2

BRYNN

 

I am almost positive I packed my bags six times. Maybe eight. Just to unpack them the moment I was given an excuse to stay. Any excuse, I would take it and drag those pricey Louis Vuitton’s back from the door and unpack them all over again. But, those excuses were heading into bullshit territory now, just shy of four months later. I’d take them while they were coming, though.

“You can’t leave until we hit all the museums.”

“Can’t go back to Boston until you’ve hit Navy Pier.”

“We should go to the festival next weekend, so don’t go home yet.”

Either Lola Byrne—my best friend for most my life—knew I didn’t want to go back to Boston or she selfishly didn’t want me to go back. I could deal with a selfish Lola. Because, I knew Lola being selfish with me, if that were truly the case, benefited me.

Besides, we could blame our selfish excuses on valid life shit. The two of us had been inseparable once, never went a day without talking or seeing one another. We even had a plan to go off to college together, dorm together, experience life together. Until six months ago, it had been years since I’d even talked to her.

Our plans had gotten derailed by two men. Mine, by accident. Hers by choice. Then life took us on two different rides, so far from our plan that neither of us knew how to get it back on track. At least not until Chicago.

Though temporarily derailed, I got my plan back on track by going to school at 25. It was harder than I expected so when I saw a skype call during a particularly rough study session, I didn’t question who was on the other end. One call got the rest of my plan back on track.

“Brynn. My China Doll.” Within moments, it was like the four years since the last time I’d heard Lola call me lady friend had never happened.

One five hour skype session turned into a call every night for a week. Then phone calls every day, texts in between and, eventually, I made a trip down south for her wedding. Well, her second one.

Lola Byrne reminded me of who I wanted to be once. Because she wasn’t the girl I had once known, but the girl she was always meant to be. Not their wilting Violet, a sheltered puppet her calculating family tried to destroy. But bright, loud, bubbly, vibrant Lola. The girl I knew was always there.

That’s the girl I followed to Chicago after another Skype session that reminded me I wasn’t who I wanted to be. Because, Lola wasn’t Violet anymore and that was okay. I wanted to be Brynn again, the one I’d been before I’d let one mistake throw me so off plan. I thought by going to school, pretending to figure my plan out again, I was okay again.

Then I watched my best friend get married to the man who had saved her. Who had loved her for the loud, bright, outside-the-lines woman she was. And I watched the amazing group of friends she’d made embrace her, and then me, and I realized I didn’t have to be the girl I’d been parading as for so long. I could be me. And people like Lola and her friends Gigi, and Charli, would like me for just who I was.

“We doing dinner tonight?” Lola was shouting now as I wandered around the upper loft of the converted old fire station that was she and Gigi’s studio.

Lola was bright, with fading purple and teal hair, a glowing smile and a bright yellow sundress. Her round belly looked like a sweet lemon drop. The real Lola, she always glowed, even when she was Violet. Even when her family did everything to dim her light. Now though? Now pregnant, married, and blissfully happy, she positively beamed sunlight.

Today, her short dark hair was almost free of the teal and purple. Hunter had kind of forbidden her to dye it since they found out about the baby. The lingering color was Kool-Aid, her go-to in a crisis. Kept her vibrant look and smelled yummy too. The sunlight shone in behind her as she bounced around barefoot, a paintbrush in her hand as she moved around an easel.

“We can always do dinner, Midge.” I sat on a stool watching her, my knee bouncing anxiously as Britney Spears blasted through the studio.

“With the girls?” Lola arched her brow, her chin tucked over her shoulder to gaze back at me.

“Yes, with the girls. Your girls are my girls now. In fact, they are my only girls, besides you.” I reach my arm out, smoothing my hand over her bump before she prances away.

Truth is, Lola was almost always my only girl. We came from wealth and privilege and neither could have been more miserable about it. We spent our summers avoiding the ridiculous parties and social functions. Instead, we hit the beach and talked about our futures away from that bullshit. We had that plan, of course.

The plan changed but now, with us reunited, it seems like it can get back on track. Parts of it, at least. We can’t dorm together and form an anti-sorority sorority, and we can’t backpack like broke college students in Europe. There won’t be talks about our classes or the hot professors.

This is better though, what we get to have now.

Because this is real, and honest, and full of joy and all the light that was dimmed for so long. That plan we had was glittery and golden but now, now it’s real and we can make it whatever we want. I haven’t made the time to tell Lola about the Brynn she once knew, and how she, like the Violet I once knew, is gone now. But, in time.

For now, we visit museums and talk about her bundle of joy while I accept the excuses to hang out in Chicago longer. Lola doesn’t know I don’t have a job or a sweetheart waiting at home. Doesn’t know that the truth of my situation back East is a lot more complex than I’m ready to get into just yet.

Because, the last thing I want to do is tarnish the image the only person I have left has of me. Lola believes her bestie Brynn is a recent college graduate, who will break into the Architectural world because of her talent, and not her last name. That’s the girl I planned to be.

Instead, I made one wrong choice, with the wrong man, on one life-changing night. I can’t say I’ve paid for that choice or that night as much as I feel I owed. Probably why, while I may have gone through the motions the last few years, seemingly getting my plan back on course, I can hardly say I’ve enjoyed the ride.

“They like you. I mean, of course they do, who wouldn’t? But, I mean they really like you and that’s awesome because now I have a gaggle of bitches. Life is good.” Lola spun towards the bright red and green canvas she was working on.

She wasn’t wrong. But, she wasn’t exactly right, either. Life was good. It just wasn't the kind of good I felt ready to settle with. I delayed my trip back home half a dozen times. Because I wasn't ready to go back and accept that the life waiting there for me was all I could have. Not when I'd had the briefest glimpse of something better here. 

I loved Boston, the age, the culture, the thick accents and rowdy crowds that flooded Southie. It felt like a lifetime ago that Boston felt like my endgame, though. Growing up, it had been nothing else. Graduate with a degree, join Bergman & Billings and build Boston around me as I live my dream. Maybe my dream, and how I wanted to build it—or really where I wanted to build it—had just changed. 

“Life is good.” I say it softly and, it’s a tiny part of me but it’s there, hurts when she doesn’t question the lie in my voice. Again, her hand passes over her belly and I shove down a flash of pain.

I reach out too, more to ease that pain and ground myself than anything else. Lola smiles, beams really, as both our hands smooth over her softly rounded belly. It seems to soothe us both. Six months came and went just a few days ago.

More than halfway there, now. I panic at the idea of still being here when her daughter comes. I don’t know if I can do it, no matter how much I love Lola. No matter how much I already love that little baby. It feels too much like déjà vu, the idea of going through that again, even if second hand this time. 

Lola catches my eye. Those vibrant violet eyes of hers go so soft, I feel the entire room soften around us. Her left hand, with the cute tattoo on her ring finger, presses over mine. Lola leans forward as best her swollen belly allows. Touching her forehead to mine, Lola breaks me down a little as she whispers her next words.

“Let it go, Brynn. Let the choice you made then go, now. It was the right one for you. The right one for her. Let go of the lies I bought just because you needed to sell them. You don’t need them to stay, lady friend. Just stay. Doesn’t matter why you don’t want to go back. Doesn’t change the truth; you can just stay.” I notice the polka dots on her dress are not polka dots at all the moment I realize what they are.

Head bent, both hands at her stomach, I am crying. I truly break then. I don’t know how it happens but we end up on the floor, backs against the brick walls, Lola cradling me like her child. I don’t even remember the last time someone hugged me. Years, maybe? I rope my arms around her as I, for a moment, do as she suggested. I let it go.

No questions are asked. No deep soul-baring talk is had. Instead, I cry for a while because it feels good to let it out. We sit like that until the sun begins to dip behind the clouds and pink and orange lights up the loft of the old fire station. I know I need to give her my reasons, and I will. Just not today.

Because before long, her belly is moving noticeably. Someone is hungry and it’s not just Lola. I climb to a crouch and we share a look. I know the questions will come and I will have to provide answers. Right now, I just need to provide sustenance, and that is easy enough to do. I get Lola to her feet and we’re on the L before either of us speak again.

“Bang Chop. I am craving dumplings like nobody’s business, sister. Cooper chicks can deal, the baby gets what the baby wants.” Lola insists, even though we both know Gigi and Charli will happily join us anywhere she requests.

There’s little those girls won’t do for Lola, and she doesn’t need the excuse of being pregnant. It’s a fact that endeared me to the Cooper girls immediately. My liking them had to do with them, though, really. Charli was as sweet as she was smart and Gigi’s witty sarcasm was as refreshing as her fierce loyalty to her people.

At first, I had been admittedly jealous that my best friend was one of her people. Until without even trying, I had become one of her people, too. That’s just how the Coopers were, it seemed. Those girls and their husbands, Cage and Finn, welcomed you in and loved you hard and without end. I was still learning how to accept that.

The love I knew, it came in responsive acts. Like payments. I was well behaved at an important social gathering? My parents gifted me a pony. I aced a test? Mother bought me a new wardrobe. I made the dean’s list at Preston Prep? Father bought me a car.

“I wish, just once, Mother would just have lunch with me. Ask me what boys I like. What I like to do with my friends. Maybe what I want to do for college.” Lola and I used to commiserate about our parents; mine loved me but had no idea how to show it. Hers didn't know what love was, but sure knew how to make it look like they did.

These people, the Coopers and the Byrnes, they love so big and so bright, you can't mistake it. You can't miss it. Charli and Gigi are loud and bold with it, constantly stating how special you are to them. That frequency, that loud boldness could seem disingenuous. It doesn't, simply because it’s absolutely genuine.

When I look up from my nearly empty plate, three pairs of eyes watch me. I know they know something; they sense the flushed skin, the darting glance, the heated words mean something. Something more than I am telling. Because just like I know the little, unimportant stuff about them now, they know the same about me.

Lola knows I get flushed when I'm nervous. Charli and Gigi have seen my freckles pop out the few times they all got me tipsy. Or that I love spicy food, so I order it for Gigi just so I can finish it.

They all know that I love them, even though I can't say it. But they don't know what I think about a sexy firefighter who held me under the stars then came home to his wife. But, they don't ask because I'm not ready to answer.

Mostly because I don't have the answers; not really. I'm making this up as I go. For now, I will accept any excuse Lola offers that allows me to stay here in Chicago. I can pretend for a little while longer that Boston doesn't matter. I can let myself be with Lola and the Cooper girls and their hot firefighter husbands.

I can even fool myself, for at least a little while longer, that one of those firefighters doesn't make me five-alarm hot. I tell myself that I can do it, all of it, no matter how impossible I know it really is.

I am so good at lying to myself, I almost have myself believing that when the time comes to deal with Boston, I can do it alone.