Page 134 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
After I marry Alice, I know I’ll never see Tressa again. It would be too hard, but more than that, too pointless. Too much of a reminder of what might have been.
What I might have had, before it fell apart. Before I knocked it down, truth be told.
; “You call it snobbery, I call it taste.”
“Okay,” Wade interrupts. “Miranda says Sammie will be back in the room in ten, and she’s very curious.”
“You could have prepped her.” Tressa’s disquiet returns in a flash.
“Nah. More fun this way.”
“Always helpful, Wade.” She hitches her purse onto her shoulder and smiles, lighting up the table. “Nice to see you all again.”
She turns, making for the door, and we all watch her go.
“Man, this is fucked up,” my friend Phil comments.
Fucked up, indeed.
Five
Tressa
“TRESSA?” SAMMIE’S WIDE eyes take me in where I slump against the door to her room. I could have gone in, but I’d been presumptuous enough earlier this afternoon, and I’m going for endearing.
“Hey, Sammie. Long time no see.”
Nothing about her expression encourages me. If anything, it makes me want to turn tail and run.
At least I’m sober.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“You know, people keep asking me that?”
“I can’t imagine why.” She holds a hand down and hauls me off my ass, then unlocks the door. “I assume you’d like to come in?”
“I’d like to stay. I have seven dollars to my name.”
She stares at my bag, then turns and gives me a sly smile. “It’s fine. I can’t toss an insane person out on the street.”
“Thank you.”
“Now, tell me what you’re doing here.”
“I heard Noel was getting married and . . . I don’t know. I wanted to talk to him. Before.”
“Talk to him.”
“Yes. And I’ve heard the lectures, Sammie, so spare me. I’m being selfish, I’m ruining his big day, I’m acting like a borderline stalker—”
“Um, no on the last one. That border has been breached.” She smiles, softening the comment, then shrugs. “You have to do what you have to do, Tress. I saw you two when you were together—I wouldn’t have called you happy, but you were in love. I saw you apart. Watched Noel bury himself in schoolwork, like if he stuffed enough knowledge in his head there wouldn’t be any room for you.”
“But?”
She sits on the couch, slipping out of her wedges. “But maybe love isn’t always meant to last. You guys fell hard but it didn’t work.”
