Ren

"Lauren!"

At the sound of my name, my eyes scan the sea of people as I exit the terminal.

"Ren! Rennie! Over here!" Sydney's voice calls out. Her light red hair catches my eye as it glistens gold in the sun of the enormous windows near the exit doors. She is waving her hand spastically above the crowd, a big smile spreading under her freckled cheeks.

I skip over to her and hug her tightly. We've only seen each other once or twice a year for the past eleven years, and knowing she'll now only be living a forty-five-minute drive away is bliss. I'm shocked at how tall she is in my arms, so I take a step back to view her.

She is totally put together in a very Sydney way. A fun mix of boho city chic with an athletic tomboy twist. She has a lace-trimmed tight top, boot-cut jeans cuffed up, a thrift shop paisley fitted coat, and tall-ass boots. Ah, that's why.

"Hey, tell me about the play. Are you performing this weekend?" I ask.

"No, we just started rehearsals. God, the director is such a dick! Just wait till you see it, though. I have the best part in the whole production. I can tell you all about the drama later. Anyways, how was your flight?"

My shoulders drop. "Long."

"Yeah, I bet. But come on, let's get your luggage. Before I drive you home, I'm taking you out for a drink! It's Friday night, and my Rennie's back in California!" She laughs and hugs me again.

Uh-oh. Here we go. Sydney never sticks to the plan. The plan was to drive me north up the 101 to the city of Oakmont, where my mom lives. City. Pft. Oakmont is technically a city, yes, but it hardly counts when compared to New York or even San Francisco. I think downtown has a grand total of three buildings above five stories tall.

I text my mom that I'd be home later than expected, then Sydney laces her arm through mine, and we set off to find the baggage claim.

An hour later, Sydney and I are sitting amongst a young crowd at a new, dimly lit Cuban bar. The night is still young, but jet lag is hitting me hard, and I stifle a yawn and slink a little deeper into the velvet bench seat.

The waiter finally returns, bringing us our mojitos and a big bowl of chips and guac. Hopefully, this will perk me back up. I take a long sip. Dang, that's good! Sydney is eagerly watching my reaction.

"Good, right?" She grins, wide-eyed. "No one makes better mojitos. They muddle the granulated sugar and hierba buena spearmint fresh each time."

"You should try The Havana Bowl," she continues, reaching across the table to tap it with her short, yellow-painted fingernail on my menu. "The sauce is absolutely amazing! I'm getting it without the pork, of course."

Sydney is vegan—sort of.

She hates the texture of meat and is lactose intolerant, putting her in that category, but she does eat fish. I, however, eat almost anything. Well, except for anything pickled. Everyone has at least one thing they don't like, right?

"Hey, thanks for finding that job lead, by the way," I tell her. "I start Monday."

"Really? That's fantastic news! Yay. I'm so happy for you." She holds up her drink. "To new beginnings!"

"To new beginnings," I repeat happily, clinking my glass with hers.

But then Sydney's mood seems to shift, and she looks down and stirs her drink. "So..." she hesitates, looking up at me. "Is it finally over with Alex, like, officially? You're divorced now?"

"No," I sigh. "We're just legally separated right now. It's not like in California, where you can divorce someone just because you feel like it. In New York, it has to be bad. Like adultery or abuse bad." I stir my drink pensively. "After being legally separated for a year, we can officially divorce. If we still want to."

"You don't want to?"

"I don't know, I mean, yes. Yes, I do. He's a selfish prick." I let a gush of air escape my lips. "I'm just having a hard time coming to terms with it all. After my parents divorced, I promised myself I wouldn't be one of those couples."

Sydney sighs and tilts her head. "Sometimes things don't always go the way you plan, Rennie."

My head bows a little with the truth of that. "I know. I just don't know how something can go from good to so bad so fast. I mean, I wanted a baby too. I was practically obsessed!"

"Yeah, you used to call me about it every month. But then you just dropped off the map. I feel like I've barely talked to you at all this year."

"I'm sorry. It's like I became a different person under the stress... and he did, too. I didn't want to talk to anyone about it anymore. It was hard even to process it by myself. But..."

"But..." Sydney encourages.

"But he just fucking gave up. On everything! I was willing to accept it and work past it. He, he, said it was just a deal-breaker for him."

"You're joking!" She gasps, her eyebrows flying up. Then they immediately slide back down and pinch together, incensed. "Good fucking riddance! Only an asshole would just ditch their wife right after everything she'd been through just so that he could have his happily ever after."

"Right? I don't have that luxury. I can't have any biological kids, no matter who I'm with."

The past agony of watching the months tick by hits me again like a bus. Stick after stick, being thrown in the trash. Every two weeks would be a cycle of meticulous planning & joyless sex, followed by impatiently waiting to test, which would inevitably end in defeat, heartache, and exhaustion.

"Are you sure? Maybe he's the problem?" Sydney offers.

"No, they tested Alex, and he was fine. We tried naturally for three years. They said I was infertile. It's IVF or nothing, the doctors said."

Appointments, needles, hormones, uncomfortable expensive procedures, unending stress, and inevitable fighting. We ran through all our savings, our patience with each other, and our tears. I just couldn't solve it.

"We tried IVF twice. It never worked. I'm the one who's broken." My eyes well up a bit at that. Though I bash myself up about it all the time, I have yet to say it out loud to anyone else. "I'm kidding," I tack on, trying to make it sound like a joke, plastering on a smile. But my half laugh comes out off-key.

Sydney immediately comes round beside me and pulls me into a big hug. "Oh, Rennie! You're not broken. You are perfect just the way you are. Fate just has other plans for you."

My best friend is finally here with me, and it breaks the dam on my tears. Two big ones roll silently down my cheeks. After I sit there for a moment, letting her hold me, I collect myself and fish a tissue out of my bag, wiping my eyes and any stray mascara that might have smudged.

"You actually believe in fate?" I ask her.

My ex-boyfriend Giovanni had been the only other person in my life to talk about fate. He seemed so sure of it back then. That seems like a lifetime ago.

"Yeah, something like that, I guess," she says slowly. "God's plan, fate, destiny. I felt it just before I met Everett. Now we're married! You'll see, Rennie, this is still only the beginning."

Sydney leans into her dramatic side now, fixing me with these intense, entrancing eyes—ones that convey she is indeed in touch with the forces of the beyond and takes my hands. "When one door closes, the next one opens up, as they say... your next chapter is just about to start, and it's going to be great! I can feel it!!"

It is just too over the top, and we both burst into a fit of laughter till both our eyes are sparkly with tears.

"So... did you read the book I sent you?" she asks sheepishly, changing the subject and stirring her drink.

"Yeah, well, half of it—and that reminds me... what the HELL, Syd! You sent me a book where the first chapter starts with a newly divorced woman and an Italian boy named Giovanni! I don't know if you thought that was cute, but I didn't find it funny at all."

The line from the book, 'I wish Giovanni would kiss me,' echoes again in my head, and my heart does a little skip. Stop it. I physically shake the thought away.

"No? I thought it was tailor-made for you!" She smiles impishly, like the devious little Irish leprechaun she is sometimes. "Do you know what he's up to these days? Have you cyber-stalked him yet? You want me to?"

My heart leaps a little at the idea. Still, if I know anything about Sydney, she will probably go into full-blown PI mode, possibly ending in directly contacting his mom and alerting him to our investigation. If I still know anything about Gio and his penchant for privacy... he'd hate that. I have to nip this in the bud. I shake my head. "No, Sydney, I don't."

"I'm great at it..."

"I am well aware of your aptitude in that realm, but no, thank you. I already have, actually, and there is nothing."

She balks. "Nothing?"

"Nothing. No Facebook account, no social media. Just a people search website pointing to his mom's old address from ten years ago."

"Well, maybe you're not doing it right."

I rub my face, exhausted. "Sydney. No. I don't really care, anyway," I lie semi-convincingly.

"No? Are you not just a little curious? Maybe you guys could reconnect. Go out. You were so good together back then. He could be just what you need to get—"

"No." I interrupt her, holding her words at bay with my hands. "I don't think so. Gio and I were... well, we... I don't know. It was... intense. And it's in the past. I'm not ready for someone like him right now. I just..." I sigh. "I want to date someone new. Just for fun. Nothing serious. Gio and I have too much... history to be just for fun."

But I can't deny that the thought of seeing him again interests me very much. I try to conjure a mental image of a grown-up Gio, but I can't. Will I ever see him again? What would I even say to him after how we broke up?

"Have you tried dating yet?" she says seriously, taking a chip into her mouth. Her next words come out half-garbled. "It's all on apps now. It's nothing like how it used to be." She takes a long sip, finishing off her mojito, then fixes me again with her eyes all serious. "Let me just tell you right now—it's terrible."

"No. I haven't tried yet." The thought of dating again simultaneously excites and depresses me.

She pushes her glass away, looking desperately for the waiter. "I was lucky to find Everett through friends. Let me know if you change your mind, and I'll find Gio's number for you."

"Jeeze Sydney. Look, even if I wanted to date Giovanni again... he probably wouldn't," I explain sulkily. He was pretty bitter about me leaving for New York.

"I don't know..." Sydney smirks. "I bet he has wet dreams about you still." 

I nearly spit my drink out all over her.

"Will you shut up! What are you? Like thirty-one going on thirteen?" Sydney loves to provoke me and make me laugh. After knowing each other for fifteen years, she knows just how to do it.

I wave the waiter down, and we order two more mojitos and our dinner.

"But it didn't end badly. Right?" she persists.

"Well, it didn't end great either."

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