boy she brought for cover.
But pretty soon I found myself forgetting anyone else was even at the dance in the first place. When Katie did finally come get him and suggest it was time to go, I felt as if something was being taken from me. I was tempted to reach out and grab him, to claim him for myself.
Ethan had a party at his parentsâ house the next weekend and invited me. Gabby and I didnât normally go to big parties, but I made her come. He perked up the minute I walked in the door. He grabbed my hand and introduced me to his friends. I lost track of Gabby somewhere by the Tostitos.
Soon Ethan and I had ventured upstairs. We were sitting on the top step of the staircase, hip to hip, talking about our favorite bands. He kissed me there, in the dark, the wild party happening just underneath our feet.
âI only threw a party so I could call you and invite you,â he said to me. âIs that stupid?â
I shook my head and kissed him again.
When Gabby came and found me an hour or so later, my lips felt swollen, and I knew I had a hickey.
We lost our virginity to each other a year and a half later. We were in his bedroom when his parents were out of town. He told me he loved me as I lay underneath him, and he kept asking if it was OK.
Some people talk about their first time as a hilarious or pathetic experience. I canât relate. Mine was with someone I loved, someone who also had no idea what we were doing. The first time I had sex, I made love. Iâve always had a soft spot in my heart for Ethan for that very reason.
And then everything fell apart. He got into UC Berkeley. Sarah got into the Royal Ballet School, and my parents packed up and moved to London. I moved in with the Hudsons. And then, one balmy August morning a week before the beginning of my senior year of high school, Ethan got into his parentsâ car and left for Northern California.
We made it until the end of October before we broke up. At the time, we assured each other that it was just because the timing was wrong and the distance was hard. We told each other weâd get back together that summer. We told each other it didnât change anything; we were still soul mates.
But it was no different from the same old song and dance at every college every fall.
I started considering schools in Boston and New York, since living on the East Coast would make it easier to get to London. When Ethan came home for Christmas, I was dating a guy named Chris Rodriguez. When Ethan came home for the summer, he was dating a girl named Alicia Foster.
When I got into Boston University, that was the final nail.
Soon there was more than three thousand miles between us and no plan to shorten the distance.
Ethan and I have occasionally kept in touch, a phone call here or there, a dance or two at mutual friendsâ weddings. But there has always been an unspoken tension. There is always this sense that we havenât followed through on our plan.
He still, all these years later, shines brighter to me than other people. Even after I got over him, I was never able to extinguish the fire completely, as if itâs a pilot light that will remain small and controlled but very much alive.
âYouâve been in this city for twelve hours, according to my calculations,â Ethan says. âAnd Iâll be damned if Iâm going to let you be here for twelve more without seeing me.â
I laugh. âWell, weâll be cutting it close, I think,â I say to him. âGabby says there is some bar in Hollywood that we should go to tonight. She invited a whole bunch of friends from high school, so I can see everybody again. Sheâs calling it a housewarming. Which makes no sense. I donât know.â
Ethan laughs. âText me the time and place, and I will be there.â
âAwesome. Sounds great.â
I start to say good-bye, but his voice chimes in again. âHey, Hannah,â he says.
âYeah?â
âIâm glad you decided to come home.â
I laugh. âWell, I was running out of cities.â
âI donât know,â he says. âI like to think youâve just come to your senses.â
Itâs a good thing I booked an aisle seat, because Iâm the last one on the plane. I knew Iâd be late for my flight. Iâm late for almost everything. Thatâs why I booked an aisle seat in the first place. I hate making people get up so that I can squeeze by. This is also why I never go to the bathroom during movies, even though I always have to go to the bathroom during movies.
I walk down the tight aisle, holding my carry-on close to my body, trying not to bump anyone. I hit a manâs elbow and apologize even though he doesnât seem to notice. When I barely graze a womanâs arm, she shoots daggers at me as if I stabbed her. I open my mouth to say Iâm sorry and then think better of it.
I spot my seat easily; it is the only open one.
The air is stale. The music is Muzak. The conversations around me are punctuated by the clicks of the overhead compartments being slammed shut.
I get to my seat and sit down, smiling at the woman next to me. Sheâs older and round, with short salt-and-pepper hair. I shove my bag in front of me and buckle my seat belt. My tray tableâs up. My electronics are off. My seat is in the upright position. When youâre late a lot, you learn how to make up for lost time.
I look out the window. The baggage handlers are bundled up in extra layers and neon jackets. Iâm happy to be headed to a warmer climate. I pick up the in-flight magazine.
Soon I hear the roar of the engine and feel the wheels beneath us start to roll. The woman next to me grips the armrests as we ascend. She looks petrified.
Iâm not scared of flying. Iâm scared of sharks, hurricanes, and false imprisonment. Iâm scared that I will never do anything of value with my life. But Iâm not scared of flying.
Her knuckles are white with tension.
I tuck the magazine back into the pouch. âNot much of a flier?â I ask her. When Iâm anxious, talking helps. If talking helps her, itâs the least I can do.
The woman turns and looks at me as we glide into the air. â?âFraid not,â she says, smiling ruefully. âI donât leave New York very often. This is my first time flying to Los Angeles.â
âWell, if it makes you feel any better, I fly a fair amount, and I can tell you, with any flight, itâs really only takeoff and landing that are hard. Weâve got about three more minutes of this part and then about five minutes at the end that can be tough. The rest of it⦠you might as well be on a bus. So just eight bad minutes total, and then youâre in California.â
Weâre at an incline. Itâs steep enough that an errant bottle of water rolls down the aisle.
âEight minutes is all?â she asks.
I nod. âThatâs it,â I tell her. âYouâre from New York?â
She nods. âHow about you?â
I shrug. âI was living in New York. Now Iâm moving back to L.A.â
The plane drops abruptly and then rights itself as we make our way past the clouds. She breathes in deeply. I have to admit, even I feel a little queasy.
âBut I was only in New York for about nine months,â I say. The longer I talk, the less attention she has to focus on the turbulence. âIâve been moving around a bit lately. I went to school in Boston. Then I moved to D.C., then Portland, Oregon. Then Seattle. Then Austin, Texas. Then New York. The city where dreams come true. Although, you know, not for me. But I did grow up in Los Angeles. So you could say Iâm going back to where I came from, but I donât know that Iâd call it home.â
âWhereâs your family?â she asks. Her voice is tight. Sheâs looking forward.
âMy family moved to London when I was sixteen. My younger sister, Sarah, got accepted to the Royal Ballet School, and they couldnât pass that up. I stayed and finished school in L.A.â
âYou lived on your own?â Itâs working. The distraction.
âI lived with my best friendâs family until I finished high school. And then I left for college.â
The plane levels out. The captain tells us our altitude. She takes her hands off the armrest and breathes.
âSee?â I say to her. âJust like a bus.â
âThank you,â she says.
âAnytime.â
She looks out the window. I pick up the magazine again. She turns back to me. âWhy do you move around so much?â she says. âIsnât that difficult?â She immediately corrects herself. âListen to me, the minute I stop hyperventilating, Iâm acting like your mother.â
I laugh with her. âNo, no, itâs fine,â I say. I donât move from place to place on purpose. Itâs not a conscious choice to be a nomad. Although I can see that each move is my own decision, predicated on nothing but my ever-growing sense that I donât belong where I am, fueled by the hope that maybe there is, in fact, a place I do belong, a place just off in the future. âI guess⦠I donât know,â I say. Itâs hard to put into words, especially to someone I barely know. But then I open my mouth, and out it comes. âNo place has felt like home.â
She looks at me and smiles. âIâm sorry,â she says. âThat has to be hard.â
I shrug, because itâs an impulse. Itâs always my impulse to ignore the bad, to run toward the good.
But Iâm also not feeling great about my own impulses at the moment. Iâm not sure they are getting me where I want to go.
I stop shrugging.
And then, because I wonât see her again after this flight, I take it one step further. I tell her something Iâve only recently told myself. âSometimes I worry Iâll never find a place to call home.â
She puts her hand on mine, ever so briefly. âYou will,â she says. âYouâre young still. You have plenty of time.â
I wonder if she can tell that Iâm twenty-nine and considers that young, or if she thinks Iâm younger than I am.
âThanks,â I say. I take my headphones out of my bag and put them on.
âAt the end of the flight, during the five tricky minutes when we land, maybe we can talk about my lack of career choices,â I say, laughing. âThat will definitely distract you.â
She smiles broadly and lets out a laugh. âIâd consider it a personal favor.â
Maybe in Another Life
When I come out of the gate, Gabby is holding up a sign that says âHannah Marie Martin,â as if I wouldnât recognize her, as if I wouldnât know she was my ride.
I run toward her, and as I get closer, I can see that she has drawn a picture of me next to my name. It is a crude sketch but not altogether terrible. The Hannah of her drawing has big eyes and long lashes, a tiny nose, and a line for a mouth. On the top of my head is hair drawn dramatically in a high bun. The only thing of note drawn on my stick-figure body is an oversized pair of boobs.
Itâs not necessarily how I see myself, but I admit, if you reduced me to a caricature, Iâd be big boobs and a high bun. Sort of like how Mickey Mouse is round ears and gloved hands or how Michael Jackson is white socks and black loafers.
Iâd much rather be depicted with my dark brown hair and my light green eyes, but I understand that you canât really do much with color when youâre drawing with a Bic pen.
Even though I havenât visited Gabby in person since her wedding day two years ago, I have seen her every Sunday morning of the recent past. We video-chat no matter what we have to do that day or how hungover one of us is feeling. It is, in some ways, the most reliable thing in my life.
Gabby is tiny and twiglike. Her hair is kept cropped close in a bob, and thereâs no extra fat on her, not an inch to spare. When I hug her, I remember how odd it is to hug someone so much smaller than I am, how different the two of us seem at first glance. I am tall, curvy, and white. She is short, thin, and Black.
She doesnât have any makeup on, and yet she is one of the prettiest women here. I donât tell her that, because I know what sheâd say. Sheâd say thatâs irrelevant. Sheâd say we shouldnât be complimenting each other on our looks or competing with each other over who is prettier. Sheâs got a point, so I keep it to myself.
I have known Gabby since we were both fourteen years old. We sat next to each other in earth science class the first day of high school. The friendship was fast and everlasting. We were Gabby and Hannah, Hannah and Gabby, one name rarely mentioned without the other in tow.
I moved in with her and her parents, Carl and Tina, when my family left for London. Carl and Tina treated me as if I were their own. They coached me through applying for schools, made sure I did my homework, and kept me on a curfew. Carl routinely tried to persuade me to become a doctor, like him and his father. By then, he knew that Gabby wouldnât follow on his path. She already knew she wanted to work in public service. I think Carl figured I was his last shot. But Tina instead encouraged me to find my own way. Unfortunately, Iâm still not sure what that way is. But back then, I just assumed it would all fall into place, that the big things in life would take care of themselves.
After we went off to college, Gabby in Chicago, myself in Boston, we still talked all the time but started to find new lives for ourselves. Freshman year, she became friends with another Black student at her school named Vanessa. Gabby would tell me about their trips to the nearby mall and the parties they went to. Iâd have been lying if I said I wasnât nervous back then, in some small way, that Vanessa would become closer to Gabby than I ever could, that Vanessa could share something with Gabby that I was not a part of.
I asked Gabby about it over the phone once. I was lying in my dorm room on my twin XL bed, the phone sweaty and hot on my ear from our already-hours-long conversation.
âDo you feel like Vanessa understands you better than I do?â I asked her. The minute the question came out of my mouth, I was embarrassed. It had seemed reasonable in my head but sounded irrational coming out of my mouth. If words were things, I would have rushed to pluck them out of the air and put them back in my mouth.
Gabby laughed at me. âSome things, sure. But overall, no. Do you think white people understand you more than I do just because theyâre white?â
âNo,â I said. âOf course not.â
âSo be quiet,â Gabby said.
And I did. If there is one thing I love about Gabby, it is that she has always known when I should be quiet. She is, in fact, the only person who often proves to know me better than I know myself.
âLet me guess,â she says now, as she takes my carry-on bag out of my hand, a gentlemanly gesture. âWeâre going to need to rent one of those baggage carts to get all of your stuff.â
I laugh. âIn my defense, I am moving across the country,â I say.
I long ago stopped buying furniture or large items. I tend to sublet furnished apartments. You learn after one or two moves that buying an IKEA bed, putting it together, and then breaking it down and selling it for fifty bucks six months later is a waste of time and money. But I do still have things, some of which have survived multiple cross-country trips. It would feel callous to let go of them now.
âIâm going to guess thereâs at least four bottles of Orange Ginger body lotion in here,â Gabby says as she grabs one of my bags off the carousel.
I shake my head. âOnly the one. Iâm running low.â
I started using body lotion somewhere around the time she and I met. We would go to the mall together and smell all the lotions in all the different stores. But every time, I kept buying the same one. Orange Ginger. At one point, I had seven bottles of the stuff stocked up.
We grab the rest of my bags from the carousel and pack them one after another onto the cart, the two of us pushing with all our might across the lanes of airport traffic and into the parking structure. We load them into her tiny car and then settle into our seats.
We make small talk as she makes her way out of the garage and navigates the streets leading us to the freeway. She asks about my flight and how it felt to leave New York. She apologizes that her guest room is small. I tell her not to be ridiculous, and I thank her again for letting me stay.
The repetition of history is not lost on me. Itâs more than a decade later, and I am once again staying in Gabbyâs guest room. Itâs been more than ten years, and yet I am still floating from place to place, relying on the kindness of Gabby and her family. This time, itâs Gabby and her husband, Mark, instead of Gabby and her parents. But if anything, that just highlights the difference between the two of us, how much Gabby has changed since then and how much I have not. Gabbyâs the VP of Development at a nonprofit that works with at-risk teenagers. Iâm a waitress. And not a particularly good one.
Once Gabby is flying down the freeway, once driving no longer takes her attention, or maybe once she is going so fast she knows I canât jump out of the car, she asks what she has been dying to ask since I hugged her hello. âSo what happened? Did you tell him you were leaving?â
I sigh loudly and look out the window. âHe knows not to contact me,â I say. âHe knows I donât want to see him ever again. So I suppose it doesnât really matter where he thinks I am.â
Gabby looks straight ahead at the road, but I see her nod, pleased with me.
I need her approval right now. Her opinion of me is currently a better litmus test than my own. Itâs been a little rough going lately. And while I know Gabby will always love me, I also know that as of late, I have tested her unconditional support.
Mostly because I started sleeping with a married man.
I didnât know he was married at first. And for some reason, I thought that meant it was OK. He never admitted he was married. He never wore a wedding ring. He didnât even have a paler shade of skin around his ring finger, the way magazines tell you married men will. He was a liar. A good one, at that. And even though I suspected the truth, I thought that if he never said it, if he never admitted it to my face, then I wasnât accountable for the fact that it was true.
I suspected something was up when he once didnât answer my calls for six days and then finally called me back acting as if nothing was out of the ordinary. I suspected there was another woman when he refused to let me use his phone. I suspected that I was, in fact, the other woman when we ran into a coworker of his at a restaurant in SoHo, and rather than introduce me to the man, Michael told me I had something in my teeth and that I should go to the bathroom to get it out. I did go to the bathroom. And I found nothing there. But if Iâm being honest, I also found it hard to look at myself in the mirror for more than a few seconds before going back out there and pretending I didnât know what he was trying to do.
And Gabby, of course, knew all of this. I was admitting it to her at the same rate I was admitting it to myself.
âI think heâs married,â I finally said to her a month or so ago. I was sitting in bed, still in my pajamas, talking to her on my laptop, and fixing my bun.
I watched as Gabbyâs pixelated face frowned. âI told you he was married,â she said, her patience wearing thin. âI told you this three weeks ago. I told you that you need to stop this. Because itâs wrong. And because that is some womanâs husband. And because you shouldnât allow a man to treat you like a mistress. I told you all of this.â
âI know, but I really didnât think he was married. He would have told me if he was. You know? So I didnât think he was. And Iâm not going to ask him, because thatâs so insulting, isnât it?â That was my rationale. I didnât want to insult him.
âYou need to cut this crap out, Hannah. Iâm serious. You are a wonderful person who has a lot to offer the world. But this is wrong. And you know it.â
I listened to her. And then I let all of her advice fly right through my head and out into the wind. As if it was meant for someone else and wasnât mine to hold on to.
âNo,â I said, shaking my head. âI donât think youâre right about this. Michael and I met at a bar in Bushwick on a Wednesday night. I never go to Bushwick. And I rarely go out on a Wednesday night. And neither does he! What are the odds of that? That two people would come together like that?â
âYouâre joking, right?â
âWhy would I be joking? Iâm talking about fate here. Honestly. Letâs say he is married . . .â
âHe is.â
âWe donât know that. But letâs say that he is.â
âHe is.â
âLetâs say that he is. That doesnât mean that we werenât fated to meet. For all we know, Iâm just playing out the natural course of destiny here. Maybe heâs married and thatâs OK because itâs how things were meant to be.â
I could tell Gabby was disappointed in me. I could see it in her eyebrows and the turn of her lips.
âLook, I donât even know that heâs married,â I said. But I did. I did know it. And because I knew it, I had to run as far away from it as I could. So I said, âYou know, Gabby, even if he is married, that doesnât mean Iâm not better for him than this other person. Allâs fair in love and war.â
Two weeks later, his wife found out about me and called me screaming.
Heâd done this before.
Sheâd found two others.
And did I know they had two children?
I did not know that.
Itâs very easy to rationalize what youâre doing when you donât know the faces and the names of the people you might hurt. Itâs very easy to choose yourself over someone else when itâs an abstract.
And I think thatâs why I kept everything abstract.
I had been playing the âWell, Butâ game. The âWe Donât Know That for Sureâ game. The âEven Soâ game. I had been viewing the truth through my own little lens, one that was narrow and rose-colored.
And then, suddenly, it was as if the lens fell from my face, and I could suddenly see, in staggering black-and-white, what I had been doing.
Does it matter that once I faced the truth I behaved honorably? Does it matter that once I heard his wifeâs voice, once I knew the names of his children, I never spoke to him again?
Does it matter that I can see, clear as day, my own culpability and that I feel deep remorse? That a small part of me hates myself for relying on willful ignorance to justify what I suspected was wrong?
Gabby thinks it does. She thinks it redeems me. Iâm not so sure.
Once Michael was out of my life, I realized I didnât have much else going for me in New York. The winter was harsh and cold and only seemed to emphasize further how alone I was in a city of millions. I called my parents and my sister, Sarah, a lot that first week after breaking up with Michael, not to talk about my problems but to hear friendly voices. I often got their voice mails. They always called me back. They always do. But I could never seem to accurately guess when they might be available. And very often, with the time difference, we had only a small sliver of time to catch one another.
Last week, everything just started to pile up. The girl whose apartment I was subletting gave me two weeksâ notice that she needed the apartment back. My boss at work hit on me and implied that better shifts went to women who showed cleavage. I got stuck on the G train for an hour and forty-five minutes when a train broke down at Greenpoint Avenue. Michael kept calling me and leaving voice mails asking to explain himself, telling me that he wanted to leave his wife for me, and I was embarrassed to admit that it made me feel better even as it made me feel absolutely terrible.
So I called Gabby. And I cried. I admitted that things were harder in New York than I had ever let on. I admitted that this wasnât working, that my life was not shaping up the way Iâd wanted it to. I told her I needed to change.
And she said, âCome home.â
It took me a minute before I realized she meant that I should move back to Los Angeles. Thatâs how long itâs been since I thought of my hometown as home.
âTo L.A.?â I asked.
âYeah,â she said. âCome home.â
âYou know, Ethan is there,â I said. âHe moved back a few years ago, I think.â
âSo youâll see him,â Gabby said. âIt wouldnât be the worst thing that happened to you. Getting back together with a good guy.â
âIt is warmer there,â I said, looking out my tiny window at the dirty snow on the street below me.
âIt was seventy-two the other day,â she said.
âBut changing cities doesnât solve the larger problem,â I said, for maybe the first time in my life. âI mean, I need to change.â
âI know,â she said. âCome home. Change here.â
It was the first time in a long time that something made sense.
Now Gabby grabs my hand for a moment and squeezes it, keeping her eye on the road. âIâm proud of you that youâre taking control of your life,â she says. âJust by getting on the plane this morning, youâre getting your life together.â
âYou think so?â I ask.
She nods. âI think Los Angeles will be good for you. Donât you? Returning to your roots. Itâs a crime weâve lived so far apart for so many years. Youâre correcting an injustice.â
I laugh. Iâm trying to see this move as a victory instead of a defeat.
Finally, we pull onto Gabbyâs street, and she parks her car at the curb.
We are in front of a complex on a steep, hilly street. Gabby and Mark bought a townhouse last year. I look at the addresses on the row of houses and search for the number four, to see which one is theirs. I may not have been here before, but Iâve been sending cards, baked goods, and various gifts to Gabby for months. I know her address by heart. Just as I catch the number on the door in the glow of the streetlight, I see Mark come out and walk toward us.
Mark is a tall, conventionally handsome man. Very physically strong, very traditionally male. Iâve always had a penchant for guys with pretty eyes and five oâclock shadows, and I thought Gabby did, too. But she ended up with Mark, the poster boy for clean-cut and stable. Heâs the kind of guy who goes to the gym for health reasons. I have never done that.
I open my car door and grab one of my bags. Gabby grabs another. Mark meets us at the car. âHannah!â he says as he gives me a big hug. âIt is so nice to see you.â He takes the rest of the bags out of the car, and we head into the house. I look around their living room. Itâs a lot of neutrals and wood finishes. Safe but gorgeous.
âYour room is upstairs,â she says, and the three of us walk up the tight staircase to the second floor. There is a master bedroom and a bedroom across the hall.
Gabby and Mark lead me into the guest room, and we put all the bags down.
Itâs a small room but big enough for just me. Thereâs a double bed with a billowy white comforter, a desk, and a dresser.
Itâs late, and I am sure both Gabby and Mark are tired, so I do my best to be quick.
âYou guys go ahead to bed. I can get myself settled,â I say.
âYou sure?â Gabby asks.
I insist.
Mark gives me a hug and heads to their bedroom. Gabby tells him sheâll be there in a moment.
âIâm really happy youâre here,â she says to me. âIn all of your city hopping, I always hoped youâd come back. At least for a little while. I like having you close by.â
âWell, you got me,â I tell her, smiling. âPerhaps even closer than you were thinking.â
âDonât be silly,â she says. âLive in my guest room until weâre both ninety years old, as far as Iâm concerned.â She gives me a hug and heads to her room. âIf you wake up before we do, feel free to start the coffee.â
After I hear the bedroom door shut, I grab my toiletry bag and head into the bathroom.
The light in here is bright and unforgiving; some might even go so far as to describe it as harsh. Thereâs a magnifying mirror by the sink. I grab it and pull it toward my face. I can tell I need to get my eyebrows waxed, but overall, there isnât too much to complain about. As I start to push the mirror back into place, the view grazes the outside of my left eye.
I pull on my skin, somewhat in denial of what Iâm seeing. I let it bounce back into shape. I stare and inspect.
I have the beginnings of crowâs-feet.
I have no apartment and no job. I have no steady relationship or even a city to call home. I have no idea what I want to be doing with my life, no idea what my purpose is, and no real sign of a life goal. And yet time has found me. The years Iâve spent dilly-dallying around at different jobs in different cities show on my face.
I have wrinkles.
I let go of the mirror. I brush my teeth. I wash my face. I resolve to buy night cream and start wearing sunscreen. And then I turn down the covers and get into bed.
My life may be a little bit of a disaster. I may not make the best decisions sometimes. But I am not going to lie here and stare at the ceiling, worrying the night away.
Instead, I go to sleep soundly, believing I will do better tomorrow. Things will be better tomorrow. Iâll figure this all out tomorrow.
Tomorrow is, for me, a brand-new day.
Maybe in Another Life
I wake up to a bright, sunny room and a ringing phone.
âEthan!â I whisper into the phone. âItâs nine oâclock on a Saturday morning!â
âYeah,â he says, his gritty voice made grittier by the phone. âBut youâre still on East Coast time. Itâs noon for you. You should be up.â
I continue to whisper. âOK, but Gabby and Mark are still sleeping.â
âWhen do I get to see you?â he says.
I met Ethan in my sophomore year of high school at Homecoming.
I was still living at home with my parents. Gabby was offered a babysitting job that night and decided to take it instead of going to the dance. I ended up going by myself, not because I wanted to go but because my dad teased me that I never went anywhere without her. I went to prove him wrong.
I stood at the wall for most of the night, killing time until I could leave. I was so bored that I thought about calling Gabby and persuading her to join me once her babysitting gig was over. But Jesse Flint was slow-dancing with Jessica Campos all night in the middle of the dance floor. And Gabby loved Jesse Flint, had been pining away for him since high school began. I couldnât do that to her.
As the night wore on and couples started making out in the dimly lit gym, I looked over at the only other person standing against the wall. He was tall and thin, with rumpled hair and a wrinkled shirt. His tie was loose. He looked right back at me. And then he walked over to where I was standing and introduced himself.
âEthan Hanover,â he said, putting out his hand.
âHannah Martin,â I said, putting out my own to grab his.
He was a junior at another school. He told me he was just there as a favor to his neighbor, Katie Franklin, who didnât have a date. I knew Katie fairly well. I knew she was a lesbian who wasnât ready to tell her parents. The whole school knew that she and Teresa Hawkins were more than just friends. So I figured I wasnât hurting anyone by flirting with the boy she brought for cover.
But pretty soon I found myself forgetting anyone else was even at the dance in the first place. When Katie did finally come get him and suggest it was time to go, I felt as if something was being taken from me. I was tempted to reach out and grab him, to claim him for myself.
Ethan had a party at his parentsâ house the next weekend and invited me. Gabby and I didnât normally go to big parties, but I made her come. He perked up the minute I walked in the door. He grabbed my hand and introduced me to his friends. I lost track of Gabby somewhere by the Tostitos.
Soon Ethan and I had ventured upstairs. We were sitting on the top step of the staircase, hip to hip, talking about our favorite bands. He kissed me there, in the dark, the wild party happening just underneath our feet.
âI only threw a party so I could call you and invite you,â he said to me. âIs that stupid?â
I shook my head and kissed him again.
When Gabby came and found me an hour or so later, my lips felt swollen, and I knew I had a hickey.
We lost our virginity to each other a year and a half later. We were in his bedroom when his parents were out of town. He told me he loved me as I lay underneath him, and he kept asking if it was OK.
Some people talk about their first time as a hilarious or pathetic experience. I canât relate. Mine was with someone I loved, someone who also had no idea what we were doing. The first time I had sex, I made love. Iâve always had a soft spot in my heart for Ethan for that very reason.
And then everything fell apart. He got into UC Berkeley. Sarah got into the Royal Ballet School, and my parents packed up and moved to London. I moved in with the Hudsons. And then, one balmy August morning a week before the beginning of my senior year of high school, Ethan got into his parentsâ car and left for Northern California.
We made it until the end of October before we broke up. At the time, we assured each other that it was just because the timing was wrong and the distance was hard. We told each other weâd get back together that summer. We told each other it didnât change anything; we were still soul mates.
But it was no different from the same old song and dance at every college every fall.
I started considering schools in Boston and New York, since living on the East Coast would make it easier to get to London. When Ethan came home for Christmas, I was dating a guy named Chris Rodriguez. When Ethan came home for the summer, he was dating a girl named Alicia Foster.
When I got into Boston University, that was the final nail.
Soon there was more than three thousand miles between us and no plan to shorten the distance.
Ethan and I have occasionally kept in touch, a phone call here or there, a dance or two at mutual friendsâ weddings. But there has always been an unspoken tension. There is always this sense that we havenât followed through on our plan.
He still, all these years later, shines brighter to me than other people. Even after I got over him, I was never able to extinguish the fire completely, as if itâs a pilot light that will remain small and controlled but very much alive.
âYouâve been in this city for twelve hours, according to my calculations,â Ethan says. âAnd Iâll be damned if Iâm going to let you be here for twelve more without seeing me.â
I laugh. âWell, weâll be cutting it close, I think,â I say to him. âGabby says there is some bar in Hollywood that we should go to tonight. She invited a whole bunch of friends from high school, so I can see everybody again. Sheâs calling it a housewarming. Which makes no sense. I donât know.â
Ethan laughs. âText me the time and place, and I will be there.â
âAwesome. Sounds great.â
I start to say good-bye, but his voice chimes in again. âHey, Hannah,â he says.
âYeah?â
âIâm glad you decided to come home.â
I laugh. âWell, I was running out of cities.â
âI donât know,â he says. âI like to think youâve just come to your senses.â