“I relent,” I tell her. “I won’t drink anymore. Not a taste until we win our final bowl game.”
“And no more smoking pot,” Arlo says. “I had to go to dinner at Coach Harrises house last weekend, and I smelled like a joint.”
“Bring on the fun,” I mutter.
2
Poppy
I grip the door handle and pause. On my drive here, I realized that I excel at approximately three things:
Knowing a vast (and often useless) amount of dinosaur facts
What the best snack foods are
And, following the rules
Unfortunately for me, none of these award-winning skills will help me once I step foot out of my car.
I was an only child for the first ten years of my life, and, as strange as it sounds, I was thriving. I knew how to wash and fold laundry, remembered which day to take out the trash and recycling, and never forgot to do my homework. I found freedom in following the rules (well, as much freedom as a ten-year-old can comprehend), and with that came my independence, drive, and sense of responsibility, all of which I learned by example. My dad, Alex Anderson, has owned Anderson Construction & Realty with my grandpa for the past twenty years, and together, they’ve built vast sections of Seattle and own a great deal of commercial real estate. My mom, Dr. Linda Anderson, is a psychologist, radio talk show host, and author of seven novels. With their busy careers, I learned to enjoy my own time and space and was happy with our routine.
Then my little brother, Dylan, was born, and instead of freaking out at the new variable in my life, I adapted. I learned how to change diapers and blow raspberries and play peek-a-boo just the right way to make him laugh. My parents let me start babysitting him when I was twelve, just when he was getting into the screaming and throwing-things-across-the-room phase. In my attempts to find something to watch that would be both appropriate for him and not mind-numbing for me, I stumbled on The Land Before Time playing on the TV, and he loved it. Dylan became obsessed with dinosaurs, and so, naturally, I started learning a lot about them as well.
As for snack foods, that’s a gift I’ve had for as long as I can remember. On the first day of kindergarten, I’d snuck a handful of chocolates into my backpack just in case (it made sense at the time). That turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made because, at lunch, I shared them with Raegan Lawson, and we’ve been best friends ever since.
My strengths helped me make friends and have a great relationship with my little brother, and get accepted to Brighton University, a prestigious school in Seattle. What they didn’t prepare me for was the text that led me here to Starbucks, waiting to meet someone I haven’t seen or spoken to in years. This morning I was positive that coming here was a good idea, and now, it seems like the very worst.
“I want to see you.” Those were five words I never expected to hear from my ex-boyfriend, Mike Rio, mainly because he’d moved to Arkansas for college on a full-ride scholarship. Though we’d promised to remain friends, I haven’t seen or heard from him since he left. But I’d texted him back because I was sure he’d meant to text someone else, and the polite thing to do would be to let him know he had the wrong number. And a small part of me was curious.
After a few back and forth messages he confirmed that yes, he’d meant to message me, and yes, he wanted to meet me here at the coffee shop off of Southeast Magnolia, close to where our parents still live and where we both grew up. It’s funny how we lived so close our entire lives, but we didn’t cross paths until high school because one of the many invisible barriers separated his neighborhood from mine and sent us to different elementary schools. I was fifteen when we met in English Language and Composition. He sat behind me and would ask to borrow a pencil almost every day. By that point in my life, I’d had a lot of firsts, but Mike Rio recorded three more. He was my first crush that made it difficult for me to concentrate, my first serious, hold-my-books and walk-me-to-class boyfriend, and my first can’t-get-out-of-bed heartbreak.
Today, Mike’s getting another first from me: having coffee with an ex.
I’m not sure what to expect or what to say. Mike and I dated for two years and then broke up after graduation because he was moving and I was staying in Seattle to attend Brighton University with Raegan. She and I had planned out college over a decade ago, and we worked hard to make it happen because it was a school that met my parents’ requirements and allowed Raegan to study marine biology and cetology.
I’ve somehow made it from my car to the sidewalk, the whoosh of warm air and friendly smile of a stranger holding open the door bringing me back to reality. I stand in the doorway and peer inside, spotting Mike almost instantly. He’s still tall and lean, borderline lanky, and his dark hair is filled with product that has it sticking up and out. But unlike in high school, he’s wearing glasses and a sweater with the collar of a plaid dress shirt poking out instead of the old band tees he always preferred. Memories of sitting together at lunch and before school when Mike would hand me one of his headphones, and we’d listen to a song together, and he’d tell me about the music and artist play a time-warp on my thoughts. Sometimes, the songs would talk about emotions and love, and we’d stare at each other, pathetic and lovesick,
