Page 98 of Sweet Twins For My Brother's Best Friend

I count myself lucky that I don’t have her number in my phone and that it’s a search through a slog of numbers instead; that it’s a number that doesn’t even stand out.

There was a time that knowing I have Julie’s number in my phone would have given me heart palpitations, would have been something I thought about every minute of every hour.

I can see myself checking the log over and over and considering touching it, letting it ring with my breath caught, wondering if she’d pick up.

I finally find it and begin to touch the number, so that I can do what Hannah says I need to do and call her, tell her how she’s damaged me, how she irreparably changed the course of my life, but my finger hovers over the number for a moment.

Instead, I opt to block it and delete it out of my received call number list. Now, she can’t call me, and I can’t call her. We are separated by logistics only, though, and if I ever run into her, I’ll tell her exactly what I mean by blocking her:

I don’t need that closure from her. I never did.

At some point, it might have felt like it, but I realize now that that was a dream of a much younger man.

There is no such thing as closure with people who hurt you purposefully, and I’m done thinking the same person who broke me can put me back together.

The Julie I thought I knew didn’t ever exist. I don’t think I ever truly knew her, not really.

There’s only Hannah.

Just a few weeks ago, it would have been hard to imagine my life’s issues being resolved in an afternoon, but now I’m feeling like a man with only answers in front of him; answers that light the way toward the future I’ve always wanted, whether I understood what that future would look like or not.

As I drive down the busy LA streets, I make my final call of the afternoon, and I make it a good one.

I call Hannah and hear her voice, syrupy but somehow serious, too. If some women have honey voices, Hannah’s is biscotti dipped in chocolate.

“Hey, Baby,” she says to me, and I can hear her typing in the background, a quick succession of clicks that seems impossibly fast. Myself, I’ve only ever been able to type with the hunt and peck method.

“Hi there, Hannah Banana.” Her name comes out like a sigh or the tail end of a song lyric. “I thought about what you said. I’ve realized that you were right, so I called Sarah and told her it isn’t happening.”

“Oh, I’m so proud of you. Wow, and you did it so quickly.”

“That’s the only thing I do quickly.”

She laughs a tinkly little laugh at my joke and says, “Okay, Tiger, well, I’m working on something, so I’m going to let you go, huh?”

“Fine, but listen, I decided on a location for the new gym. Maine.”

“Maine, huh? Interesting. Why?”

“I got word that it’s the most beautiful state in the country. I’d like a slice of that. If we have a gym there, I’d get to see iton occasion. We could eat lobster rolls, go sailing. Doesn’t that sound nice?” I ask her as I pull into the parking lot of the store and step out, closing the car door behind me.

“Kind of the opposite of California, isn’t it? Cold, dark Maine?”

“Sure, but variety is the spice of life, isn’t it? That’s what they say. Can’t you just see Lucy in a little sweater, holding a stick under the snow?”

I open up the door of the store and the bell rings above my head. I look up at it and smile at the woman behind the glass case.

She smiles back, and I point at the phone in my hand. She nods at me and waves her hand, granting me permission to continue my conversation. The store is otherwise empty, and I’m not bothering anyone.

“Thatwouldbe really cute,” Hanna acquiesces. “Do you want to wear a little sweater?” I hear her ask Lucy.

I can imagine Lucy wagging her tail at that, looking with a tilted head the way she does that makes her look like she really understands.

“Okay, I’ve taken two seconds to imagine Lucy in a little sweater, and I’m on board.”

I laugh out loud, catching the smiling gaze of the saleslady. “I’ll keep that trick in mind next time I want something. Get…Hannah…to….imagine….Lucy….doing it. Okay, got it.” I say it like I’m writing it down for later use.

“When will you be here? What are you doing, anyway?”

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