“Hey,” I say to no one in particular, not knowing who to address. I opt for a group chat instead.
“Blake,” the woman next to me beams.
“Hey, Sally,” I nod.
She has bushy red hair and white, porcelain skin. She was my first kiss, and I’m pretty sure I was hers. “It’s been so long. What have you been up to, Blake? Doing well by the looks of it?”
“Oh, you know, this and that,” I say, keeping it vague.
I was poor when I went here. Dirt poor. I come from a broken home that had more problems than money. It’s something that I don’t like to talk about, and I hate being reminded of it. But now that I’m successful and more than a little rich, I realize that I don’t really want to talk about that either.
I don’t want them fawning over me or grilling me about the specifics of my job. People always find my work a little too interesting, and it grates on a person after a while.
But then it hits me. I don’t have anything else to talk about. All I do is work. Whereas they’re all laughing and talking about their kids.
“Sounds interesting,” Sally continues, holding her smile on me as she does.
“Oh, it’s not,” I say, giving my head a shake. “Trust me. It’s just business crap. Suits, too much coffee and a lot of missed weekends. Nothing to tell really.”
I’m a film producer and getting to be a pretty successful one, too. I made my fortune through a few smart investments in college, and I used that money to open a production company. Ten years later, I’m worth more than I’ll ever admit to anyone.
“My son’s two now, the little bugger,” Clark says to everyone in earshot. “So cute that sometimes I just want to eat him up.”
I sip on my drink and listen.
“My oldest daughter starts school next year. So you never settled down, Blake?” Sally asks with a smile.
“No. No kids, no wife.”
I do my best to smile and nod along, but deep down, my stomach churns. Despite my money and success, the one thing my life is missing is a family of my own. I made a choice when I was younger to pursue a career over family. Lately, I’ve been questioning that decision more and more. I want to be a father, but I’m hardly about to enter into a serious relationship with someone. No fucking way.
“Oh damn, I wasn’t looking forward to this,” Clark says a little too loudly.
I look across the gym to see what caught him off guard. The moment I see it, I feel my heart sink.
A giant screen stands behind the makeshift stage. Projected onto that screen is a video, made specifically for the reunion. We were asked to send in clips of our own for a series of videos that would feature. The one playing right now is to commemorate the people who couldn’t be here tonight. Specifically, those who have passed away.
The reason my heart feels the way it does is that I know one face in particular who would be appearing on that screen. Her name is Lyndsey, and she was my high-school sweetheart. And sure enough, as I watch the few names and faces flash on the screen, Lyndsey suddenly appears.
“Hey, didn’t you used to date her?” Clark asks me. He is slurring even more than he was earlier. I guess the alcohol is really kicking in now.
“Yeah,” I say, my voice flat. “I did.”
Chapter 2
CARRIE
The only thing worse than attending a high-school reunion is having to work at one. As I walk among the tables and chairs and dodge the increasingly drunken attendees, I thank the gods that it isn’t my reunion. That drama is still waiting for me.
What makes the reunion that I’m working at right now even worse than it would usually be, is the fact that it’s at the school I graduated from. Because of this, a number of the faces in the crowd are ones that I recognize. Luckily, they’re all at least five years older than I am, so none of them recognize me. Thank God. I’d hate for anyone I knew to see me catering for them. That’s an encounter that would be too much to recover from.
Unfortunately, I have no choice but to work at the event. I’ve been trying to do it as little as possible lately, but I have bills to pay and my other job doesn’t cover them. My other job barely covers the cup of coffee I buy in the morning.
I took this job purely as a means to pay my bills so I can pursue my passion, but as my expenses grow, so do my hours. Now, I can barely find an hour in the week to work on what I want. I actually managed to squeeze a few hours in last night, but that comes with a price. I’m tired now because of it, and it’s really starting to wear on me.
“Are you finished with this?” I ask a very drunken lady as she leans against a table for support, an empty wine glass in her hand.
“Sure am,” she slurs as she hands me the glass.
Just as I’m about to take it, she lets go. I’m fast and manage to snatch it out of the air before it shatters all over the gym floor. I shake my head, walking on before I snap and say something that might get me fired.
I can’t afford to be fired. I need this job, as much as I hate it. I’m a writer, or at least, I try to be. When I’m not catering, I’m hunched over my laptop. I’m currently deep in a book that I have been working on for some time. I want to say that it’s coming along nicely, but even I can’t lie to myself that convincingly.
“Do you mind if I just grab these?”
