I knew better. I knew that when a man calls a woman trouble, he is in fact trouble. But Drew was right, and so was I: we were both trouble. I wanted so badly to feel something real, and Drew lived life like it was one big game of Dare. If we had an extra day in a small town, he would find us a cliff to dive off, a lake to get naked in, a country club to sneak into so we could go on golf cart joyrides. Every night, in the time between sets, Drew and I would find a closet backstage, he’d press me up against a wall, tug up my skirt, I’d rip the leather belt off his jeans, and we’d have the fastest, wildest sex of my life. I had a hard time coming down from performing, and I discovered that Drew’s hands on my body was the best way to expel the remaining adrenaline.
Drew was a talented up-and-coming music photographer who would go back to LA and find another indie band to tour with when ours ended, and I would go back to New York and start playing bigger venues and work on getting actual representation. I would miss him instantly. I knew I would. I would be left with my willowy body curling over my dad’s old Gibson Hummingbird, ugly cries echoing against the hardwood of my pre-war studio, wine-stained lips birthing earth-shattering breakup lyrics. We had a week left on tour, and I was dreading the inevitable. I was subletting my studio in the city, I was doing what I loved without having to worry about paying rent or feeding myself, or fighting to get my next gig—my adult life felt taken care of for the first time. And I liked embracing my wild side. New York City didn’t give me a chance to feel this kind of freedom. You can’t live on the edge when an entire city is watching. You can’t sneak out of your studio apartment and run naked into cold moonlit lakes without a second thought. Drew made me feel like a teenager again—like the Maggie Vine who snuck out of her camp cabin to find wanderlust with her first love, Asher Reyes. Drew made me forget about the constraints of adulthood.
I lay naked in Drew’s arms, my nails tracing one of his many tattoos on his biceps, my soul at peace. He grazed his fingers up and down the side of my breast, eyes pensive.
“We should keep seeing each other. After this,” he announced to the ceiling.
I slowly sat up, shifting so I was on top of him—so his eyes met mine. I searched his face, shocked to find his expression dead serious. This was a man who scoffed at people who wanted to put down roots, and here he was, discussing our future.
“You want to keep seeing each other?”
“I do,” he said, expression unwavering. “What do you think about me coming to spend some time in New York?”
My mouth hung open in a smile. I pinned his wrists back, scrunching my face up to his. “Those AC units drippin’ onto your mouth when you aren’t lookin’, all those people in a hurry to go nowhere,” I said in my best Southern accent, mocking his pretentiousness. “I thought you hated New York.”
His dark green eyes scanned my face.
“I do. But I love you.”
Heat enveloped my chest, as a sparkly sensation floated through my body. My hands went limp around his wrists.
“You…you love me?” I found myself grinning stupidly under the words. They were lavender and honey. Love.
He sat up and grabbed the back of my neck, pulling me into a kiss and rolling me over. Drew’s mouth found my ear as I arched my hip upward, feeling my protruding phone on my back. I set the phone on the windowsill, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a text from Garrett light up the screen. His words, miss you, made my heart beat even faster.
10
THIRTY-FIVE
THIS WASN’T THE FOLLOW-UP MOMENT I had pictured after I kissed Garrett Scholl on my thirty-fifth birthday. It had played very differently in my mind over the last five years, like a glorious rom-com montage. I figured our courtship, most of it existing in the All Is Lost moment of act three, would send us straight to Happily Ever After once our lips met, once one of us kept that promise. Not so much. I was not “I-wanted-it-to-be-you” Meg Ryan. I was crying-hysterically-in-her-bed Meg Ryan. More specifically, crying-on-the-subway Maggie Vine. Here I was, failing to hold back tears on the C train, weeping to “Silver Springs” because Garrett Scholl wasn’t mine.
“Was I just a fool?”
I unstuck my sweaty, bare thighs from the bucket seat, avoiding sympathetic eyes as they floated in my direction. I ducked my head behind the heat of my phone as an elderly woman, likely in her mideighties, wobbled toward me.
She stopped, clutching the bar next to me, looming over my seat. “I’ve been there, honey,” she said, giving my shoulder a firm squeeze.
Have you? Did you make a promise with your best guy friend to marry each other when you turned thirty-five, only to kiss him on your thirty-fifth birthday, just to learn that he was engaged to another woman? HAVE YOU BEEN HERE, SHIRLEY!?
“He’s not worth your tears. Or she. Or them. My grandchild is a them. Isn’t that wonderful?”
I bit the fire on my tongue and blubbered, “Yeah. Thanks.”
Progressive grandmas are national treasures, so I decided to protect her against my personal devastation at all costs. If only I owned a car, then I could sob from one destination to another in peace, without all of New York Fucking City as an audience.
One 10 Minute “All Too Well” later, I stormed up my Union Square apartment walk-up, narrow wooden stairs creaking, and with each step, devastation gave way to a punch of anger. By the time I made it up the four flights and edged my shoulder past the door of my studio, I was give-me-back-my-scarf enraged. I flicked on the AC window unit and pushed my songwriter journal from the bed to the floor, plopped face-first down on my floral quilt—puffy red eyes smothered amid the smell of Garrett’s cologne in my hair—which only made me cry harder.
I heard a buzzing on the floor, and I stretched my upper body off the bed to grab my phone. Fuck. It was Summer. I had forgotten that there were a handful of humans still sitting on the Great Lawn because of my birth.
“Hi—” I barely got the word out before she cut me off.
“Did you seriously just ghost me on your birthday and leave me to fend for myself with Dave Matthews bros?”
It sounded like she was driving in a car, and no longer in a sea of cargo shorts.
“Sorry…I was too high to be a human,” I lied.
I couldn’t stomach reliving the earth-shattering news that I once again knew what Garrett’s body felt like pressed against mine; what his hands felt like in the back of my hair; what his tongue felt like inside my mouth. The answer was, unfortunately: still hot as fuck. I would tell Summer about it later, after I had a chance to let it ruin me, just like our first kiss had. The engagement, however, was eating my soul alive. I bit into my chipped nail, nervously wrestling with the words.
“Did you, umm…did you know Garrett’s engaged?” I asked.
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“He’s what?”
“Yeah.”
“No way. I mean I guess I’ve been a shitty friend, I haven’t seen them that much lately.”
“Like, not in the last six weeks?”
“Well, I saw them at that gallery opening last month. I didn’t notice a ring on her finger—obviously I would have told you if I did.”
“I know,” I said, my voice small, as I picked the gel polish off my thumb.
“Remember, I told you watching them together that night was like watching wet paper dry. They were so bored with each other. I was certain he was going to break up with her, honestly.”
“Well, he did the opposite.”
“Well…shit.” Summer’s voice turned unusually delicate. “Do I need to come over there? Are you okay?”
“I’m totally fine. Doesn’t affect my life,” said the totally unaffected woman wiping hot, angry tears off her cheeks.
“Maggie, I’m coming over right now—”
“No. Summer, I can’t go there, not yet. I need—I need to sit with it,” I said, tears enveloping my vocal cords.
“Okay, I’m here if you need me,” she said. “Oh, shit. I forgot to show you something earlier tonight—I saw it yesterday. Hold on…Okay, check your texts.”
I put Summer on speaker and clicked on a linked Deadline article.
“Isn’t that the book you made me read freshman year?” Summer asked.
My face went blank. I couldn’t even answer her.