Page 44 of It's Always Sonny

Besides, rich and resentful is not a good look. Gabe loves reminding me of that.

A few of the in-laws and nieces and nephews took off halfway through capture the flag to get to bed, but the rest of us follow trails of solar lights or strings of those white twinkle lights back to our tents or tiny houses. The family members with young kids are all staying in a row of cottages a hundred yards in the other direction, as is Parker.

I wonder which one is hers.

By the time I reach my chintzy canvas tent (complete with a full bed, dresser and chair), I’m dead on my feet. Staying up past midnight in the cold won’t help my rehab. Fortunately, Coach isn’t here to lecture me. And besides, I needed the outlet.

I need it even more with PJ here.

Parker. Jane.

That girl has changed. And seeing that tonight filled me with both hope and hurt, neither of which I know what to do with.

I thought our breakup was about nothing more than football, but when she hinted at that game—that stupid disc golf game—there was so much weight to her words, I can’t shake the feeling there was more to our breakup than I thought.

From our first date, the only future I could envision was one that ended with us pulling a move from The Notebook (less the dementia) and dying in a nursing home together at, oh, 107.

Since our breakup, I’ve never seen a way back to that.

Except, we’re here together, and I’m a little less dumb and she’s a little more open, and I’m right back to us holding hands in our impractically small bed at 107.

But how?

I need to think about this disc golf thing, figure out what upset her so much. The spontaneity? The fact that I pushed her into it? She was late to that geology class she hated, but she said it was easy and she could ace it in her sleep. She disliked it almost immediately. After only a week, I could tell how much she dreaded it. When I asked her about it, she told me the professor weirded her out.

I’d heard stories of creepy professors hitting on girls before, so I showed up to the lecture hall that first week and sat in the last row. PJ wasn’t in the front like she normally was in other classes. In fact, she sat only a few rows from the back. I’m lucky she didn’t notice me. The professor was a short, nerdy, middle-aged man with a patronizing vibe, but there wasn’t anything particularly weird about him.

There was something familiar, though.

When someone didn’t know something, he would almost sneer and turn away, like the question was too stupid to answer. But when someone answered a question—PJ—he looked at her over his glasses like he was pleasantly surprised, like she’d finally done something to deserve his notice.

I realized then who he reminded me of: her dad.

I met PJ’s dad once, and it was one time too many.

The idea of PJ having to face someone who seemed to trigger her drove me insane. I told her to drop the class, but she said she couldn’t get a W on her transcript. Her parents would flip.

I did everything I could to distract her from that class. I made sure lunch was the best part of her day so she would go in with a layer of protection, so to speak. And when she seemed to dread it a bit extra, I pushed her to skip class and play in that dumb disc golf league instead.

Did I push too hard? Or was it that my immaturity finally got to her?

I fall asleep with no answers.

The next morning I fit in a quick body weight workout, ice my knee, and am at the pavilion at eight a.m., when breakfast is due to start.

I can’t wait to see PJ.

Part of that is because I can’t stop thinking of her, but the other part is because she’s not a morning person, and I always loved seeing that scowl of hers when we met for breakfast on campus before class. She’s never cuter than when she’s glaring at me with sleep in her eyes.

Which is why I’m both surprised and disappointed to see her bright-eyed and handing out new itineraries when I walk into the pavilion. I’m even more shocked to see her in so casual an outfit. She has a beanie on, but her high ponytail has been pulled through a small hole at the top. She’s also wearing jeans, a gray Northwestern hoodie, and sneakers.

They’re platform sneakers, but they’re sneakers, all the same.

“Morning, Sonny,” she says with a fake, light grin on those big lips of hers.

Earning one of PJ’s smiles is better than any Super Bowl ring. This cheap facsimile, on the other hand, is like her throwing down a gauntlet.

Action, reaction.

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