I smile. “Wasn’t that often. And anyway, I never minded while I walked around naked and listened to niche podcasts on the Bluetooth speaker.”
“And did the dishes. You were a great roommate. Always put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher.” She shoots Miguel a dirty look.
“I’m not your roommate,” he retorts. He’s lying flat on his back on her living room carpet. “I’m desperate to live with you, and you won’t let me.”
“We can reevaluate once you learn to put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher.”
“Thanks for letting me be your friend, Casey,” Brijesh says. “I’ll never forget working up the courage to talk to you in that laptop-training class.”
I giggle. “Thanks for not giving up on me based on how awkward I was during our first three encounters.”
When everyone else is passed out, sprawled in various states of disarray around the living room, Miriam leans over and whispers, “Want to get a tattoo?”
“Bitch, yes.”
Forty-five minutes later, we stumble out of a random tattoo parlor with matching flowers on our left wrists—delicate, thin-lined forget-me-nots, freshly inked, impulsive, perfect. We wander down the sidewalk with no real hurry in our steps, reminiscing about funny memories from all the years of our lives we’ve shared.
“I gotta say,” Miriam says, “I never thought you’d be doing something like this. I’m here for it, but the summer after high school, your big graduation trip? Remember how terrified you were to go out west for a month with Marty and Jerry because you thought you’d be homesick—”
“Okay, but we were sharing one mobile bedroom. My concerns were extensive, and as it turns out, mostly valid—”
“Still, I just really never thought.”
I laugh. “Well, you did this to me.”
“Did I?” Miriam asks.
“Yeah! You brought me to New York. That was all you.”
We settle onto a bench near the edge of Central Park, and Miriam scrutinizes me between kind, serious eyes. “It was good while it lasted, right?”
I nod and lean my head against hers. “Better than good. It’s been the best two and a half years of my life.”
“Yeah. Mine too.”
Which invites the question: If it’s been so good, why would you change a thing? But I think that would be the biggest shame in the world. Not chasing the very feeling that made you so happy to start with.
“You’re going to be okay. Right, Mir?”
“If I say no, will you stay?”
“Probably.”
She laughs. “I’m going to be okay. I’ve got all my nursing friends, and Sasha in the very few moments she’s sick of men.”
“Very few moments,” I emphasize. “Love her, though.”
“Love her, though.” After a minute, Miriam adds, “I don’t think I ever told you this, but thank you for introducing me and Brijesh. I’m just … really glad we met.”
My mouth pulls into a wry grin. “I, too, am glad you fell hard—harder than you care to admit—for a South Indian food connoisseur who won’t ever let you go hungry when I stop putting leftovers in the fridge.”
“And who makes two reservations he lets me choose between.”
“That too. Speaking of, are you guys dating?”
“Getting there.” Miriam looks down at her tattoo, just visible between the cuff of her coat and the edge of her purple wool gloves. “You realize this’ll be the first time in our whole lives we won’t be living in the same city?”
I throw her an impish grin. “Probably for the best. We’re too codependent.”
“Cheers to that.”
Miriam is visiting me for St. Patrick’s Day. Already booked her ticket to Dublin. We’ll meet there, and then she’ll come stay with me in London for a few days.
One of her nursing friends—Ellie 2, I’m pretty sure—is moving into our apartment. She even bought all my furniture. Miriam and I spent last week consolidating, selling, and donating my things until all that remained would fit in two massive suitcases and one large bin. I had this urge to call Alex, ask if he was proud of me for Marie Kondo–ing my lifestyle, but we haven’t spoken since the conference room when everything unraveled.
Maybe we won’t again.
I’ve enjoyed this time with my friends. The past two days have been good. But I haven’t heard from Alex in weeks, and it’s just been so hard to breathe.
January wind whips through the trees, a cacophony of nature at total odds with this city I’ve grown to love—which smells like sewage and cinnamon, feels engulfing, metamorphic, and also kind of flimsy. I shiver, hugging my knees to my chest and tucking my chin into the Madewell scarf looped around my neck.
“Do you think you can have more than one love of your life?” I ask.
“Um.” She cocks her head at me. “That’s a stumper. We’re both twenty-five.”
I laugh and look down at my tattoo. “You’re one of mine.”
“Same, babe. What about Alex?”
I frown. “Is he a love of my life?”
Miriam nods.
I told her the truth about our breakup, and about the acquisition. Actually, I told everyone about the acquisition. Brijesh, Benny, Fari, the YouTube crew. Once the secret was out with Alex, my morals dictated it was out with everyone, and I really don’t give a fuck anymore if it gets back to Tracy and she comes after me for it. Apparently, I’m a very big risk-taker now.
“I don’t think Alex counts,” I tell Mir. “We didn’t last.”
But in my head, I picture Freddy’s bar. Drinking the Jack and Jills. The shape of Alex’s lips when he smiles, the color of his eyes in the moments before he would kiss me. The two of us bent over the chocolate cosmos, Koreatown, the Parthenon, the elevator, Eataly. All of it, some kind of epic montage that makes up the beginning stages of love-of-your-life-level happiness with a cataclysmic, unforgettable love interest.
“He counts,” Miriam says.
I sigh. “If you say so.”
“He counts.” She stretches her arms upward and stands. “You wouldn’t have asked me if you could have more than one love of your life if he didn’t.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Alex doesn’t make an appearance on my last day of work. Benny cobbles together a goodbye gathering—he even made cupcakes with iced Union Jack decorations, which he passes out while everyone sneakily signs my going-away card—but Alex doesn’t show.
“What flavor?” I ask, sticking my pinkie into the frosting.
“Boring old vanilla,” says Benny. “I wanted to bake something more interesting, but I wasn’t sure what all your weak-ass immune system could handle besides vanilla. Never thought I’d be an anti-Darwinist, but here we are.”
I smirk. “I take it you’re happy you can start gorging on Reese’s again?”
“Honestly. I can’t get rid of you fast enough.”
Don pops a bottle of champagne. Not the sparkling grape juice we reserve for software upgrades—real champagne!
“Casey,” he says while my coworkers all hold their plastic flutes aloft in the ninety-eighth-floor break room, “I have learned so much from you. Including spreadsheet styling.” He grins, and Fari laughs. “I can’t wait to see what you achieve next.”