Camila, perhaps?
“Thinking about your boy?” Freya teased, nudging me briefly out of my haze.
I blinked then laughed. “Actually, no.” A girl, I thought as I joked to Freya that I was thinking about how big her new office would be. And for the next few minutes, we talked with such genuine interest about her promotion that I didn’t even realize half my mind had gone somewhere else entirely.
It wasn’t till our conversation ended that I finally realized, because I looked down to find myself hitting enter on my phone, and staring at the search results in my inbox.
Two emails.
From me. To Iain.
From five years ago. When he left.
Okay, Holland, I immediately warned myself. I mean I could understand how my mind had come here. But is this really the best idea? I questioned, mostly because there was a point as recent as my freshman year of college that I’d still memorized every embarrassing word I’d written to him. But after hard work and some much-needed growing up, I’d actually managed to forget them.
Till now.
Alright, fuck it.
With a gulp of good ol’ morning champagne, I grabbed my phone again, and with some half-assed justification about how these emails were good for balancing my feelings, I clicked on the first one.
And read with a half-wince on my face.
Hi Iain!
Happy New Year! Hope you had a Merry Christmas too. We definitely missed you here. Dad tried to make the cafezinho the way you do in hopes of making Mom rage less because she was so tired and stressed about hosting people. But he messed it up horribly and it tasted so bad I think it made her rage more lol.
Adam said you did Christmas at home in Scarsdale. I’ve never been to that part of New York but it looks really pretty! How was it? P.S Dad bought you and Adam those Burton snowboarding socks for Christmas and I wasn’t supposed to tell you but Adam took yours so you should definitely get them back from him ASAP!
Holland
Okay.
Not as bad as I remembered, I concluded. There was nothing particularly cringey about what seventeen-year-old me wrote, but as my heart gave a little twist, I realized that that wasn’t why I’d forced myself to forget the email.
It was more because I’d worked so hard to sound so breezy when in fact, I’d been embarrassingly devastated that Iain didn’t visit that Christmas. There’d been a time when he hadn’t visited before—just the year prior—but then, Adam had told us in advance. He and Iain had graduated Stanford Law and just started working at Engelman Sports in L.A. They were too swamped to come back for Thanksgiving or Christmas, which was rough, but at least I knew to expect it.
But this time, I hadn’t realized Iain wouldn’t be coming till Adam walked in alone completely nonchalant, as if he hadn’t spent the past five years coming back with Iain in tow. When Dad asked where Iain was, all Adam mumbled was, “Yeah, I dunno, I guess he went to his dad’s,” before hugging my grandma, ruffling my hair and going upstairs to his room.
I remembered exchanging a funny look with Dad, because we all knew how Iain felt about his dad.
But then it was never addressed beyond that.
At least not to me.
Dad had looked upset, even disturbed as he went upstairs to have a conversation with Adam. But I already knew then I’d never know the details of it, because I was a kid and I was left out of that kind of stuff.
God, I thought, grimacing over the fact that I’d been so hurt, and I hadn’t even known at the time that Iain would never visit my house again.
Alright, Holland, that’s enough. Stop doing this, I told myself firmly, but it was in vain because with a quick click I was onto the next email I’d sent him all those years back.
Hey! Guess you actually moved to Manhattan. So you actually live closer to us than Adam does now and Dad and I both agree you’re more welcome in our home than he is, so please feel free to visit whenever even if he’s not with you. We mean it!
P.S they talked about you on SportsCenter! Congrats on the new client!! I’ll go out and buy a Drew Maddox jersey STAT.
Oof.
Okay. That one hurt.