Page 4 of Drowning Erin

Yes. Because it’s totally different when it’s Brendan. “He’s just…a bad influence,Rob.”

“A bad influence on whom, Erin?” he asks. “I’m not even home half thetime.”

That’s probably a goodquestion.

3

Brendan

Four YearsEarlier

Idon’t understandwhy anyone buys a fucking bread maker. You know how much good bread you could buy for $150? A lot. A lot of really, really amazing bread. Bread of every color and taste and variety, without lifting a fuckingfinger.

Bread makers are like relationships. I don’t know why anyone would give up all that freedom, all that variety, to be with only one girl, and for a far heavier price than any bread maker—remembering holidays, visiting her family, listening to some long-winded story about what Friend A said to Friend B. And you can’t even bank on getting laid once you’ve put in all the work. I’ve seen it play out with my friends again and again: the amazing high of those first few weeks, followed by months and months of lame shit like farmer’s markets and playing Pictionary, the sex getting a little duller, a little more infrequent with each week thatpasses.

My buddies all express dismay when this happens, as if it’s somehowsurprisingthat it’s gone down that way. That’s when they laud me for my ability to stay single, which also makes little sense. Relationships are remarkably easy to avoid if you know what you’re doing: don’t take a girl out who isn’t going to sleep with you, and don’t sleep with girls who will expect a call the next day. It’s thatsimple.

Everyone knows these are my rules, so I laugh when my brother tells me to stay away from Erin Doyle, his fiancée’s best friend. In fact, he goes so far as to make it a condition of getting me a job with his old tourcompany.

“Erin?” I scoff. “You really think you have to warn me to stay away fromErin?”

Erin is exactly the kind of girl I avoid—the sort who will want to hold hands for six months first, who gets a subscription toBridesmagazine right after your first date. I’ve only met her a few times, but I know thetype.

“Do us both a favor,” Will says, “and stop pretending you’re not attracted toher.”

“You couldn’t pay me to go out with that girl,” I tell him. Just contemplating it makes me feel suffocated. “Not if she were the last womanalive.”

4

Erin

Present

Olivia can’t stop cackling.“I hear you’re getting a new roommate!” she says. Then she starts laughingagain.

“I should have known you’d enjoy this situation a little toomuch.”

“You want to know whatIwould do if Will invited someone to live with us without asking me first?” sheasks.

No, not really.Although she’s now married and a mother of two, Olivia’s still the girl who broke one teammate’s nose and took a baseball bat to another. Her solutions always involve objects I should threaten to shove up my boss’s ass, and any time Rob upsets me, her helpful suggestion is that I “cut himloose.”

“You talk a good game, but we both know you wouldn’t do anything,” I tell her. “You can’t stay mad at Will for twoseconds.”

“Okay, maybe. But I sure as shit wouldn’t haveagreed. I thought you hatedBrendan.”

“I don’thatehim,” I say.Okay, yes, I totally hate him.But I’m adult enough to lie about it. “I just don’t need him smoking pot or having threesomes in my hottub.”

Her voice softens. “He’s changed a lot, Erin. That girl in Italy really messed him up. I don’t think you have to worry aboutit.”

“I thought Brendan never wanted anything serious with anyone,” I mutter. I feel inexplicably bitter, although I shouldn’t after all thistime.

“I guess she was the exception,” Olivia says. “And I have no idea what went wrong, but it definitely changedhim.”

A piece of me is glad someone broke his heart. He deserves it after all the damage he’s wrought. But mostly I’m just wondering what this girl had that Ididn’t.

* * *

The next afternoon,Timothy leaves the office for his weekly meeting with the chancellor—another person on my shit list, given his constant last-minute demands—and I call my brother. I try to check on Sean each week, the way a parent might, just to make sure he’s happy and staying clean and caught up on rent, and it’s easiest to do it from work. Rob has strong opinions about my brother. I can’t even mention Sean’s name without seeing a look of disdain on his face. I suspect he might look at me that that way too if he kneweverything.

---