Chapter 9

“No dice?” Erik asked.

Sasha nodded, “She’s going back to NYC early.”

“Call her now and tell her what’s going on, Sasha.”

Sasha pursed her lips, “I want to tell her in person. This doesn’t seem like something to do over the phone.”

“Go talk to her now!”

“Not enough time. I have to meet Anastasia in an hour.”

“So when are you going to tell her?”

Sasha thought about it for a moment, “Tonight. After Anastasia officially dumps me.”

“That’s a hell of a one-two punch.”

“I’m a glutton for punishment.” Sasha growled.

Erik smiled sympathetically, “Deep breath. It’ll be okay.”

Remembering Erik’s words later that afternoon, Sasha sucked in a lung full of air before walking into the lobby of Anastasia’s apartment building. She greeted the doorman and stepped into the elevator. When she got to Anastasia’s apartment, she inserted her key and attempted to turn it. It wouldn’t move. What the fuck!? She tried again. The key wouldn’t work. She rang the doorbell and waited.

Sasha didn’t hear anything at first, but then heard footsteps from inside the apartment. The door was unlatched and opened.

“You changed the lock?” Sasha was utterly bewildered.

Anastasia shrugged, “Didn’t want you coming in here and going nuts while I was gone.”

“Wow.” Sasha was speechless, “Wow.”

“Oh, don’t act all wounded.”

Sasha spotted a cardboard box by the front door. She kicked at it, “Mine?”

“It’s everything. Believe me, I was meticulous.”

Sasha dug through the box, “Where’s my Michigan baseball hat?”

“You mean your hat with ‘Wolverines’ on the back? It was so threadbare it was totally falling apart. I threw it out.” Anastasia tossed her hair and checked her watch.

“Wow,” Sasha said again, “Is this how you are going to play this?”

“What do you mean? I’m not playing anything.”

Sasha let out a long breath, “You threw out my favorite hat. You packed everything else. What’s up with that?”

“What’s so special about a putrid yellow hat with the word ‘Wolverines’ on the back?” Anastasia stared at Sasha, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Sienna gave it to me,” Sasha snapped, “And Sienna is special to me, so that hat is special to me.”

Anastasia froze. She had not expected that reply. “Finally,” she said bitterly, “the truth.”

Sasha frowned, “The truth? The truth is that because I wanted to make this work with you, I probably screwed up my friendship her…”

“Couldn’t have happened to two nicer people,” Anastasia cut in snidely.

“… and I’m going to do everything I can to fix it,” Sasha stared defiantly at Anastasia, “because she is worth it.”

Anastasia opened the door, the fight gone out of her, “Just go, Sasha.”

Sasha grabbed the box. She turned back towards Anastasia as she stepped into the hallway.

Without another word, Anastasia slammed the door shut.

Sasha stood stock still in the hallway, holding her box of belongings. There’s no coming back from that one. The sadness she felt over the end of the relationship was increasingly blunted by her eagerness to move on with mending things with Sienna. Sasha sighed, and started walking towards the elevator. The moment the elevator got to the lobby level, she strode quickly towards the entrance.

Sasha turned and saw one of the doormen coming out of a storage room, “Hey Ben!”

Ben handed Sasha a plastic bag, “Johnny saw this poking out of one of the garbage bags in the trash room. Miss Zolkin must have thrown it away by mistake. We’ve been keeping it for you. I saw you coming back down in the elevator, so I went to get it.”

Sasha lowered the cardboard box to the floor and took the plastic bag. Inside it was the Michigan hat she loved so much. “Ben! Wow. Thank you!”

Ben looked at the box, “Moving day?”

Sasha placed the hat carefully in the box and picked it back up again, “I over-stayed my welcome.”

“I’m not supposed to say this, but don’t take this personally,” Ben pointed to the box, “Let me put it this way, this ain’t the first time Johnny’s fished something out of Miss Zolkin’s trash and returned it to its rightful owner, know what I mean?”

Sasha smiled, “You are a good friend, Ben. I’ll miss you. Thank Johnny for me and tell him I think he should go work for the NSA or something — he’s missed his calling.” She shifted the box slightly and shook Ben’s hand.

Ben winked, “Nah, he loves the melodrama of a big condo like this. The kind of shit we see will blow your socks off!”

Sasha laughed, and walked to her truck. She dropped the box off at her apartment in Cambridge and then drove home. A conversation with Sienna was foremost on her mind. Even with the little time she spent with Sienna over Christmas, Sasha knew what she wanted: get the friendship back onto solid ground, and then confess her feelings. Sienna may never love her back that way, but hiding it hadn’t helped any one.

She went straight to Sienna’s house. Barbara Logan opened the front door, having seen Sasha’s truck pull up.

“Hey! Is Sienna upstairs?”

Barbara shook her head, “She took the three o’clock train back to New York.”

Sasha went numb. “What? Why?”

“She said she had Med School stuff to take care of. She didn’t tell you?”

Sasha looked down and shook her head. She took a breath and looked Sienna’s mom in the eyes, “She doesn’t want to be friends anymore, does she?”

Barbara leaned against the door frame, and chose her words carefully, “It’s not what you think, Sasha. You guys need to talk.”

Sasha rubbed her eyes, “That’s what I came over for.”

“Keep trying, sweetie.” Barbara pulled Sasha in for a hug, “She misses you too. It might not feel like it, but she does.”

Later that night, Sienna dropped her bags in her room and stared at her phone, which had been ringing incessantly over the course of her train ride to New York. “Jesus, Sasha, you are worse than a telemarketer with no people skills!” She shouted at the phone.

The phone vibrated again and Sienna opened the incoming text. {SJ} Are you avoiding me?

Sienna let out a jagged breath as she typed: {SL} Weather wasn’t agreeing with me.

{SJ} That makes zero sense.

Sienna scoffed. Before she could reply, Sasha sent another text.

{SJ} I know you don’t want anything to do with me, but it doesn’t mean I’m ok with you disappearing like that.

“Wow Sasha, you really don’t get it, do you?” {SL} Sorry, that’s your problem, not mine.

{SJ} Fair enough. I’ll fix it on my own then. Good night Sienna.

Sienna read Sasha’s last message over and over again. “What the hell does that mean, you raving lunatic?”

Chapter 10: The Reunion (Summer Before Senior Year — Monday)

“Who’s texting you?” Hannah looked up from her phone. Sienna’s phone sat face down on the table between them.

“It’s Monday morning, which means it’s probably Sasha with her ‘MMM’.”

Sienna flipped over her phone and opened the message for Hannah to read, “M-M-M. Monday Morning Message. She’s been sending me one every Monday since Christmas.”

{SJ} Good morning Sienna. Here’s this week’s MMM: I miss the way you used to kick my ass when we did the Sunday Times Crossword together.

Hannah raised her eyebrows, “Are they all like this?”

“Uh-huh,” Sienna nodded, “Some are downright cheesy. I pretty much ignore them now.”

“You don’t write back?” Hannah scrolled upwards, skimming over the texts.

“Why should I? I didn’t ask for her to send these. It’s basically high-octane spam without the promise of zillions from a Nigerian prince.”

“For a straight-A student, you are pretty fucking dense, Sienna.”

“Don’t give me the ‘she is reaching out to repair the friendship so I need to be open-minded’ speech, okay?”

“Why didn’t you tell Sasha about Sydney? Or Alex?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“That has everything to do with everything! Sasha almost drove our car off the road when she found out.”

“WHAT? SHE FOUND OUT? WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME???”

“Uh, because she lives across the street from you and I thought she would have talked to you about it. I mean, she was shocked.”

“She’s gay! If she has a problem with me being gay, that’s her issue, not mine.”

Hannah stood up so forcefully Sienna looked up in surprise. Hannah gestured to their room, “Come on, we are getting you packed. We are scrapping plans for this week and we are putting you on the first train home.”

“What? No. This was our week to chill before our internships start. I’m not going back home. Mom and Dad are in San Francisco…”

“All the better. No distractions. You are going to go home, and you and Sasha are going to sit down and talk. None of this texting nonsense.”

“I am not having a cheesy reality-show coming out moment with Sasha James. That’s the most ridiculous thing ever.”

“Yes, that would be the most ridiculous thing ever. This is not about you being gay. This is about how you and Sasha need to sit down and talk about how you each have a thing for the other but you are both too chickenshit to own up to it.”

“What kind of low-grade crack are you smoking? Sasha is with Anastasia. I’m just getting to a place where it doesn’t make me crazy angry thinking about the two of them together, so just cool it, ok?”

“You like her, right? A lot? You’ve figured out that much?” Hannah looked at her friend. Sienna shrugged.

“I’m willing to bet my tuition money that she likes you too. This is full-on courtship-by-texting, Sienna. You are just too stubborn to see it.” Hannah held up Sienna’s phone.

Sienna shook her head, “Nope. Not with the A-bomb in the picture. Bad bet, Hannah.”

“Before she almost drove us off the road, she made a comment about how it was almost over between her and Anastasia. I never got to ask her about it because she was so fixated on finding out about Sydney and Alex.”

“Almost over? What the hell does that mean? And you didn’t tell me that either? What kind of a crazy ass ride was that anyway?”

“Don’t know. But like I said, I’m willing to bet good money that she likes you too.”

“She doesn’t. I’m not all glamorous and super-model stunning like her girlfriends.”

“You aren’t glitzy, I’ll give you that. But I bet Sasha doesn’t actually care for that stuff. Maybe all that glamor and drama was a way to block out how she really feels about you.”

Sienna tried hard not to love hearing that comment, “You don’t know that.”

“Maybe not, but I’ve been witness to the way you two have bickered since god-knows-when, and it’s like you’ve been engaging in verbal foreplay for years.”

“Yes, you have. Listen to yourselves next time: you doofus… no you dumbass… boobless wonder… you perv… Oh my god, it never ends. It’s like you guys argue just to pretend you don’t like each other.”

Sienna picked up her phone and opened up the texts from Sasha. Her heart started pounding. Suddenly, something started to made sense. She held the phone to her ear after punching in a number.

“You’re calling her?”

Sienna held her hand up, “Oh hey mom… oh shit, I woke you… No, I just had a question… You know how you keep asking me to call Sasha?”

Hannah raised her eyebrows.

“Yeah. Is it because you heard from Maria that Sasha and Anastasia broke up?”

Sienna’s eyes widened, “MOM! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?”

Sienna started shaking her head, “Okay, okay. I get it. Yeah. Okay mom. Love you too.”

Sienna lowered the phone, “Sasha swore her mom to secrecy, but of course, Maria told my mom. Apparently Sasha wanted to tell me in person… but I’d been ignoring her, so…”

“Time to head to Penn Station, my friend.”

Sienna pulled up Sasha’s texts, “First, let’s see if she’s up for it.”

“See what I mean?” Hannah shouted, “Verbal foreplay!”

Sienna smiled and hit ‘reply’, {SL} So you are finally admitting to being a functional illiterate?

Sasha’s reply came several minutes later: {SJ} Hardly. Yesterday’s Sunday Times crossword puzzle — send screenshot of completion time when done. Loser buys dinner tonight.

Sienna grinned. {SL} Challenge accepted. How are you going to buy me dinner when you are all the way in Boston?

Sasha didn’t respond for a while, but when she did, her text read: {SJ} I’m not in Boston. I’m done with the first quadrant, by the way.

“What the hell?” Sienna read the last text again.

“What, what?” Hannah asked.

“Quick — pull up the Times Crossword from yesterday. I think Sasha’s in New York.”

Indeed, about three and a half miles away in an office downtown, Sasha grinned, her fingers flying over the keyboard as she toggled between the clues. After almost six months of silence, Sienna finally bit. Sasha wondered what triggered the reply, but right now, all she really cared about was getting Sienna to show up for dinner. Sienna always beat her easily, and that was exactly what Sasha was hoping for. She looked at the timer, counting up towards minute 30. She still had about half a dozen clues to go.

Sienna did not disappoint. Sasha smiled and grabbed her phone the moment it bleated out an incoming text notification. {SL} Do I get to choose the restaurant? This was followed by a screenshot indicating that Sienna had completed the crossword correctly in 28 minutes and 34 seconds.

{SJ} Buyer chooses. Meet me at the corner of Perry and 7th at 7pm tonight.

Sienna turned to Hannah, “Having dinner with Sasha tonight. Any ideas for getting cardiac assistance so I don’t have a heart attack before 7pm?”

Sasha had her work cut out for her. She put together a shopping list, but she had some other things to take care of first. Time flew as she put everything in place for dinner. At 6:50pm, she looked out of her apartment window, which faced 7th avenue. No sign of Sienna. She checked the oven one last time, re-checked the table, and headed downstairs. As she walked out onto the street, she spotted Sienna standing on the opposite corner, looking at her watch.

Sasha let out a slow breath. Sienna hair was up in a ponytail and Sasha could see the graceful curve of her neck. Sasha’s eyes roamed over Sienna’s simple white shirt, which crested over her breasts before falling casually over a pair of skinny jeans. Her friend was fucking stunning. Wondering if her heart would be up for whatever came next, she trotted over, angling her approach just outside of Sienna’s sight line.