Chapter Five - Brooke

There are twenty – fucking twenty – missed calls on my phone. I’m ready to throw it against the wall. They’re all from Jeff, and several of them come with threatening messages.

“If I’m not fifty grand richer real soon, you’ll be in jail. Think carefully about what you do next. I won’t hesitate to tell the cops what you did,” one of them says. Like I don’t know that. Like he hasn’t told me that over and over again. I still can’t believe he’s still threatening and stalking me like this. He had been a terrible boyfriend, but I had no idea he was this much of a lowlife.

I wish I had never met him or agreed to go out with him. Why I’d ever thought it could work, I have no idea. Jeff had seemed like fun at first. Like maybe he could bring some excitement into my previously dull life. He’d approached me at a bar, bought me several drinks, and he’d made me laugh. I’d thought he was charming and funny, that his recklessness was a good thing. A sexy sort of boldness. I’d been wrong.

What started as a whirlwind of spur-of-the-moment dates where we drove across the state line to find little tourist spots he’d read about, or late night drives on his motorcycle, or showing up at my job with ridiculous cheap gifts that had made me smile, had quickly turned sour. He’d go days without texting back or answering the phone. I’d had no idea where he was. He’d show up in foul tempers, yelling at store clerks and waitresses when we were out. He’d be drunk in the middle of the day, visiting me at work reeking of cigarettes and beer. He’d been demanding of my time and energy, getting angry when he’d show up out of nowhere and I had plans with other people. We’d gone to a party at Autumn’s apartment and he’d broken her kitchen table attempting some stupid stunt. He’d even tried to get me to go on the run with him but wouldn’t tell me what he, or we, would have been running from.

Eventually, it had gotten to be too much. I couldn’t see any of the people I once had in him. I was miserable all the time, and the idea of spending time with him started to make me feel sick to my stomach. I broke it off, hoping it would be clean and easy. I’d told him to run away without me if he needed to. He’d called me a bitch and told me I’d be sorry. I had no idea how true that was. I wasn’t sorry for breaking up with him – I was sorry I’d ever had a conversation with him in the first place.

I was sorry that I jumped every time my phone rang, sure it was him threatening me again, demanding money he knew I didn’t have. His threats were getting worse and more menacing, and I was getting scared that one day he was going to do something about them.

My phone rings again, and this time, tired of the missed calls and voicemail and of everything, I pick it up without even looking at the screen.

“Go to hell!” I yell into the phone.

“Brooke?” A cautious voice that is very much not Jeff’s is on the other end.

“Anthony?” I ask, feeling an entirely different rush of emotion at his voice, still so familiar after all this time. It’s warm and deep, rich and comforting, something that’s clearly only grown with age. I feel myself blush as I think of how we’d run into each other earlier and hadn’t known what to say.

“It’s me,” he says, still sounding cautious. I flush again, thinking of how I’d answered the phone.

“I thought someone else was calling. That greeting wasn’t meant for you,” I say quickly. He laughs.

“I’m glad,” he says, still laughing. I smile too. I can’t get over how he looked in the store – how good time has been to him. I had always thought Anthony was really good-looking, but now it’s more than that. He’s distinct-looking now, head-turning and memorable for how handsome he is. He’s hot now in a way that made my breath catch a little when I saw him.

“Sorry,” I say, shaking my head.

“I’m sorry someone is pissing you off that much,” Anthony says, and it makes me grin even wider because it’s such an Anthony thing to say.

“You have no idea,” I say. I can’t quite believe I finally got the courage to yell at Jeff and it wasn’t even him on the other end, but I don’t regret that it wasn’t. I’m thrilled it’s Anthony, to be honest.

“Tell me about it at dinner?” Anthony offers. He says it casually, like we never fell out of touch, and it makes me laugh a little.

“Dinner?” I ask, biting my lip.

“I was thinking that I should celebrate being home by buying my oldest friend a drink and some food,” Anthony says. “It would be good to catch up.”

“Yeah, it would,” I agree, “I’d like that.”

“Are you free tonight?” he asks. I smile again. Dinner with Anthony sounds like the perfect evening.

“I am,” I say. I’m already thinking about what I’ll wear. Maybe it’s silly, but I want to look my best. Anthony has grown up to be so attractive, and I want him to think that I have too. That I’m more than the gangly teenage girl I used to be.

“How is the food at the Purple Hog these days?” Anthony asks, making me laugh again. The Purple Hog is one of the oldest restaurants in town. It’s more a pub than anything, dimly lit with sticky floors and sticky music emanating from the speakers.

“Still the best breadsticks in town,” I say. “And they have five kinds of soup now.”

“I did always like that French onion soup,” Anthony says, and he’s laughing too. In high school, we used to sneak off to the Purple Hog on weekday evenings and share cheese sticks, soups, and other appetizers while we were tucked away in a corner booth, making plans for the future.

“You liked the cheese, I think,” I point out, remembering. In my mind, I can see Anthony pulling the cheese off his soup and letting the rest go cold while we talked in our booth.

“Good point,” Anthony says.

“You should try the new soup tonight,” I say. Talking to Anthony feels as easy as it always had been, and I feel lighter. I feel more like myself.

“I’ll have to,” Anthony says. “Is seven okay?”

“It’s perfect,” I say.

I start getting ready as soon as we hang up, and I hardly think of Jeff at all as I shower and change. I take care picking out an outfit and doing my hair and makeup. The idea of spending the evening with Anthony brightens my mood and makes me hope this is the start of a really good thing in my life. The start of getting a friend back. The start of a positive change.