“You just got quiet.” She shrugged.
“Tired, I guess,” I said. “Someone wouldn’t let me get much sleep last night.”
I grinned, and she smiled back, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She was still worried about me. I thought about telling her the truth, confessing my desire to become a writer finally, but I resisted the urge. Emily was sweet and kind, but I worried she wouldn’t understand my ambitions. What if she thought going from a lawyer to a writer was stupid? What if she ridiculed all my ideas? Worse, what if she asked to read my stuff?
No, I wasn’t ready to tell her the truth. Not yet. Still, my mind raced with ideas throughout the rest of the day. I dreamed about getting home and slipping away into my study for the evening, but I knew that wouldn’t happen. By the time the kids were ready to leave, it was already getting dark.
We were all walking slower as we left the zoo. When we climbed into the car, I wasn’t surprised to see Tommy and Sarah both fall asleep almost instantly. They each laid their head on Emily’s shoulders and drifted off easily. I smiled at the sight in my rearview mirror and drove us toward home.
Traffic stopped us a few times, and Philip decided to make conversation by telling Emily all my embarrassing stories.
“That didn’t happen,” I said firmly after he relayed one of the worst.
“It didn’t?” Emily asked with a laugh.
“Oh, it happened,” Philip said. “He rubbed nacho cheese all over himself as a disguise and then ran screaming through the quad. I’ve never seen so many cops afraid to arrest someone in my life. It was like they didn’t want to touch him.”
Emily was laughing uncontrollably in the backseat. Tommy and Sarah stayed passed out, their exhaustion too much to fight, but I was surprised Philip’s guffaws and Emily’s giggles didn’t coax them awake.
“I wasn’t as bad as this guy,” I said, pointing to Philip. “He once streaked past the Dean’s window and then ran along sorority row in a nothing but a banana hammock.”
“I don’t think that’s worse than nacho cheese,” Emily said, still laughing.
“Ha,” Philip said. “I told you. Yours is way worse.”
“It is,” Emily agreed. “But also, a better story.”
“Hey,” Philip said. “I take offense to that.”
“Ha,” I said, mimicking his earlier insult. “I have better stories.”
“I think the best stories probably involved the shit we did together,” Philip said with a laugh. “Like that night in Nancy’s hot tub or the time we flew to Prague for one night just to meet up with that girl who never fucking showed.”
“What?” Emily asked. “You flew to Prague?!”
“There was this exchange student we were both into,” Philip said. “She never wanted to choose between us so instead, she promised to meet us in Prague on New Year’s Eve.”
“She said she would finally tell us her choice,” I said. “But she never showed. We waited for hours, and eventually, we had to catch our flight back home.”
“Did we ever see her again?” Philip asked.
“No.” I shook my head. “She just bailed on us forever. And now, we’ll never know who she would have chosen.”
“Yup,” Philip said. “We’ll never have our answer.”
“She gave you her answer,” Emily said wisely.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, she didn’t show up,” Emily said. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? She didn’t pick either of you. That was her
choice.”
Philip and I looked at each other in shock. Neither of us had ever thought of such a simple answer to our decade-long dilemma. As we looked at each other, we both burst out laughing. Emily joined us, and we spent the rest of the car ride telling her more stories.
I realized, while we drove, that I already had a million things to write about. All the stories I thought of at the zoo were nothing compared to the things I could pull from my own life. It wasn’t just my shenanigans with Philips. It was everything. My life with Telissa. My kids. Everything.
As we neared home, I fell silent again. Philip continued talking a mile a minute, trying to embarrass me further with Emily, but she was barely paying attention.