UNKNOWN:Hi James! We haven’t heard back from you about the Seattle Elite High School reunion. It’s coming up soon, so please get your RSVP in now. Can’t wait to see you!
UNKNOWN:It’ll be a holly, jolly good time! All graduates may attend with one guest at no cost!
That was a lot of exclamation points. What was with these people? Who was on the other side of these messages? There was no way anyone from my high school cared if I went to the reunion or not.
I’d spent a decade with high school happily in the rearview. And it wasn’t until these stupid texts had come through that I’d realized I might not have left it behind as completely as I’d assumed. It was hard to pin down the emotion that surfaced at the thought of those years. Sometimes it felt like a shot of adrenaline. Sometimes more like shame.
I’d been standing, putting removable hooks above the fireplace to hang stockings, but the weight of the phone I held had me dropping heavily into the recliner. I steepled my fingers, pushing them against my forehead until the tips turned bright pink.
“Everything okay?” Marley eyed me with concern from where she’d been cleaning off the dining table in preparation for a plaid tablecloth.
“Oh…yeah. Just my old school again. The reunion.”
She nodded before coming over, sitting on the arm of the chair. “I don’t want to push, James, but judging by the way you’re trying to get swallowed up by that cushion, this seems like more than just an issue with making the long drive to Seattle twice in a month.”
I reached back to massage my neck. “Sure. I mean…I guess it’s annoying because I haven’t thought about Seattle Elite in a long time. Haven’t wanted to. Then these texts started coming through.”
“It’s funny how texts can hit you out of nowhere.”
“Right. I wasn’t exactly jonesing for any reminders about my teenage years—” I stopped myself before saying too much.
She waited a moment for me to elaborate. When I didn’t, she asked, “It was bad?”
I glanced over at her. “Bad might not be the right word.” Hellacious would be closer. “It’s just that I’m…not proud of who I was back then. And these messages have me thinking maybe I didn’t move past it as thoroughly as I thought I did.”
“James, I’d never presume to tell you how to live your life, and of course I don’t know what happened back then, but I do know a little something about trying to move on from the past by shutting the door on it.” She glanced down the hall toward her mother’s bedroom, but I also got the distinct sense she had something else on her mind. “The bottom line is that—whatever it is—it's obviously really gnawing at you. And ignoring the messages doesn’t seem to be putting the genie back in the bottle.”
“I’ll just RSVPno. Once the texts stop coming, I’ll be okay.”
“Maybe.” She placed her hand gently over mine. “Or maybe not. And the thing is, reunions don’t come around all that often. If you decide you need to face whatever’s bothering you head-on, you may not get another opportunity.”
I sighed. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
She was right. It wasn’t a guarantee I’d be able to put high school out of my mind again, even if I skipped the reunion. If I woke up a year from now and decided I needed to see my old classmates in order to get closure or whatever, it wasn’t as though I could ask a hundred people to assemble in Coleman Creek.
“Like I said, I don’t want to push you. But if you ever want to talk it through, I’m here.” She kept her warm palm on my skin.
“Honestly, Marley, I appreciate that so much, but even considering this is making my head spin. Do you think we can…um…change the subject? At least for now?”
Was I seriously contemplating going to my reunion? Stupid, stupid texts. I just wanted to listen to Marley tell me stories about her family, and for her to keep touching my hand.
She seemed sympathetic that I’d reached my limit. “Sure. What do you want to talk about? The weather? Favorite cookie? Saddest on-screen character death?”
I laughed. “Let’s see. It’s a little warm for me, chocolate chip because I’m basic like that, and Grey Wind, Robb Stark’s direwolf.” She grinned and shook her head, and I felt the worst of the tension leaving me as I cleared my throat. “Also, Marley, I need you to answer another very important question.”
“What’s that?”
“Why the heck does your sweater have a battery pack?” I reached out to place my index finger on the little pouch I’d just noticed.
She stood up excitedly and began shaking her arms and legs out like a runner before a race. “I was waiting for you to figure that out!” Reaching into the tiny pocket of her top, she pulled out a plastic switch, flicking it to “on.” The palm tree lit up, glowing with clear-colored lights from her chest to her belly. She raised her eyebrows. “It gets even better.” With another tap of her finger, the switch flipped to “show mode,” and the white lights morphed into a rainbow of colors that danced and changed every few seconds.
It was tacky AF.
But the woman twirling and cackling at me—she wore it well.
Chapter five
Marley
