On the Rocks(103)



I walked over to my laptop, which was sitting on my kitchen table. Only this time I was going to use it for good and not for evil. I didn’t even need to consult my pros and cons list first.

“Come here,” I said to Bobby as I pulled out the chair next to me. He sat down as I opened Internet Explorer.

“Oh, Jesus. You’ve been back for two days. Please don’t tell me you’ve relapsed.”

“Just be quiet for once in your freakin’ life, would you please?”

“I don’t like where this is going,” he said as I uploaded Facebook and began to re-create a profile. It had been almost a year since I deactivated my account, and I decided it was time I stopped hiding.

“I thought you hated Facebook. Now you want to put yourself back on there?” Bobby asked. “What happened to the whole ‘I won’t let strangers stalk me’ thing?”

“That was the old me.”

“I still don’t think I like where this is going. I don’t know if I trust this new version.”

I re-created my profile and uploaded a picture, a shot Wolf took of the four of us with his phone. We were sitting at our outdoor table, smiling at the camera, surrounded by Johnny’s lobsters. I had no idea if Johnny was still Facebook-stalking Grace, but if he was, he’d see the picture, see all of us enjoying our summer, see Grace smiling and happy, and know that he could never, ever have her back. And that would piss him off royally. Finally a reason to be happy that Facebook was created.

“That’s a good shot,” Bobby said.

“It’s a good group,” I added.

“Can we go now?”

“One more thing,” I said. With a single mouse click, I gave myself a status: single. And I couldn’t have been happier. “There,” I said as I closed the screen. “Let’s go.”

Bobby and I left my apartment and strolled down Hancock Street on our way to the jazz show, two friends with no significant others, no baggage, and no agenda. It felt like something I’d never had, but had somehow always been missing.

I’d spent the entire summer trying to fill the void left by Ben, thinking that a boyfriend would make me happy and somehow validate my existence. I didn’t find one. And I didn’t care. If being married meant that I’d have missed out on spending the summer at the beach with Grace and meeting new guy friends who made me laugh and brought me beer in Solo cups and made me margaritas to cheer me up, then I was happy I wasn’t. What I had now was way more important than a boyfriend or a ring. My priorities were finally in order, and for the first time in a long time, having a guy in my life didn’t even make the list.

I already had everything that really mattered.

And that was more than enough.





Acknowledgments


THANK YOU TO my family for being patient with me while I wrote this book, and for reassuring me that I would finish it on time.

Thank you to all of my friends. Some of you inadvertently gave me material for this book, and some of you intentionally gave me material for this book, and I can’t thank you guys enough.

Once again, thank you to my agent at William Morris, Erin Malone. Your early input and amazing comments were invaluable. Thank you a million times over.

Thank you to my editor, Jennifer Brehl, and the rest of the team at HarperCollins, for all of your hard work, for your wise input, and for publishing my second book!

Last, thanks to my husband, Dan. Thank you for making everything better without even trying.

Much love and many thanks to you all.

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