Page 2 of Dear Brother's Best Friend
When Willa again brings up the topic of Maren needing to quit her job because of the ungodly number of hours she works, the room's tension increases.
It’s always hard when the topic of money comes up in our little group because there is a fifty/fifty split down the middle. Willa and Lucy each grew up with silver spoons in their mouths. While Maren and I learned at a young age the value of earning our own money to buy the extra things we wanted. I hate whenever Maren and Willa fight, which happens more often since they live together.
“Okay.” I hold up my arms between Maren and Willa. “Let’s all take a breath before this turns into a repeat of sophomore year when you two didn’t speak for a month because of Brandon Davidson.”
“I’m sorry,” Maren says.
Willa nods. “Me too.”
“Good, we are all friends again. Let’s clink this out.” I hold up my glass.
We all clink our glasses and take a long sip, enjoying the cold, heavenly lime drink.
Maren picks up the pitcher of margarita and proceeds to top off each of our glasses.
“What I want to know is why we are all here, staying in on a Friday night?” She points to the elephant sitting in the corner of the room. "I mean, I know why I don't have a life, but we are all smart, funny, beautiful women. We should have guys lining up down the block for us." She sits down next to me and glances over her shoulder. I follow her gaze out the window to the street below. "It's empty."
Willa sets down her glass and tells us all about the hot British professor she’s been lusting after for months now. Lucy joins in talking that the bad boy that lives in her building. About how even though she’s painfully shy and hasn’t spoken a full sentence to him, she’s made up her mind that she wants to have his babies.
I blurt out my crush on Dylan. We’ve all known each other since college, so the three of them have all met Dylan. I never wanted to admit my feelings for him out loud because I thought that even though they are my best friends, they’d think I was way out of my league wanting him. Willa is the only one I told, but I swore her to secrecy, and judging by the surprised looks on Lucy and Maren’s faces, she never spilled the beans.
Maren is the last to admit her crush on her boss. I knew there had to be something more than just the love of her job that kept her working there.
“So, what are we saying here?” Maren says, standing up from the sofa and turning to look at each of us. “Are we all going to sit here every Friday night, lusting after our secret crushes until we are old spinsters?”
“What are you suggesting?” I ask.
“We’ve got to tell the guys in our lives how we feel so we can move on. We can’t keep holding onto a hope that they might one day wake up and see us differently. There are guys out there waiting for us.” She points out the window towards the city skyline. “And we are too busy hiding behind our unrequited love to go out and meet them.”
“How are we supposed to tell them?” Lucy asks. “I can barely get the courage to speak complete sentences around him, let alone admit how I feel.”
Maren looks unsure for a moment.
"Here," she runs over and grabs a box of stationary off a shelf. "We will each write out a letter. We don't have to send them, but maybe, by putting down on paper how we feel, we can finally move on and meet someone new."
“It’s not the craziest idea you’ve ever had,” Willa says.
“Are you in, Lucy?” Maren asks.
We all turn to look at her.
She smiles. “Let’s do it.”
I take the paper and pen that Maren offers me. How am I supposed to put into words nearly a lifetime of feelings for one person? I look around and see everyone else already writing something. I'm not sure I would have been able to put my feelings down if I thought for a moment that Dylan would actually read my letter. It's the freedom of knowing that he will never know, that I take a chance and say everything I wish I could tell him.
2
DYLAN
The Monday morning presentation with the board took longer than we planned, leaving me only half the time I thought I had to finish packing and get to the airport on time. If I miss this flight, Hayden will kill me.
He’s doing everything he can to help keep Jodie calm in the days leading up to the wedding. She did ninety percent of the planning, and after a massive blowout that nearly resulted in the wedding getting canceled, Hayden realized that he needed to step up his part in a big way. I don't want to be a reason to set off another argument. Thehappycouple is stressed enough as it is.
With an offer of a substantial tip to my driver, he gets me to the airport in only twenty minutes. I'm able to get through security and to my gate before the door closes.
I take the first seat I can find and settle in for a long flight. I’m grateful for the time so that I can work on my best man speech. I started jotting down some ideas of what I wanted to say last night. I reach down for my messenger bag from beneath the seat in front of me and pull out the yellow envelope that I made my notes on.
I make a few more bullet points on it, mentioning how Hayden and I met in middle school and how his family practically took me in as another son to help out my mom when she’d have to work late at her second job. I add a few notes to mention some stories about the trouble we used to get into when we were younger. And of course, the way I saw Hayden meeting Jodie changed his life for the better.
