The Homecoming

~1~

“…that’s…it.”
I blinked. Once. Twice. I had a stinging in my eyes, and my throat felt raw from all the talking. I wondered what time it was. Five? Six? During my story, I somehow had completely lost track of time. I took a swig from the still almost full bottle of water and took in the scenery around me.
The sun over Central Park had started to set a while ago, painting the autumn leaves on the trees around us in bright colors. Overhead, crows flew all over the sky, on their way to the south to find a winter habitat. Their screams sounded shrill in my ears after the silence that had greeted me from the girl that sat next to me on the now cool grass. She had pulled her knees up to her chest with her arms crossed above them and her chin resting on her forearms, which made her look a lot younger than twenty-six.
“Uhm…” I started, turning to her and realizing for the first time that there was a sparkle in her eyes that did not seem to originate from the stars overhead.
“Are you okay?”
Despite the fact that I was way out of my High School years, even with twenty-seven I seemed incapable of acting accordingly to men-women-relationship-etiquette. I blamed Ben, my best friend.
For a moment, Riley just stared at me, her blue eyes slightly watering, but her mind obviously somewhere else. Then something snapped inside of her. She blinked and put on the kind of smile that got me every time I saw it.
“Of course I am, dumbo,” she said, punching my shoulder. I’d probably have a bruise there later, I gathered.
“Oh, well,” I said, flabbergasted. “I just thought…you know. You’ve let me talk for the past…what? Three hours? And now that I’m done, you’re still quiet. It kinda freaked me out.”
She laughed, throwing her head back. It was a full-on laugh, with her mouth wide open and the corners of it spread widely. Her long, dark blond her fell down on her back, swaying in the small breeze.
“You know I love to freak you out, Q,” Riley replied, and the mention of my old nickname stung for no apparent reason. Or maybe there was a reason. Only one girl had ever called me that nickname. And I hadn’t seen her for over eight years.
“Uhm…alright.”
Another one of her contagious laughs.
“Okay, I’ll stop teasing you now. It has gotten pretty late and I should head home soon anyways,” she said, looking straight at me, and this time, her entire attention was with me, with this time and this place right in this second. She unfolded her arms and spread out her legs so that our feet touched. Then she put a hand on my thigh.
“First of all, thanks for sharing that story with me. I get that it wasn’t easy remembering everything, or even thinking about it, and I feel honored you did it anyways, despite how hard it must’ve been for you.”
I stared at her, only one thought in my head. How easy it had been remembering everything I had just told her about my childhood in Florida, and especially, my senior year at High School. Some things you never forget. Some people you never forget, no matter how hard you try.
Like Margo Roth Spiegelman.
It had been nine years since that fatal night that changed my entire life forever. The night that she had pulled me into her mystery world in a Ninja suit and a crazy ride filled with revenge plans. The night that she disappeared and my journey to find her and bring her back into my life begun. I had found her, obviously, and with it, I had collected memories that would stay with me for the rest of my life – life-changing ones (you can never have enough bottles of beer in a fridge in the back of your car on a road trip for pee-emergencies) and useful ones (never go on a long road trip that includes a tight time-frame without a friend who’s able to plan even the tiniest stop on said trip – it’s a life saver to know how fast you have to rush through a gas station in search for cereal bars and fizzy drinks to keep you awake).
But despite all my hopes and wishes, I had come back empty-handed. Once me and my friends Ben, Radar and Lacey had found Margo at her hide-out near Agloe, New York, I had had to realize that the girl I had been secretly chasing since I first laid eyes on her nine years before wasn’t who I thought she was. And that my view of how my life was supposed to play out – with her in it – wasn’t even close to becoming real at any point. That day, I had said goodbye to the girl who danced in my dreams for as long as I could think, letting her go for good. With so many plans to stay in touch, no matter where life would lead her.
Well, some plans just don’t work out, I guess.
Riley’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. “And second…well…how do I put this…” She crossed her legs at the ankles, staring up at the now almost dark sky with her arms resting on the grass behind her. A sight left her lips before she finally said something that would once again turn my world upside down.
“Quentin, that story is probably the saddest and most depressing one I’ve ever heard.”
For a moment, I was somewhere else. It was as if I was floating above everything, the colorful leaves and the green grass of Central Park below me looking as if Picasso himself had painted them. Nothing seemed real while I tried to process what Riley had just said. Then something inside of me snapped and…I started laughing. Not a small laugh, like the one I’d give Ben back in High School whenever he referred to one of our female classmates as “Honeybunnys” (which, honestly, had stopped being funny the tenth time in a row). It was that kind of laugh that starts in the deepest pit of your stomach, crawling up and tickling at your insides with all the power it can provide. I threw my face up into the star-lit sky and laughed as if the beautiful girl next to me had just told the funniest joke in the world. I laughed as if I had never been hurt.
“Okay, what exactly is so funny?”
I tried to pull myself together, but failed miserably. My laughter filled Central Park, and a few late-night joggers passed by, staring at me as if I was a lunatic. Maybe I was. I couldn’t help it.
“I…I’m sorry, Riley…” I started, trying to pull myself together before I choked. Tears started streaming down my face. I took a deep breath, and it almost worked – until, for no apparent reason, a picture of Ben in my car popped up in front of my eyes, trying to pee into an emptied bottle of beer through a tight bottleneck, and I gave up. I fell back on the grass and grabbed my chest to keep me from actually choking to death from uncontrollable laughter.
“Q? Q, could you please stop that and explain to me what the hell is wrong with you? You’re freaking me out,” Riley’s shaking voice cut through my laughter. The urgency in it somewhat finally made me stop. I slowly sat up, wiping the tears out of my eyes and suppressing the giggles that were still stuck in my throat. No one knows how hard it is to stop giggling or grinning even if there’s nothing funny to laugh about at all.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, slowly regaining composure. I took a deep breath and the evening air that filled my lungs finally killed all the ambitions of another laughing fit that I might have left.
“It’s just…what you said. I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I told you a story about a girl that was lost and found again by her friends when the entire world already gave up on her, filled with a Ninja night of sweet revenge, pee-emergencies in a minivan and seniors being totally naked under their robes. If anything, it’s a story about unconditional friendship and wonderful memories, nothing more.”
Truth is, I really believed what I said. In that moment, it couldn’t have been clearer to me. What my friends and I had experienced all these years ago where just that – memories. We all had moved on, grown up and learned to live with the mistakes and lessons life had thrown at us.
Or so I had thought.
Riley stared at me with those serious, blue eyes, and as she spoke again, I could hear the certainty in her voice, mixed with something I couldn’t exactly place. Worry maybe?
“Memories?” she asked, suppressing a snort. “Quentin, seriously. Your story was about a young boy who fell in love with a girl the second she moved in next door to him. They grow up living close to each other, and all the while, said boy secretly slobbers over the girl without ever telling her. Then one day, she barges into his life through his window, takes him on a crazy ride through their neighborhood, a business building and even Sea Life – then, the next day, she disappears without a word. And after a wild goose chase, trying to figure out clues and traces she left, the boy and his friends finally find the girl. And all he gets for his trouble – not to mention missing out on his own graduation! – is a short kiss, a farewell and the promise to somehow stay in touch? How is that not depressing?”
I stared at her, aghast. For a moment, my brain didn’t seem to be able to make the connection between the words I’ve just heard and the sound that was supposed to have reached my ears. It was like I was caught under a dive bell that made everything around me sound muffled. Then I finally understood. And I was even more taken aback, as I had never myself thought that way about my story with Margo.
Even after all those years, she still remained a mystery to me. It was true, I never got as close to her as I had always wished to be when I was a teenager. And as I was reminiscing about it, it came to me that she even teased me about my feelings more than once. It weren’t more than tiny things, like a flicker of her eyes in my direction, her throwing back her hair in the hallways of school, her barging into my bedroom at night, jumping onto my bed while I was half-naked under it, her face as close to me as she had always been in my dreams…and then came something else into my head.
The way Margo had looked at me the day I had finally found her after weeks of searching and following traces. The blank, angry stare in her eyes. The seemingly long laid-out explanation for her flight. The refuse to come back home with me. And suddenly, after all those years, I began to see her with different eyes, and from the way Riley looked at me, sympathetically, I knew she knew she had gotten through to me.
Margo hadn’t been the girl that had danced in my dreams. Well, technically, she had been, and more than one crumpled sheet in my bed back then proved that, but Riley was right. The story I had shared was depressing. For years, I had been chasing nothing but a dream, no matter the costs, and I sugarcoated it with a story about a road trip and pee-in-a-bottle jokes.
I suddenly felt extraordinarily tired.
“Look, Quentin,” Riley said and pushed herself closer towards me. I scented the perfume on her skin, a mixture of orange and vanilla that waved in the slight breeze. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Or offend you. God knows I’ve been in some very weird relationships myself.” I didn’t correct her that Margo and I had never actually been in a relationship of that kind; I felt like it was obsolete.
“It’s just….god. You’re such a good guy, you know. You have a steady job, a nice flat, you’re good-looking, quite popular around your colleagues and friends. And still, I can see the flicker of a love long hoped for and yet, lost, in your eyes. I can see something that just doesn’t let you give up on her. I always assumed it was about a girl, but this…” She stopped at looked at me with a shrug. “How long since you’ve last seen her?”
That question, I realized, I could answer without any hesitation. “Eight years,” I said.
“Eight years?” Riley asked, her eyes widening. “Wait, so…the story you just told me happened, what? Nine years ago? Does that mean you only stayed in touch for one more year? Despite your promise to each other?”
I shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Life got in the way, I guess. She went off to Los Angeles and started at some kind of marketing firm. I went back to school, had my graduation after all, and we met twice a few months after she had settled. Then I got accepted into Emerson, started my degree and got a job with the Times. And somewhere along the way…we grew apart.”
“You grew apart? You and the girl you have loved and dreamed about since the second your eyes fell on her when you were just eight years old?”
I smiled. I couldn’t help it, really. I thought about what Ben would’ve said, would’ve he been here right in this second. “That honeybunny is sharp as a butcher’s knife, dude. Keep her.” And I knew how my words must have sounded, considering the story that I had been rambling about for the past few hours. But somewhere along the way, somewhere between the part where I had told Riley about the moment I had found Margo again and the one where she stated how depressing our history really was, I had finally come to peace with myself and whatever Margo and I had shared.
Which was – basically, now that it was clear for me to see, – nothing.
“Yes, very positively so.” And as if to do my words justice, I leaned forward, cupped Riley’s face in both of my hands and kissed her.
I hadn’t even known myself that I’d do it before I did. But in that moment, everything around us seemed to disappear in the dark night sky. The cold breeze embracing us felt like a warm summer wind, and in my head, I heard birds sing a song that I had long forgotten about. A song about love and the beauty of life.
I pulled away and looked at the girl across from me expectantly. We had never kissed before; in fact, I hadn’t even known I liked her in that kind of way, despite the obvious attraction she had developed towards me ever since we had started working together, with every lunch we shared and every joke I had told over the past couple of months. Apparently, she thought I was hilarious, and the teenage boy still inside of me thought it was out of pity. But that kiss…god. Even the best actress couldn’t fake that kind of response to an unexpected kiss under a starlit sky.
“Wow.”
“Wow indeed.” I grinned at her.
“I..uhm…” Under the light of the stars, I saw her blushing a bit, and it was like I could almost see the heart under her chest beating faster. I grinned even more. I felt good. Perfect.
Like home.
“It’s been getting late, and I…I should really head home. My best friend will kill me if I miss out on dinner again. We’ve been trying to find a date to have our girl’s night for ages. If I skip it again, I probably have to sleep under a bridge tomorrow.” She was clearly blabbering now, confused, and it was such a familiar behavior for me that I almost laughed out loud.
From the moment I had met Riley a few months ago when my boss had introduced us to each other, she had been a tough one. She never took “No” for an answer if she really wanted something, she knew exactly how to get her way with people around her, and she was ambitious. Fierce. But the girl in front of me who now brushed off the grass from the bottoms of her dark blue jeans was the exact opposite. To me, it was like seeing myself squirming away from a definitely embarrassing situation, like being kissed by a very attractive girl.
Not that that had happened often until my early twenties, though. Quentin Jacobsen had never been a heart breaker. Nope, sir.
“Yeah, I have to head off soon, too,” I replied, getting up myself. As soon as I stood, I almost felt myself collapse; my legs felt as if they were made of jelly from the hours of sitting cross-legged. I steadied myself, and when I looked up, I saw Riley grin at me.
“Easy there, mister. I know my kisses are good, but you have no idea what else is in stock.” And then she actually winked at me. And for the first time I felt like I could fall in love with her.
“Ha-ha, good one,” I said, laughing. “But seriously, I need to go. There’s a wedding I have to attend tomorrow, and I know that my best friend will kill me if I don’t make it to Florida in time. And then he’ll send the wrath of dozens of Black Santas upon me.”
Riley looked at me with a shy smile on her lips, clearly puzzled at that expression, thinking I had made some weird kind of joke. I didn’t offer her any more explanation, as it would’ve probably taken another three hours to explain why one of my friends’ parents had the world’s largest collection of Black Santas all over their place – and that they’re black, themselves.
I slightly punched her in the shoulder (the insecure teenage boy suddenly back, not knowing how to act around this beautiful, blue eyed girl now that he had so bravely kissed a few minutes before) and gave her my widest smile.
“When will you be back, Quentin?” she shouted after me as I headed down Central Park, and I turned around.
“One week. If I decide on another road trip with enough empty bottles to pee in, then probably just six days.” That made her laugh out loud, and I felt like the funniest person in the world. Although I’d have to do a lot of explaining to do towards Ben if he ever found out I told a girl – a honeybunny, – about his peeing incident.
“Alright, Mr. Roadtrip,” Riley said, still laughing. “Call me as soon as you’re back. Then we can take off where we just left.”
From afar, I grinned and gave her a thumbs-up. “You bet on it!”
Had I known how the upcoming events would turn my world upside down, I would’ve probably turned around and ran out of Central Park, out of New York and maybe even the US as fast as I could without ever looking back.

 

~2~

When I arrived at the house where I had grown up, lived, loved and laughed, I couldn’t help but smile. The well-kept, green lawn right in front of me with a lawnmower in the corner (my father must’ve been cutting the grass early this morning before the sun and heat would hit us), the flowers just under the living room windows that my mother without a doubt still looked out for in an impeccable manner, the van in front of our garage that reminded me of the legendary road trip on my graduation day. Thinking of it again, my mouth spread out into a wide grin, and I shook my head, laughing. Then the smile faded when my eyes wandered up to my old bedroom window.
It still looked exactly as on the day I had left it, although I knew my mother had turned it into a study, or better, a session room (she had started doing home sessions with her psychology students over the past few years, and apparently, my old bedroom with all the years of teenage sweat that had seeped into the walls was perfect for that. Not that we didn’t have enough other rooms for her purpose; but I guess that way it was easier to let her psychologically and mentally perfect son leave the house to start his own life, far away in Boston – talking about the psyche of therapists, huh?), but when I looked up to it, all I could think about was that one night.
The night of the dead fish, the naked Quarterback, Sea Life and the Paper Towns. For a moment, I felt way older than twenty-seven, and my heart grew heavy with all the memories that seem to be fading when you leave your teenage years and enter the crazy world of being a grown-up. Then a picture of Riley popped into my head, the girl that somehow liked me (a lot, hooray!) and who I could picture spending a lot of time with – months, even years…hell, maybe we would even be ending up pushing each other’s wheelchair when we were old and grey and the pension from both our journalist jobs was enough to settle down in a nice suburban place like the one I was just standing in.
The future was scary, but it was also worth keep going for.
A squeak pulled me out of my thoughts, and with a grin, I turned my attention to the front door, where my mother stood, her hands clasped in front of her chest, in a long yellow summer dress, her hair pulled up into an updo that I had never seen her wear before. My mother wasn’t someone who gave a lot of thought as to what to wear, what others thought of her; as a therapist, she had analyzed enough people in her life to know that when someone spruced themselves up, it was probably because they didn’t get too much attention as a child (it’s a cliché, but I swear, it was one of life’s lessons that you learned when growing up a Jacobsen). Next to her, my father stood, one hand on the small of my mother’s back, the other hand waving towards me. He looked sharp in his dark suit, way younger than he actually was. They say that life takes its toll, but if that was true, then my father had somehow found a way to outwit it. The smile on his lips reached the corners of his eyes, were small wrinkles built, and for the first time since I had stepped out of the airport, I really felt home again. Excitement to see my old friends later rushed through me.
“Quentin, honey!” My mother came rushing down the front porch, and when she reached me, she opened her arms and hugged me tight, the scent of her perfume finding its way into my nose. It was a blossom scent that somehow reminded me of Riley again, and I felt a rush of butterflies in my stomach.
“How was the flight? How’s New York? How handsome you look in that suit! Christopher, doesn’t he look like a successful young man in the prime of his life?”
“I’m great, thanks mom,” I said, hugging her back. “New York’s…well, cold and windy at that time of year, I guess, but give me a hot and sticky Orlando and I am as happy as one can get,” I continued, which made her laugh out loud. Whenever I came back home (which had been very rare recently, as my job at the Times took up a lot more time than when I was just an intern), my mother asked the same question, and for years, I had given her the same answer. It was our little inside joke.
“Connie, you should really let go of the boy. He’s one of the best men, you better not get his suit all wrinkled up before the ceremony,” I heard my father say as he came down the steps and joined us in the driveway. He smiled proudly as he pulled me into a short embrace himself and patted me on the back. That was as far as he’d ever go into showing emotions; if my mother was the therapist in our family who would always provide you with enough lessons and wise comments about the human psyche, my father was the one who took those lessons and implemented them into his actions (or lack thereof, in that case). They were weird at times, but I was glad they weren’t even half as weird as other people’s parents. At least they had never tried to talk to me through a sock with buttons as eyes and a squeaky voice. That had to count as something.
“Ready for your big day, buddy?”
“Dad, it’s not my wedding, you know? I’m just his best man, how hard can that be?” I replied, laughing. Though on the inside, I wasn’t even half as calm as I pretended to be. It had been a few years since I had seen Radar, and although we had stayed in touch and talked almost every week, it was different to see him again after everything that we had been through nine years back. And over all, this was his wedding day, the day he married his High School sweetheart, Angela. And he had chosen me and Ben to be his best men. It was a huge honor, and it made me nervous, and I wished I didn’t screw things up with the rings that I carried in the pocket of my suit.
“You’re right, darling,” my mother barged in, straightening my jacket. “But who knows? Marcus’ wedding day could be the day that you meet someone, too.” She winked at me, and I felt myself blushing slightly. My mother had never pushed me into dating girls when I was a teenager; she firmly believed that everything went at its own pace and that when the time was right, I would find someone and settle down the way she and my father had. But underneath it all, I knew she secretly hoped I would finally stop my bachelor life, though she would’ve never said anything. I smiled.
“Mom, actually, there’s…” I began, surprising myself by wanting to tell her about Riley, but before I could continue, my father looked at his watch and said: “We should get going, before the traffic’s getting to bad. The best man surely shouldn’t be the last one to arrive.”
And with that, we set off in the car that I had rented at the airport, me behind the wheel and my parents in the back, holding hands as if they were on the way to their own wedding. It pleased me to see how happy they still were after all these years, and once again, I thought of Riley and was surprised that I could easily picture her and me in a back of a car ourselves, me in a dark suit like the one I was wearing now, and her right next to me, her face hidden behind a veil that was part of a beautiful white wedding dress. It was ridiculous, I know; I didn’t even know her that long, and there had only been that one kiss in Central Park just before I had left for Florida, but in my heart I felt that there was something special between us. It felt absolutely right.
I couldn’t wait to tell my parents about the girl I was beginning to fall in love with.
As soon as we arrived at the wedding location and I stepped out of the car, squinting into the bright Orlando sunshine towards the rows and rows of chairs behind white decorated table that served as a small altar for the priest and the groom and bride and I caught sight of Radar and Ben talking to each other in the back row, Ben throwing his head back, laughing, I knew that all my nervousness about this day had been ridiculous and unnecessary. A few feet away from me, my two best friends stood, looking as if the past nine years hadn’t aged them for even a second.
Radar looked sharp in his black suit with a small bow tie and a red cummerbund, his curly black hair cropped close to his head, his hands inside the pockets of his trousers. He was talking vividly, but even from the distance, I could see that it was just a show; he was dead nervous himself. I almost laughed. The Radar I knew had always been the most contained and self-disciplined person one could ever come across. Not even mocking posts on his own website, Omnictionary, made by anyone who at the time liked to make fun of him could discompose him. Maybe growing up with hundreds of different kinds of Black Santas in his house prepared him for the hard life of a teenager.
Next to him, Ben looked no older than he had been when I had witnessed him pee into a bottleneck nine years ago. The boyish smile was the same, and even his blond hair looked as if he still went to the same hairdresser that he had had when we had been kids. He gestured around wildly, and I could almost hear him in my head, probably telling Radar of a “honeybunny” he was dating right now, talking about the nice curve of her butt and the way her hips swayed when she walked, just to tease him. Seeing him in the same suit that I was wearing myself suddenly made my heart ache a bit; despite how young he looked, in that moment, I felt that we had all grown-up and that past times were now only memories shared in the spur of a moment.
As if they had heard my thoughts, both of them suddenly turned their heads in my direction, and the massive grin that suddenly appeared on Ben’s face and the smirk on Radar’s lips pulled me in.
“Bro!” Ben shouted, coming down the aisle to where I was still standing next to the rental car. My parents had somehow disappeared without me noticing and were now talking to Radar’s parents down at the buffet. I put on the biggest grin myself and pulled both Radar and Ben into a brotherly embrace, and it all felt like we had never been apart. When we let go, I saw Radar step from one foot to another, hands back in his pockets.
“Please tell me you have the rings,” he said, his voice shaking slightly, and thinking again how composed he normally was, I couldn’t stop myself from grinning. “Angela’s brother is going insane that I gave them to someone living thousand miles away instead of him.”
I put on an innocent face. “Rings? What rings?” I saw all the color drain from Radar’s face for a second, his jaw dropping and sweat breaking out on his forehead. I looked over at Ben, who could barely stop himself from giggling, and burst out into laughter myself. “Calm down, dude, I have them right here.” And with that, I pulled the little blue box with the wedding rings out of my pocket.
Radar stared at me, aghast, then slapped me hard on my arm. “Asshole! I already thought I had to suddenly leave and find some random girl willing to marry me just to make good use of this suit after all.” But he laughed, and I knew I had taken away some of his tension.
“Speaking of which,” Ben said, bumping his fist into my shoulder. “Tell me you brought some honeybunny with you.” He looked around, then into the car, obviously waiting for a beautiful girl with the spirit of New York making her big entrance by stepping out of the vehicle behind me.
“Sorry, buddy, I’m afraid you and me will have to make out after the ceremony behind the barn.”
“Ha-ha,” Ben replied, rolling his eyes. “You know I love you, darling, but I’m afraid I’m still not ready to come out in public. Especially not on someone’s wedding day. We’d steal all the attention, you know.”
We all burst out into laughter, and it suddenly felt like old times, as if all the time away at colleges and our jobs didn’t happen.
“No, seriously, dude, don’t tell me that New York doesn’t provide its residents with loads of beautiful honeybunnies.” He looked at me in such a serious way that I couldn’t help but give in.
“Well,” I began, feeling those butterflies in my stomach again. “Actually, there is someone. Her name’s Riley.”
Radar and Ben both looked at each other, then stared at me for a moment. Then both of them patted my back.
“Ha, I knew it!” Ben shouted out, pushing his fist into the bright, blue sky. “I told you, man, he’d get over Margo as soon as he’s out in the real world! There’s just too many hot ladies out there who are in desperate need of the power of Q’s balls!” With that, he reached out to Radar and held open his hand. “You owe me ten bucks.”
I looked at my best friends, taken aback. I hadn’t expected to hear that name out of one of their mouths, although I gathered that her name had probably been dropped between them more than once over the past couple of years, considering that both of them had stayed close to their hometown, Radar even only a few miles down from his parents’ house when he went to college. Especially because ever since I had gone off to Emerson, we hadn’t even spoken of her personally. There had been mentions of the legendary road trip, the madness at each gas station when we stocked up on food and drinks, and of course, our old enemy, Chuck Parsons, passing us in the school hallways without eyebrows for weeks. But now, thinking about it, it felt like both Radar and Ben had purposely avoided mentioning Margo’s name in conversations with me, as if there had been an unspoken promise to not bring up the subject of the girl that had broken my heart when I was seventeen. It didn’t surprise me as much as one would think, and despite a small lump in my heart that made me realize that even years after school was over, my two best friends had cared so much for me that they had felt the need to protect me from everything that Margo reminded me of (especially Ben, who had always been someone who seemed to care more about when he’d find the next girl that would get him laid than about other people’s personal problems), I felt absolutely content and happy with myself. As I had told Riley just the day before, Margo’s and my lives had turned into a different direction, and we both had moved on. And for my part, my life was perfect the way it was.
“I can’t believe you two took bets on my broken heart,” I replied flatly. “That’s really sad, you know.”
Ben stared at me, then turned his attention to the floor. More than ever, he looked like the boy I had known in High School.
“I’m sorry, bro, seriously,” he stuttered, obviously trying to explain himself. “We just thought that…”
“No, no,” I interrupted him, grabbing his right shoulder, pulling him up and staring straight into his eyes. “It’s really sad that you only bet ten bucks. You could have become a rich man, bro.” Ben looked up, into my serious eyes, and I couldn’t hold it any longer. A loud laugh escaped my throat and shook my entire body; I had to grab the roof of the car behind me to steady myself.
For a moment, there was silence from my best friend, but then both he and Radar joined in and our laughter filled the blue sky above us. Birds flew over our heads, white pigeons, I noticed, the air smelled of the beginning of fall and friendships never lost and the bright future ahead of us.
Radar’s father came over and told us that the ceremony was about to start. We slowly managed to contain our laughter, and I was glad that at least for a bit, I had made him forget about his nervousness that in a few minutes, he would be going to get married to his High School sweetheart. We crossed the lawn towards the small altar, and Ben poked me into the side with his elbow.
“I want to hear every single detail about that New York honeybunny when this is done, Bro. EVERY. SINGLE. DIRTY. DETAIL.”
I laughed, feeling home more than ever. Life was wonderful.

~3~

The wedding ceremony had been absolutely perfect, and it must’ve been exactly what Radar and Angela had hoped for. The bride looked stunning in her long white dress with tiny, sparkling red diamonds around the chest piece that matched Radar’s cummerbund. When they both said their vows and breathed their “I Do” and at last kissed for the first time as husband and wife, even the last row was up on their feet, cheering and clapping, slapping the groom on the back, congratulating both of them and wishing them the best for their future together. I felt a pang of sadness inside of me as I saw the color in both of their cheeks, the big smiles and the way the held hands; one of my best friends that I knew since kindergarten was now officially a grown man, and it wouldn’t be long before their family would grow. Maybe the times we talked and saw each other would become longer, the subjects we talked about changed more and more to family stuff, and when the time came, would fade out completely. You never know, do you?
But generally, when I looked at them, hugged both of them and told Angela how sorry she would be once she realized she was now stuck with Radar and would soon share their home with dozen of creepy Black Santas for the rest of her life, invading even their future baby’s cot and the mobile above it (which made her giggle so hard that tears started running down her cheeks so that she screamed for the girl responsible for her make-up to renew it), I was beyond happy for them. They had found something that everybody reached for in their life, and once again, my thoughts wandered back to New York, and I wondered what Riley was doing right now. I wondered if she also had thought about us the way I had done just a few hours before. Or if she still thought about the story I had told her, fearing that despite my assertion being back home with my old school friends, with all the people of my past, Margo would pop back into my mind and invade it once again, throwing all the plans the future held in stock for me and Riley into disarray.
I shook my head. Riley wasn’t that kind of girl, I was sure of that. But I decided it couldn’t hurt to give her a call later, when the excitement and celebration had ebbed away a bit.
I walked away from the hustle and bustle and found myself slowly walking up a small hill that overlooked the party company to my feet. The sun had started to set and from the distance, it’s orange glow gave the scene underneath a romantic, silent atmosphere. I heard laughter coming up to me, I saw Ben dancing some weird kind of dance, everyone around him laughing and being infected by his crazy mood and beginning to dance themselves. Radar and Angela sat in the middle of their long table, Radar having his arm round his wife’s shoulders, a satisfied smile on his lips. The nervousness had fallen off him the moment he had seen her coming up the aisle to him, and he now seemed more relaxed than ever. I leaned forward on the fence that cut off part of the hill and stared at the happiness down there, smelled the scent of flowers and the salty air from the sea close by and closed my eyes for a moment, taking all of it in.
When I opened them again, I saw my parents coming toward me. They held hands, and as they reached me, my mother gave me a quick hug. I noticed that her eyes were glistening in the darkening sky.
“Hey darling,” she said, squeezing my hand. “What a beautiful ceremony, wasn’t it? It reminded me of the one we had back then.” She looked up at my father and smiled. “The seashore, the bright sun that almost burnt you in your suit…” My father laughed and nodded. “…and that gorgeous little beach house Sandra and Scott had prepared for us and where we disappeared after all the excitement was over and…”
“Urgh, mom,” I interrupted. “Gross.” Both my parents laughed and my father gave me a friendly slap on the shoulder.
“One day, you’ll be the one telling your kids all the vivid details of your wedding night, son,” he said, grinning. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, really.”
“Dad, please. I’m trying very hard to not feel sick by having to look at my best friend and his wife slobbering each other the entire time like they’re grown together already.” But I was laughing myself. Looking at Radar and Angela was like looking into a mirror that showed my future, and the thought of experiencing what they had just experienced with a girl myself – maybe even Riley one day, – made me feel consonant with myself.
“What’s with the grinning, son?” I heard my dad and realized I had put on a foolish grin. I shook my head. The urge to call Riley was stronger than ever.
“Nothing,” I replied, smiling. “I just thought I better make a call to someone I promised to talk to before it’s getting too late.” That was a small lie, but knowing my parents, I knew they wouldn’t push it.
“Well,” my mother said, giving me another squeeze. “Then we better leave you to it, right, Christopher?” My father nodded. “Just don’t make it too long. You’re still one of the best men and the party down there looks like it’s waiting for you.”
I assured her that I would it make it a quick call and be right down. My mother kissed me on the cheek and they walked down side by side, looking like newlyweds themselves. I smiled.
I heard a sound behind me and turned around. The trees behind me swayed slightly in the wind, and the thick branch work of several bushes rustled along. But there was nobody to see. I shook my head and pulled out my phone. I thumbed through my contacts and when I reached Riley’s name, my heart started thumping. I realized it was probably the two glasses of champagne that made me feel jumpy right now, but I was determined to call her and tell her I couldn’t wait to pick up on where we had left off yesterday.
Before I could put my thumb down on her name to start the call, I heard another sound behind me, closer this time. I turned around again, brows furrowed. But still there was no other soul on the hill than me. Everybody was down there, having fun and enjoying the time of their lives. While I stood here and hear noises in the branch work. What was wrong with me? I shook my head and placed my thumb on my phone again. I stared at the green receiver on the screen and heard the faint ringing. I started to hold the phone to my ear, convinced that in the next few seconds, somebody on the other end would pick up and I would hear Riley’s sweet voice. But before my phone had even reached my ear, I heard a voice behind me.
“Look at them down there. Having fun in their paper gazebo with their paper dresses, drinking their champagne out of paper glasses and listening to songs coming out of paper speakers.”
My hand stopped short as the words spoken reached my ear. My thumb automatically pressed on the red earpiece just as I heard a faint “Hello?” on the other end. I knew that voice. I hadn’t heard it for years now, but there was no way I would ever mistake it for any other voice. I slowly turned around and felt the heart in my chest beating faster, the rush of adrenaline running through my veins.
When I faced the person that had interrupted my thoughts and the intended call to my soon-to-be girlfriend back in New York, the shaking of my hand became stronger and I felt the phone slip out of my and and drop to the grass, where it landed upside down right to my feet. I didn’t care. My tongue felt numb and I felt a tickling sensation on my entire body. I stared at the person in front of me and wasn’t sure if it was a dream or if I just had had too many glasses of champagne. I blinked. The person was still there. I blinked again. Still there. This was real. I swallowed hard as I saw a smile spread across the person’s small and perfect lips. I stared at it, hypnotized.
“Hey, paper boy,” Margo Roth Spiegelman said.

 

 

~4~

Whenever I had thought about Margo during the past 8 years since we had last seen each other, I had pictured her as someone standing on her own two feet, self-consciously, with the typical look of somebody living on the West Coast for years. Hip clothes, a Starbucks coffee in one hand and a phone in the other one, talking to whoever was on the other side she was working with, the expression of a well-established young woman who had built up a life of her own on her face.
But I was as far away from that as I could ever be.
The girl across from me looked no day older than on the day we had last said Goodbye to each other. That smirk that had always appeared in front of my inner eye whenever I thought about her was still there. Her style hadn’t changed at all. The blue jeans she wore were still slightly washed out, and the shirt that was cut out deeper around on shoulder hung loosely around her collarbone. Considering she was close to a wedding, she looked a tiny bit under dressed. Not that I would ever complain, I thought. She was Margo, and Margo always did whatever the hell she wanted. No one knew that better than me.
I realized I had been staring at her for minutes when she said “So, you’re going to stare at me forever, or am I going to get a hug?” Her head tilted slightly to the left side, hands on her hips.
I couldn’t move. I tried to remind myself how to use my legs, my arms, my damn voice. The air around me suddenly felt way too hot (which was probably just how Florida was in the early fall – hot and sticky. At least I tried to make myself believe that that was the reason I was suddenly sweating as if puberty had hit me again.) and the sound of cicadas mixed up with the laughter and music coming up towards us from the party down the hill.
I cleared my voice.
“What…what the hell are you doing here?” Great. I hadn’t seen the girl who had danced in my dreams since I was a kid for almost nine years and the first thing coming out of my mouth was a question sounding more like an accusation. Smart move, Quentin.
“Wow, you really improved your conversation-opener skills, Q,” Margo replied and let out a laugh. I flinched at the nickname she had given me back then. I still stared at her, and seeing her smirk, her entire posture, suddenly made me furious.
“What do you expect me to do, really?” I said, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “We haven’t been talking for the past eight years, you’ve practically disappeared from the face of the earth, and now you show up here, unannounced and, even more so, uninvited, and I’m supposed to jump up and down in joy?”
Suddenly, the air around us seemed even thicker. Margo looked at me, her smirk now interrupted by a look that I couldn’t quite pin down, because I had never seen it plastered on her face before: confusion. Nothing ever confused Margo Roth Spiegelman. She was a confusion herself. Seeing her like that startled me a bit, but I still felt rage boiling inside of me.
“What? You don’t get it?” I asked. “After all those years knowing me, you still don’t get what’s the deal with me? I thought you’d always be prepared for whatever life is throwing at you. Or probably don’t really care enough for other people to actually think about those things, for that matter.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, paper boy,” she said, raising her hands up in the air apologetically. “Slow down, will you? I thought you’d be happy to see your old buddy in crime.” She waited for me to say something, and as I stayed silent, she shrugged. “Or not. I probably should have gone with the idea of shaving off one of my eyebrows for old times’ sake, after all. I guess.” And the smirk reappeared. God.
“Stop calling me that.”
“What? Paper boy?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“You know why, Margo.”
“Enlighten me.”
“You said it yourself all those years back. It’s an expression for flat people living their flat lives. Neither my life nor myself is flat. But you wouldn’t know anything about it, would you? Because you weren’t there.”
Without needing to look at her, I knew I’d hit a nerve. I had been more rude than I had ever thought was possible, but now I couldn’t take it back anymore. And the truth was: I didn’t want to. What I had just said to Margo had been inside of me for the past eight years without me realizing it. Not even when Riley had mentioned how sad my story actually was. And I was finally able to let it out.
The only thing was: Margo wasn’t surprised. She wasn’t even shocked. She was just…Margo. Un-blinking, unnerving. Her hands let go of her hips and crossed in front of her chest. With both our postures, we were now a reflection of each other.
“Well,” she said, looking at me with a look that my mother would’ve probably given a baby bird that fell out of its nest. Yes, my mother did stuff like that. I won’t tell you she even analyzes those poor souls, but I won’t deny it, either.
“Who would’ve thought Quentin Jacobsen would be capable of such strong language? I guess hugging is now obsolete.”
I nodded and turned around when I heard a loud noise down the hill. The sun had started setting and I guess Radar’s and Angela’s families would soon start the legendary firecrackers.
“Where have you been, Margo?” I said, looking at her with what Ben would’ve called “puppy eyes”. I couldn’t help it. “I know the last time we met we didn’t make any promises to stay in touch, not the way we did back in Agloe, but…” I stopped, not able to continue. Margo stared at me and shortened the distance between us. There were now only a few centimeters between us, I realized.
“But what happened?” she asked. “Life happened, Q. I got wrapped up in the numerous jobs I tried to figure out what I wanted. And you went off to college, remember? Starting your journalism career and from what I can see, you are pretty damn good at what you do.” She grabbed behind her and pulled out a crumbled piece of paper. When she unfolded it, I saw it was an issue of the New York Times. She held it up, her finger tapping on a story on the front page with my name under it. My story.
A couple of months back, while I had still been an intern, a huge story had been coming up about a farm outside of New York where a case of probable animal hoarding took place. Nobody so far had been able to get any pictures or even reports from its neighbors – simply because said neighbors were more scared about the owner, who appeared to be a former boxer with a tiny alcohol problem. Somehow – I still don’t really know how it had happened, – a couple of weeks back, Riley and I had managed to climb the high security fence after we had overheard someone in town telling someone who lived close to said farm that its owner, Paul Clegg, was out of town for a couple of days to get some more cows at an auction near Aurora. We got inside the property and saw the horror for ourselves. It brought tears to our eyes and hearts, and I remember the emotions in Riley’s eyes as she grabbed my hand and almost crushed it while squeezing. I had taken more pictures than anyone had ever managed before, and when I brought them back to the Times, everyone was absolutely overwhelmed and shocked by our discoveries. The next day, my story and pictures made the front page and caused Paul Clegg to resign from his activities as a farmer for the foreseeable future.
And I had turned from a simple intern to one of the Times’ best paid reporters.
I stared at Margo, her hand holding the newspaper. The article was at least four weeks old. I couldn’t believe she had seen it and more, had kept it the entire time. She had never been a newspaper person, I recalled. I began to wonder how long she apparently had kept track of my life without my knowing.
“Thank you…I guess,” I slowly said, a smile forming in the corners of my mouth, and the defensive tone out of my voice for the first time since I had started talking to her.
Margo laughed. “Don’t get on a roll now, paper boy. All I’m saying is that we were both wrapped up in our new, exciting lives, trying to figure out who and what we wanted.” I noticed her staring at the newspaper, momentarily lost in her thoughts, and I knew what she was looking at. There was a tiny picture of Riley and me standing next to each other in front of the front gate of Paul Clegg’s farm.
Margo looked up at me again, smiling, and I thought there was something inside her eyes that I had never seen before. Jealousy, maybe?
Ridiculous, bro, Ben suddenly said inside my head. Margo Roth Spiegelman and jealous? That honeybunny probably doesn’t even know how to spell that word, man.
“And hell, to be honest, I still don’t really know which direction I want my life to go, or what I want,” Margo continued, once again shortening the distance between us, now standing right in front of me, looking up to me with that mysterious smile plastered on her face that I successfully had managed to forget in the past eight years.
“But what I do know, paper boy,” she said, grabbing my hands with hers, “is that I missed you and want you back into my life.”
And then she kissed me.

~5~

I lay in my bed while the cicadas outside gave it their best chirping for a nightly concert. The air that came through the open window was rich with various smells that I had unknowingly missed the past couple of years as my life in New York had developed – freshly cut grass, sunflowers, and underneath it all, the never-fading smell of family barbecues in gardens.
I looked up at the dark, clear sky with its millions of stars gazing down on me, and I smiled when I thought of the day that lay behind me. Radar’s and Angela’s wedding had been absolutely beautiful and everything they had hoped for. The music was played by a band that both of them had seen live once a couple of years back, and their tunes made us all fall back into our teenage self. The newlyweds danced as if the world around them stood still or didn’t even exist, Angela in her bright white dress that made her look like a beautiful mermaid right out of one of the fairy tale books my dad used to read to me every night before I went to sleep when I was in preschool. And Radar, looking dapper and all grown-up, a constant grin planted firmly on his face, mouthing “I can’t believe this” to Angela over and over while they were lost in the music. I couldn’t have been happier for my best friend if I tried to.
Of course, part of me wasn’t as caught in the moment as it seemed.
Not after the kiss Margo gave me up on that hill.
Until now, I had successfully avoided the prospect of what had happened, being caught up in the hassle and buzz of two of my best friends’ special day. Margo had disappeared as quickly as she had shown up after she realized my reaction to her kiss hadn’t been the one she so apparently had expected to get. I had seen the disappointment in her eyes, the confusion about my reaction after years of chasing after her when we had still been in school. The shock that her magic somehow didn’t work on the poor Q anymore.
Or did it?
I shook my head and sighed. When I had flown over from New York, I had been so sure of myself; so sure that when I came back, all that I wanted was there to take. Riley and me. Me and Riley. It had made me shiver with butterflies in my stomach, and only when Ben had urged me to tell him everything about that “mystery girl from the Big Apple” earlier, I had realized how much she meant to me, and how, for the first time since leaving school 8 years ago, I had been truly happy and satisfied with the way my life had played out, and I couldn’t wait to tell everybody back home about her.
Until, once again, Margo Roth Spiegelman had turned my life upside down.
Suddenly, there was a gentle knock on the door. It pulled me out of my reverie, and at first, I thought I had imagined it, or that it had been some woodpecker in the trees outside my parents’ house. But then, another knock came and I sat up straight in bed, turning on the lamp on my bedside table. The clock on the nightstand read 3:27am.
“Yes?”
Slowly, the door opened, and first a mop of blond hair and then, the grinning face of Ben appeared in the door frame. Despite the late – or early – hour, I couldn’t help but grin back.
“If it isn’t the one and only Ben Starling. To what do I owe the honor of this visit at this godforsaken hour, my friend?”
The door opened wider, and there he was, all long legs and arms, as if the past 8 years hadn’t happened, as if Benjamin Jacob Starling had somehow decided to never grow up.
“It is an honor indeed, my weird friend,” Ben replied, coming in and slumping into a chair opposite my bed. “What’s up?”
I stared at him. “Uhm…you tell me. It’s almost half past three in the morning after a long wedding day, and you show up here unannounced instead of trying to get back together with Lacey.”
Ben snorted. “You wish, buddy,” he said, grinning. “That ship has sailed long ago. Though she’d still be the luckiest girl in the world if she’d be allowed to wallow in the glowing sunshine that is my life.”
I laughed, shaking my head. Ben would never change.
There was a silence between us, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable one; it was like the most normal thing in the world to sit in your old bedroom at your parents’ house with one of your best friends, all smiles, and letting the summer breeze flow between you two, as if the world was still as open to you as it had been when you were a kid.
After a few moments, though, I sensed that there was something on Ben’s mind that he struggled with.
“Hey, dude, you’re okay?”
“What? Oh yeah.”
“Yeah, alright. And I am having an affair with Margo Spiegelman.”
Too late I noticed my mistake, and I took a sharp breath, hoping Ben didn’t pick up on it. But it was futile. As I saw the glistening in my best friend’s blue eyes in the gloom of the bedside lamp, I knew that the safety of our comfortable banter had lulled me into a false sense of security. And as soon as I saw the expression in Ben’s eyes, I knew that he knew, that he had planned this.
“So…it’s true, man?”
I tried to play it cool. “What is?”
“Yeah, right. Play dumb, bro.” He smirked.
After a moment, I sighed, threw back the duvet and pulled my knees up to my chest, suddenly feeling sixteen again.
“You know, it’s funny how sometimes, people see something they can’t put into relation, then mention it to someone else, and before one knows it – boom. You thought you could keep your little dirty secret from me? Me? Dude, I’m the master of secret honeybunnies.”
“Ben…” I started, shaking my head. “There’s nothing to know, seriously. It’s not what you think. And actually…I don’t think even I know what it is.”
“Oooooookay…spill, then.”
And just like that, I did.
It felt easy and hard at the same time, just like it had back when I was still in High School and Margo had been everything there was to me in the world. While I talked and made sure I didn’t forget any details – I knew Ben would be able to tell when I tried to keep something about my encounter from
him -, I tried to come to terms with my own feelings. I had been so sure that seeing Margo up on that hill had been everything I did not want right at this time that I had even managed to maintain enough distance between us, to make sure she realized I had moved on since I had last heard from her. Now, while I repeated my story to someone who had basically lived through all stages of my unrequited High School love with me, I started to think whether I had fooled myself all these years.
When I finished, Ben nodded silently and put on what he called his “thinker pose” – shoulders hunched, brows furrowed, and his index finger resting on his lower lip. All the while I sat there and waited for the jokes that inevitably would come.
“So…the verdict, your honor?” I tried to sound casual, but instead, even I could hear the anxiety in my voice.
There was a long pause and I could almost hear the wheels in Ben’s brain whirring in a steady rhythm. We hadn’t seen much of each other ever since we went off to college, but I could tell that he and also Radar both still cared about me, and the feeling was mutual. We had kept each other in the loop about our studies, life, and love interests, and I knew it must’ve been confusing for Ben to hear about yet another Margo episode after I had made it pretty clear earlier that there was a different woman in the picture, waiting for me in New York.
It sure as hell confused me.
A moment later, a wide, boyish grin spread out on Ben’s face, building dimples in the corners of his mouth and letting his blue eyes shine with a spark of somebody who just got the puppy he so desperately wished for on Christmas. I instantly regretted saying anything.
“Duuuude…! Well done, you stallion!” Ben said, coming to the bed, slapping my back. “I didn’t think you still had it in you, that the old Big Apple has softened you and turned you into a monogamist like Radar, but…”
“I heard that, Ben.”
I was momentarily startled on hearing a male voice outside my door. Then Ben shouted “Yo, man, come in already, I told you I wasn’t making shit up!” and there was a sigh, just before my door opened and Radar’s head slowly appeared in the door frame, accompanied by the shy smile that still existed despite clearly having grown up – maybe more than Ben and me combined.
The morning before, a few hours before his big moment at the altar, Radar had been clean shaven, his face almost white with fear and nervousness – if that was even possible, what with him being African-American to the core.
Now, almost a day later, a slight stubble had already started to spread around his mouth and chin, and there was a glowing in his face that I had last seen when he and Angela – his high school sweetheart and now wife, – had first had sex on our crazy road trip to New York all those years ago.
I stared at Radar, taken aback. “What the hell are you doing here, buddy?” I asked. “You know this is supposed to be your wedding night, right? I mean, I’m honored, really, but I really think this should be the one for Angela, not me…” I grinned. Ben clapped his hands twice.
“As much as I am sure Radar would love to spent his special night with his second-best friend instead of his wife…”
“Second-best…?” I interrupted.
“…we have way more urgent matters at hand,” Ben concluded.
“Yeah, because what isn’t better than having sex with the woman of your dreams?” Radar asked, sarcasm thick in his voice, but a slight smile on his lips. He could never deny loving this banter between the three of us, no matter the many times of shaking his head in Ben’s direction.
Ben snorted. “Like your second-best friend having sex with the girl he used to chase down to New York the day before graduation?”
“Okay, stop,” I said, sitting up in bed. “First of all: again – second-best, Ben? And secondly – how exactly did Margo and I have sex? Because I don’t remember telling you anything else than her basically attacking and kissing me up on that hill.”
Ben dismissed this with a wave on his hand.
“I’m just stating the facts of what undoubtedly will happen in the future, dude.”
“Ah yeah, and what makes you say that? Recently came across a fortuneteller, have you?”
Ben snorted and shook his head. His hair swayed with the movement, and it suddenly made him look at least 10 years younger.
“Experience, Q, my buddy,” he said.
“Ah. Of course.”
Radar sighed and jumped in, his face now all serious and businesslike. “Look, man,” he began, “I know you said that it’s becoming pretty serious with that girl back in New York, and I really, really want to believe you – you’re my best friend, and I truly want only the best for you. But…”
He stopped, and I almost expected him to bite his lip, something he used to do when we were younger and there was a delicate subject to breach.
“Quentin….can you tell us in all honesty that Margo kissing you had absolutely no effect on you whatsoever?”
I grinned. “What, pinky swear and all that?” But when I saw my two best friends not go along with my joke, I knew I had to stop this charade and be honest. We had been friends since kindergarten, after all.
“Okay guys, listen,” I sighed. “I…I don’t actually know what that was. Or what it meant. Or what the hell I should think about it. The only thing I know is…I am still furious with Margo. She basically disappeared on me a second time almost 9 years ago, and now she comes back and jumps on me and I…I don’t know, I just have to accept that and live happily ever after with her, now that she’s suddenly decided she wants to settle down after all?”
Ben nodded sympathetically. “I hear ya, bro. That’s…audacious, to say the least.”
“Yeah, but all that aside,” Radar interrupted, “did it work? Even if only to consider it momentarily?”
I thought for a moment, suddenly aware of the entire, fucked-up situation. Of Riley, hundreds of miles away, waiting for me to come back and take off where we left it just a couple of days ago. Of that stupid scavenger hunt all these years ago, doomed to fail from the get go. Of the way Radar and Angela had looked at each other the moment they promised to love and care for each other for the rest of their lives. How sure I had been to one day have that exact thing with Margo, even if it meant waiting for her to find herself first.
“I…I guess…” I stuttered, feeling once again like a 12-year old who’s been caught stealing candy. I felt my two best friends brace themselves.
“I guess you’re right, Radar. Part of me never got over Margo, no matter how hard I tried. No matter how I feel about Riley now. I guess I just…have to face the fact that I have to clear things once and for all before I leave for New York in a couple of days.”
“It’s audacious,” Ben said again, shaking his head. It seemed to be his new favorite word.
Thank God honeybunny was finally off the table.

~6~

“What am I even doing here?”
I kept talking to myself while pacing back and forth, hands in my pockets to keep them from shaking, head bent down, shaking with the silliness of it all. And yet, it was all too real; I stood in front of a house I hadn’t seen since the day I moved to College, and the front lawn still looked exactly as it had all these years ago, with a shabby chic that didn’t look completely abandoned. The hedges were neatly trimmed, and I remembered the animals the man of the house had once tried to carve into them, before he had to admit that his artistic talent just didn’t go as far as gardening.
Suddenly, the front door opened, and I momentarily startled; because of my nervousness, I was way too early, and she had never been one to be punctual, because it somewhat went against her ethics or something. When I looked up, my heartbeat slowed down, and I grinned at the young woman who came down the pathway towards me, handbag slung over her right shoulder, and her gait sparkling with confidence.
I hadn’t seen Ruthie Spiegelman for as long as I hadn’t seen Margo’s childhood home, but in comparison to the front lawn, she had massively changed. Her once tomboy-like body had grown into that of a slim-built young woman. Her hair, which had always been a dirty shade of light blonde, had turned into a rich, dark brown, and she wore it long, strands of it falling into her face. I was almost taken aback by how she and Margo looked nothing alike now.
“Jacobsen? Quentin Jacobsen? Is that you?” Ruthie stopped in her tracks as she recognized me, and I grinned at her, suddenly feeling very self-conscious about how attractive the little sister of my former love interest had become.
“Hey Ruthie. How are things?”
She came towards me with a spring in her step, and, much to my surprise, threw her arms around me, hugging me in a tight embrace. The Ruthie I had known back then had been anything but social towards me.
“Look at you, Jacobsen, still trying to distract me from what really is going on,” she said, laughing. The laugh made her face lit up, and I could almost see every single boy in her High School fawning for her.
“You’re not interested in me or how a tomboy like me ended up this hell of an attractive young woman, are you?”
I shrugged. “Why not?”
Ruthie laughed again. “Because I know you have a date with my sister who suddenly showed up here a couple of days ago, only to jump onto you on Lincoln’s wedding day, kissing you out of the blue, telling you she’s grown-up and wants to spent the rest of her life with you?”
I stared at Ruthie disbelievingly, momentarily lost for words. Back when we were teenagers, Ruthie had hated everything Margo had been; she had always been the troublemaker of the two, and therefor, had always got more attention than Ruthie herself, the baby of the family. Margo herself, I knew, had always had a soft spot for her little sister, caring about her well-being more than anybody else’s, but as her reputation of the tough, aloof girl had to be kept up, she had never allowed anybody to see that side of her.
“She told you?” I replied when I found my speech again.
“Yeah. Took a while to get it out of her, though. Still, the glowing was as obvious as you being still in love with her.” Ruthie smirked, and all of a sudden, I didn’t know who was the older one of us anymore.
“What…what did she say?”
“Well, only what I just told you. Oh, and that it’ll only be a matter of time until you came around.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe she was right about that. I thought her fucking up prom for you back then and you becoming a man in one of the most exciting cities in the world with a hell of a great job would finally open your eyes about how bad she is for you.”
“I…I am not in love with her, Ruthie,” I explained. “In fact, I am currently seeing an amazing woman who seems to be just the right one. As in, you know…the one.”
Ruthie snorted. “Yeah, right. If that’s the truth, Jacobsen, then tell me one thing.”
“Sure, whatever you want to know.”
“Why the fuck are you standing on our front lawn looking like a lost boy waiting for his first date while Margo is currently blocking our bathroom, sprucing herself up?”
I stared at Ruthie, once again lost for words. And again, it struck me much she had grown up in the past couple of years.
“Yeah, thought so.” Ruthie passed me, walking down the Spiegelman’s driveway self-confidently, still smirking. Halfway down, she stopped and turned around, throwing me a truly concerned look that took me aback.
“Do yourself a favor, Jacobsen?” she said, crossing her arms in front of her, “Don’t let her fuck you up again, please? I always thought of you as a good catch. Don’t let my stupid sister take that away from you, yeah? You deserve to get that Happy End you dreamed of when you left Orlando.”
For a moment, we stared at each other silently, and I was surprised at how truly worried Ruthie seemed to be.
Then I nodded, and, satisfied, Ruthie nodded to, turned around and was on her way to whatever life had in store for that 17-year old girl who probably had more wisdom in her body than I had in the only wisdom teeth I had left in my mouth.

A couple of minutes after Ruthie left, and as I slowly but surely became nervous, asking myself even more whether this had been a good idea, the front door opened a second time and Margo stepped out, her usual self-confidence showing in the way she threw her hair back as she spotted me. Ruthie hadn’t exaggerated; Margo had definitely gone through a lot of effort to look presentable to me, and I suddenly felt under dressed for the occasion.
Stop this, you idiot, I chastised myself. This is just two old friends meeting up for a coffee to clear the air once and for all so you can back to your almost girlfriend in New York and live happily ever after.
I breathed in, more confidently, as another voice, more mocking and vicious, made itself heard inside my head.
Yeah, right, buddy. That’s why you came all the way to her house to pick her up instead of just meeting up at the coffee shop like two normal people who have absolutely no feelings for each other would do. Sure.
“Oh, shut up!” Too late I realized that I had that last thing out loud, and Margo, who had reached me standing in the driveway, looked at me curiously.
“Rude, Q! I haven’t even said anything yet!”
I knew she was joking by the way she tilted her head and smiled at me, but still, for a moment I felt like a teenager again, scolded by a teacher.
A damn fine looking teacher.
“What, no, sorry,” I stuttered, cursing to myself, hiding my shaking hands in my pockets still. “You…uhm…look nice.”
“Oh thank God you noticed, it took me throwing Ruthie out of the house to get this done.” When she saw my shocked expression, she laughed, and I had to admit, it was a sound I had missed in the past eight years. “Relax, Q, I was joking!”
I allowed myself a small smile, too, and silently told myself to get a fucking grip and behave like any normal 27-year-old, who knows exactly what – and more importantly, who, – he wants, would.
“Right, uhm…” I looked at Margo who herself looked at me expectantly. Clearly, so far, this was going exactly the way she had hoped it would. I cursed myself, taking control again.
“Still up for it? To…you know…talk about things?”
Margo stared at me. “Wow, you really don’t beat about the bush, do you?”
I fought the urge to redden, standing straighter, taking my hands out of the pockets of my jeans and crossing my arms in front of my chest.
“Well…I’m leaving for New York in a few days, and I would really like to spend them with my two best friends who I haven’t seen for almost 9 years before one of them goes on his honeymoon and the other one moves on to whatever crazy adventure he has planned next.” I paused, making it clear who would be calling the shots in this meeting. “So, yeah, if you don’t mind, Margo, I’d like to move things forward, if it’s not too much trouble for you.”
After a moment of stunned silence – this had to be the longest time I had known her to be able to keep quiet instead of her usual snotty comeback, – Margo shrugged and we went on our way.
As we walked aimlessly alongside each other, both of us caught in their own thoughts, I tried to not glance over to her every now and then. She really looked good, despite me trying to picture Riley’s face in front of my inner eye the entire time. It was clear that Margo had really made an effort today, and if I needed any more confirmation that the kiss she had planted on my lips yesterday had not been an accident, there it was. Maybe she really had changed; maybe all that soul-searching was really over, maybe during all her travels and our lack of communication over the past couple of years, she had realized what it was that she had been missing her entire life, and had finally allowed herself to give into it, after all.
God, stop it, Romeo, the vicious voice said. What about your determination to tell her to back off for good because you’ve found a perfectly good woman who does not play games with you?
That voice was right, of course, even if it was only in my head. In my heart, I knew that Riley was the right one, and that Margo would probably never grow up. Even her recent epiphany to stop running away and finally be with me wouldn’t change anything; Margo was who she was: a free spirit, come what may. I had to refuse to believe she had turned herself around and meant what she had said yesterday to protect myself.
After what seemed like an eternity, I was surprised that despite our original plan to go to a coffee shop, we reached a small hill, and I realized it was the same one Margo and I had kissed on yesterday, and to make matters worse, the sun had started to set, its light basking us in a soft orange-red glow. It would’ve been romantic, if that had been the thing we both had in mind while we unconsciously had walked up here; in truth, I fought with all I had to keep cool, to not let that cloud my judgement or destroy my resolve to let Margo down gently.
Clearly, the universe had something else in mind for me.
“I gotta say,” I heard Margo say next to me. Somehow, out of nowhere, a blanket had appeared and we were both sitting down, looking straight into the sunset and the world beneath us. “Under that sunlight…all these paper people down there only look half as bad as they normally do. Somehow reminds me of the office tower back then, remember? Right before we broke into Sea Life?”
I realized she was talking to me, and I caught her looking at me expectantly. There was a glint in her eyes that challenged me not to be touched by her remark of one of the best and most exhilarating nights of my entire life.
“Yeah.”
“Wow. Still monosyllabic,” Margo replied. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing, considering, you know, the alternative being shouted at by you.” I stared at her, and she bent her head, looking down, making scratch marks into the ground in front of her with her shoes. It was the first time I actually saw her somewhat serious and self-conscious in god knows how many years. Maybe in forever.
“Listen, Margo,” I began, knowing that my time to beat about the bush was coming to a close. “I don’t know what it is you want from me…”
“I told you, Q, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, well…” I stopped, wringing my hands in my lap, looking down at the grass. It seemed like an eternity since the wedding party and all the action down there.
“I think I made myself pretty clear yesterday,” Margo said, looking at me, taking my hands into hers and looking at me earnestly for the first time. “I have changed, Q. I don’t want to see the world anymore; I have basically seen all the paper towns that are to see out there.” She smiled. “And even if I didn’t…I’ve come to realize that all that doesn’t mean a thing if you can’t share it with the one person who means the most to you. The world doesn’t mean anything if the one person who is your world isn’t there to appreciate it with you.”
I looked at her, desperate to pull my hands back, but at the same time, incapable to move any muscle in my body. Her words had been the exact thing that I had waited for Margo to say to me ever since I found her in Agloe all these years back, and I couldn’t deny the tug in my heart at them. And the more I tried to force my feelings down, it slowly became impossible to resist her.
I looked up, and when my eyes met Margo’s, I felt her leaning in to me ever so slowly. A small, self-confident smile tug at her lips as she got closer, and that gave me the strength to break free.
I took back control of my hands, pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them, shaking my head.
“You almost made me believe you, Margo, really, you did,” I said, angry at myself to have let my defenses down so easily.
She stared at me, clearly hurt. That was a new one.
“You think I’m playing you, Quentin?” This was the first time she had called me by my entire name, and I knew she meant business. “You think I’m making a fool out of myself just to fuck with your mind?”
I snorted. “Wouldn’t be the first time now, would it? You always liked playing games.”
Now Margo pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her own skinny arms around them and rested her chin on top. She looked at least 10 years younger, almost the same age her sister Ruthie had been when I had started looking for Margo the day after she had disappeared.
“You’re right, Q, I did,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “It was fun to screw with my own and other people’s feelings. Not to let anybody close enough to you so they can’t hurt you. Not admitting to have any kind of feelings towards somebody. But now, Q…” She paused, and when I turned my head to look at her, I saw her looking at me, too, her eyes glistening.
Was Margo Roth Spiegelman…crying?
“Now I…I do have feelings. Real feelings. Feelings that scare and excite me. Feelings that I have no idea what to do with. And those feelings…” Another pause, and when she spoke again, I think I saw the real Margo for the very first time since I knew her.
“…those feelings are for you, Quentin.”

~7~

On the day of my flight back home to New York, I woke up with a stiffness in my bones that was usually only reserved for when I was coming down with something. I would then take a long, hot shower, brew myself a coffee from a horribly expensive machine that my parents had got me when I got my internship, and then go back to bed; after a couple of hours of sleep it would all have passed and I was capable to conquer the world again.
The stiffness I felt this morning, though, was a different one, and when I realized that, I moaned and pulled my pillow over my head.
Margo.
The day before, we had talked long into the evening, and afterwards, when I had lie awake, she had bombarded me with text messages that were supposed to be brightening up the mood, to give me an impression of the “old Margo”, as she now called it. I knew she had tried to convince me of the sincerity of her words and feelings, and deep down, a part of me had wanted to give into it. To throw every risk that came with being with Margo overboard and give it a shot. If it could have, my seventeen-year-old self would’ve screamed at me for being so stupid to let her go. That even if she’d break my heart again, that at least I would’ve known what it felt like to really be part of her life, instead of only being an onlooker.
Damn, I had been very convincing back then.
But then, just before I wanted to say the words Margo so desperately wanted to hear from me, Riley’s face appeared in front of my inner eye. Sweet, innocent, Riley, who always smelled like a mixture of orange and vanilla, who was so patient and had never asked anything of me even though I had had a feeling that she expected more of our friendship, of me. I thought of that first and last kiss we had shared the day before I had left for Radar’s wedding; of the promise she had given me with it: that she would wait for me, no matter what.
In that moment I had known that I couldn’t give Margo what she wanted from me; that ship had well and truly sailed years ago when she had let any effort to keep me in her life slip away. It wasn’t even that I didn’t want my heart to be broken by her again, I thought. It was more that we had grown up, that I had grown up, and I was now ready to begin the rest of my life; and I knew that I had to play it safe, that with Riley, I would have the life I had always dreamed about having with Margo.
Of course, saying that Margo hadn’t been happy about my decision would’ve been the understatement of the year; but instead of ranting and raging, which I expected her to do, she just nodded and told me she understood. Never before had I seen anybody looking so exhausted and defeated.
And I grew up with Ben, to whom that used to be an everyday battle in High School when every girl he had asked out had turned him down eventually.
I stretched myself to get the stiffness out of my neck and back, and when I looked around, I saw that all my clothes had been washed, ironed and neatly stacked up at the end of my bed. I smiled. Despite me being twenty-seven, my mother still turned into a mother hen when she had the chance.
I stood up, quickly threw on a T-Shirt and Jeans and grabbed the big suitcase that rested under the windowsill. When I looked out of the window, my gaze naturally slipped to the house opposite; the Spiegelman’s house. I thought of Margo up in her old room, staring at the ceiling over her bed, fighting with her feelings. Then I realized how stupid that thought was; she probably was downstairs in the basement, repeatedly hitting a punching bag, with some old school rock music on her iPod.
I shook my head and turned around, starting to randomly throw my shirts, jeans and hoodies that my mother had so carefully folded into the suitcase, and just hoped she wouldn’t suddenly come in and see it.
Then there was a firm knock on the door, and I grinned as I said “Come in, Mom!”.
“Good morning, honey, today’s the big day, huh?”
I grinned at her, but as I saw her standing there, the grin slowly disappeared. I could see that my mother was fighting the urge to cry; she had only had me for a week, most of which I had either spent at the wedding, with Radar and Ben, or of course, Margo. I felt momentarily bad for not making more time for my parents; ever since I had moved to New York, we had barely seen each other save for the usual family gatherings on Thanksgiving or Christmas. I had never been an overly spoiled child, and what with my parents being psychotherapists, I had had a lot of freedom as to what to do with my spare time, as my mother had always stated how that would help shape my character.
But just as my grin disappeared from my face, a smile spread out on my mother’s face, as if she could somehow sense the turmoil inside of me.
“I should’ve known that all that ironing and folding was futile with you, Quentin,” she said, pointing to the heap of colors in the open suitcase.
“Oh, yeah, thanks for that, mom,” I replied, stepping over it to give her a hug. “You shouldn’t have, though…as you can see.” I squeezed her, a smile forming on my lips at how well she knew me.
“Oh, you know, it’s nice to do these things for somebody else than your dad for a change.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s easier to get fast food stains out than the weird collection of blotches on his overalls when he’s spent a day with his Oldtimer.”
“Amen, son.” Mom looked up and grinned, then letting go of me. “When’s your flight due?”
I looked up to the clock over the door. “Three hours. I have already checked in online last night, so I don’t have to be there too early. Ben and Radar will be coming to say Goodbye, too.”
As I turned around to start packing again, my mother started helping, folding shirts neatly and putting them back into the suitcase. I felt her tense as if she wanted to say something but didn’t really know how.
“And…have you sorted everything out?”
I cringed at her words, but of course I knew what she was getting at. She had seen me getting ready for my meeting with Margo a couple of days ago, and I would bet a month’s salary on Ben having let something slip about it, too. Of course, he would never admit to it if I asked him.
“Yeah…yeah.” I hesitated. “Margo and I have talked a lot, and we both have decided everything should stay the way it is. New York and L.A. are way too far away to work something out. Plus, Riley is really amazing, and I can’t wait to see her again.” I praised myself for at least one truth.
My mother smiled at me. “Yes, I can see that. I really can’t wait for the day we finally get to meet her. She sounds lovely.” I knew she avoided the part about Margo not for herself, but for my own sake, and at that moment, I loved her more than I could tell her.
For a while, we worked silently side by side, my mother refolding everything I had thrown inside the suitcase and me searching for stuff strewn about in my old room. When I couldn’t think of anything else I might’ve forgotten, I clapped my hands and my mother looked up from where she was just putting in the suit I had worn to the wedding.
“Alright,” I said, stretching my limbs. “I think that’s all there is.” I threw a look at the clock and realized how late it was; my flight was due in two hours. My mother followed my gaze and stood up.
“I’ll give your dad a call then and we can head off to the airport.” Before I could say anything, she was out the door and I heard her call out for my father, who supposedly had slept in the garage after working on the Oldtimer all night.
An hour and a half later, I stood at the gate my flight would leave at in a bit more than thirty minutes, my parents and my two best friends around me. I looked at them and felt a tug at my heart at leaving them behind once again for God knows how long; the look on my parents faces told me they felt the same.
“Okay, son, that’s it then,” my dad said, giving me a short hug. “Take care, and say Hi to the Big Apple from us, will you?”
“Of course, dad, though I’m not sure it’ll say Hi back to you.” I smiled at the running joke between us whenever I had went back.
Then my mom was next, and I saw her eyes glistening. No fighting back any tears now, I thought. She came to me and grabbed me tight, and I felt her limbs shaking while she hugged me.
“So good to see you, my gorgeous boy,” she whispered in my ear, and then she said something I didn’t expect at all.
“I hope you made the right decision.”
I knew she was referring to the Margo situation, and her words took me aback; my mother hadn’t been known as a big fan of the Spiegelman’s at all, their lack of upbringing and rules or the way they used to handle their daughter. I stretched my arms, letting her go, and as I stared into my mother’s tear-filled eyes, I saw the determination in them, and it seemed as if I had suddenly woken up from a bad dream. With horror, I realized she was right; that my heart was here, in Orlando, not in New York. That in all these years, it had belonged to one woman only, no matter how hard I had fought against it, no matter how much I had tried to tell myself that Riley was the right one. That I was letting my true love go for good now.
And that there was fuck all I could do about it now.
I swallowed hard as I gave my mother a last squeeze and turned around to say Goodbye to my best friends.
Ben was as cheery as ever; though I could detect some sort of sadness in his eyes, too, something he would never admit to.
“So long, Hoss!” he shouted over the roar of the engines outside the windows. “Ride up into the sunset with your missus, and take care of that gorgeous hair of yours!” He reached up and ruffled my hair, and as I pulled my best friend since kindergarten into a last hug, I had to fight back tears myself, while I laughed about his never-ending humor. I would miss this weird kid.
Then it was Radar’s turn, and maybe it was the newlywed air around him, but he seemed more sure of himself, stronger. Although deep down I knew that he was as sad about seeing me leave again as my parents or Ben.
“Yo, Mister Angela,” I said, grinning at him. “Enjoy that honeymoon in Hawaii, will you? That means loads of frozen margheritas, sunburns and most of all – keeping away from anybody while giving it the best husband performances in a hotel room any man has ever given.”
Radar shook his head, laughing out loud, while he pulled me into one of his very own, special hugs that seemed to crush your bones. Don’t be fooled by his lanky physique.
As I grabbed my suitcase from the floor and made to leave through the gate, I looked back at the four people who had been my family since I could think, and despite seeing them still standing there, I already missed them.
I also suddenly had the strong feeling that someone was watching me from far behind them, but my roaming eyes couldn’t make anything – or anybody – out in the crowd of leaving and oncoming passengers. I knew who it was that I was looking for, and despite feeling foolish, I couldn’t help it.
I probably had seen too many romantic comedies where the destined couple finally gets together just before one of them left for their flight. I shook my head and gave my family and friends a last, broad smile and a wave. Then I turned around and slowly walked through the gate with less than fifteen minutes to spare before take off.
Just as I turned the corner into the corridor, I heard someone shout my name, and I thought that maybe my mother wanted to give me one last wave or throw me a kiss or anything. I turned around, a smile on my lips, and that smile froze as I saw the person running through the crowds towards me, giving strewn suitcases and gift bags a wide berth.
Margo Roth Spiegelman.
I saw my parents turn around, and, in the last second, jump out of the way, and as they turned back to me, I saw a broad smile on my mother’s face. When she noticed, she simply nodded at me, and in that second, I knew what my seventeen-year-old self had known ever since I had first laid eyes on that girl 18 years ago.
I felt the suitcase slip out of my hand and land on the floor with a dull thud, and instead of turning the corner, I slowly made my way back to where my family stood, while I saw Margo breaking into a sprint, a grin on her lips and sweat breaking out on her forehead. I didn’t think I had ever seen her sweat before, and I began running towards her myself.
Just before our bodies crashed, we stopped in front of each other. Margo panted, looking up at me with that broad grin I had fallen in love with the day she had moved into the house opposite of mine.
“Hey.” I said, looking down at her, my heart suddenly full of butterflies. “You know I’m going to miss my flight, right?”
“Oh, paperboy,” she replied, tears glistening in her eyes.
Then I leaned into her, my lips almost crushing hers as I finally forfeited all the lies I had told myself over the past eight years and instead, accepted my fate.

~The End~