Chapter 13 Rowan

THERE WAS Agreat uncoupling over the holidays, relationships that couldn't withstand the distance or crumbled when it was time to face reality again. Plenty of the breakups were mutual, cordial, while some soured with rumors of cheating. I saw a few announcements on social media, including my first boyfriend, Luke Barrows, and his girlfriend, Anna Ocampo, and heard about others from Kirby and Mara.

My own goodbye with Neil, while obviously not permanent, was somehow both harder and easier than it was in August. Harder because I'd just gotten used to seeing him regularly again, and easier because we did this for four months and we know we can do it again.

Then there's Kait, who informs me of her breakup during our first creative writing class back.

"We knew it wasn't working," she says, unzipping her jacket. "We just weren't happy anymore."

The heat hasn't kicked on inside the classroom yet, and I'm still shivering in my coat and Neil's scarf. Seattle's year-round mild climate has truly made me incapable of weathering extremes.

I remember what Kait said about their Europe trip, how it brought them even closer, and the romantic in me is devastated for her.

But she doesn't look heartbroken, even though I'm ready to offer up any evening this week for a movie marathon or junk food run or however she handles a breakup. "It's for the best," she continues. "I was flirting with this girl in my film class yesterday, and now I'm completely unattached."

While I'm happy for her, I'm also a little surprised by how easy it is for her to move on. Granted, I've never had a relationship last that long, but I can only imagine a breakup like that would render me useless for at least a week. Maybe that was a sign for her that it was really over—the fact that it didn't leave her gutted.

During the freewrite, I try to summon all those inspiration-bright feelings from Gazebo Night, which is what we're calling it, with plans for another one next semester, once it's warmed up a bit.

I've been trying not to stress myself out about this class, and yet it seems to be the thing that always keeps my creativity locked up. I don't like the way the words look on the page when I'm struggling like this, when I can't get any of the sentences to sound the way I want them to.

I tried writing over winter break, but I couldn't tear myself away from Neil or my friends or my parents. And maybe that was for the best. Maybe I needed to give myself space to refill the creative well.

Today, though, I try something different. I take out the notebook Neil gave me for Hanukkah. If I'm writing by hand, maybe I won't be as focused on getting it exactly right. No red or green squiggles in Microsoft Word, no blinking cursor. The romantic link might also untangle the parts of my brain that are still tied in knots.

It seems like such an easy hack that I'll be both astonished and a little mad if it works, if switching to a notebook somehow unclutters my mind.

And it does.

For about five minutes.

Distraction comes in the form of a sharp sting in my abdomen, one that began over winter break and I dismissed because it was only ever a dull ribbon of pain.

This pain, though: definitely not dull.

Since I had the IUD implanted, my periods have been a little unpredictable. Lighter, too, which has been a great benefit. But now what's happening down there doesn't feel entirely normal.

I grit my teeth and try to focus. The pain reaches a crescendo when Professor Everett passes back an assignment we turned in before the break that earned her typical critical feedback in that kind way she's so good at. She loved the creativity, she said, but she worried the writing was a bit rushed.

Rereading my work—a short piece giving a fictionalized history of any building on campus—I can see it's full of clichés. I'd picked the Lion's Den, coming up with a fake backstory about a lion tamer who fell in love with the founder of Emerson. Then I sputtered out, realized I didn't know anything about lions, and spent an hour watching videos about them reuniting with their owners after years apart. I have a particularly emotional paragraph describing hugging a lion, but the rest of the piece doesn't come close to the epic romance I pictured when I first sat down to write.

She had to get back on the road, for there were many more lions to tame and few of them lived in Boston.

Hmm, I guess I don't hate that sentence.

In her honor, he made the school mascot the lion. He wouldn't forget her. Couldn't forget her. The mascot was a symbol of that.

Professor Everett wrote, slight repetition? And maybe a connection here between how lions remember their humans, as mentioned above? Of course—that should have been obvious.

And my final sentences, which induce the highest level of cringe, alternating between an Emerson brochure and trying too hard to sound smart.

Now the Lion's Den is a popular spot on campus for anyone looking for a caffeine fix. Boston may be historically associated with tea, but here at the Lion's Den, it's all about the coffee. Students have come and gone, but the one thing that's remained constant is the mighty lion, its den, and all the coffee consumed therein.

Therein. Thousands of words in the English language, and I couldn't have picked a better one to end it on. And it's all about the coffee. Just throw me into the Boston Harbor.

It's been a slow revelation, but maybe what Professor Everett is trying to say is that her class isn't the right place for me. That it's better to cut my losses and try something new than make her suffer through another mediocre piece of writing.

My mind is too jumbled to analyze it now, so I shove the assignment into my JanSport and flee the room the moment she dismisses us.

I make an appointment at the campus health center that afternoon.

"I had an IUD put in over the summer," I tell the gynecologist. "And I haven't had any problems with it, but over the past couple weeks I've had some abdominal pain. Cramping."

"Occasionally there's some movement during the first few months, which would cause what you're describing," she says. "It's rare, but it does happen. Even if you're a little past that, we should make sure it's where it's supposed to be. Let's take a look."

I have always felt in control of my body, comfortable in my skin—my pear-shaped curves and my ability to tell my boyfriend what I like. Although apparently that's changing, too. So it's with a new kind of anxiety that I undress behind a curtain before draping myself with a paper gown and positioning myself in the exam chair, feet in the stirrups and legs still clamped together.

I'm still not entirely used to this, but the doctor is as gentle as she can be as she conducts the examination, letting me know that the IUD slipped and she'll try to put it back in its proper position as quickly as she can. I close my eyes, take a few deep breaths, and then it's over.

"It's a good thing you came in," she says after I get dressed. "Let us know if the cramping hasn't gone away in a few days or if anything else seems out of the ordinary."

Back in my dorm bed with a heating pad, I discover there aren't enough emotional lion videos to lift my current mood. Paulina and I said a quick hello when I got back to campus and she was on her way out, but otherwise she seems just as mysterious this semester as she was the last. Suddenly I feel unmoored out here in Boston, the ground shaky beneath my feet. Everything over winter break was easy. Cozy. Now I've been tossed out into the unknown again, only it's colder and less hospitable than ever.

Even though vaginal health is not a topic Neil and I have ever broached, I send him a text about it, my thumb only wavering for a moment before I hit send. Because I want this to be something we can talk about, the same way we would books or academics. Well—probably not with the same frequency, but hopefully with the same comfort level.

And because he is Neil, his response doesn't disappoint.

Neil: I'm so sorry—that sounds miserable.

Neil: I wish I were there. I'd keep you company and bring you soup.

Rowan: haha I don't think it's soup-level serious, but thank you for the virtual minestrone

Neil: That's your soup of choice? You have every soup available in your imagination, and you go with minestrone?

Rowan: I'm a simple minestrone-loving gal!!!

I can't deny that it sounds so nice, imagining being taken care of like that. There's not a doubt in my mind that Neil would drop everything to bring me soup.

The vision comes with a terrible ache, one that weighs down my limbs and makes me drop my phone to the nightstand. I miss, the phone smacking the sliver of linoleum floor not covered by a rug, and I don't have the energy to pick it up. Because no one's bringing anyone soup, not anytime soon, unless one of us gets sick during a break from school. And who wants soup in July, anyway?

Then I'm spiraling about soup, and because my brain is a hellhole right now, suddenly I'm thinking of all the couples that broke up over winter break. The romantic in me had been sad, but now I wonder if they rationalized that the temporary heartbreak would hurt less than the distance. Tonight, the finish line feels so far away.

Three and a half more years of this, I realize when I finally trudge downstairs for dinner, devastated to learn they've just run out of chickenless chicken noodle, the soup of the day.

Of him not being here when I wish he would.

January turns out to be the fucking worst.

An intense bout of homesickness has me googling things like "Seattle in the summer" and "Space Needle at night."

My writing continues to stagnate.

And despite having hugged him goodbye at the airport at the beginning of the month, I miss Neil with an urgent new ferocity. We try to hook up over video, but his roommate barges in (thankfully) before either of us has removed too much clothing. When we slept together over the break, I still couldn't get there. I was home, in my own bed, the place where I should feel the most comfortable—and yet I couldn't turn off my mind. We should be tearing each other's clothes off every time we see each other, given that time is so limited. I don't know why it doesn't feel that way.

I'll scroll through his Instagram when I'm supposed to be studying, liking the photos he's posted with his NYU friends. I want to be evolved and mature, and yet there's a twinge of jealousy when other girls are in them, even though I trust him completely. It's more the sense of being left out, of him having this whole other life there that I can't be part of.

Maybe it's all the recent breakups or my own ever-present anxiety, but I can't help reading into the spaces in between our texts and phone calls, wondering if he's having doubts about us. Ever since winter break, I've sensed a strange new distance from him. The biggest change I can think of is that his mom got engaged over the holidays, but he's never seemed anything but thrilled when he's talked about it. The wedding will be this summer because they don't want to wait.

The worst part of long distance, along with all the other worst parts, is that I can't simply call him up to get that reassurance. Even if he's not in class, talking on the phone or even on video just isn't the same as talking face-to-face. When he's next to me, I can read his expressions. With two screens and hundreds of miles between us, he might as well be on another planet.

He was in love with me for years, and now he has me. Is there a chance the excitement is just… gone?

No. I won't allow myself to think that way.

But instead of going back to my creative writing assignment, I open a new browser window and type in transferring to NYU.

My stomach squeezes even as I hit enter, every feminist urge in me expressing deep and thorough disapproval. You don't understand, I tell those urges. I really fucking miss him.

Maybe it's not just my writing that's stalled right now. Maybe what's wrong with me is that I'm in the wrong city. I skim the page, official transcripts and letters of recommendation and highly competitive. Essentially a lighter version of a regular college application, a process I'm not exactly eager to repeat.

My document blinks back at me. Taunting me.

There has to be an easier solution.

The door bursts open. Only then do I glance at the clock on my laptop—it's past one a.m. and I'm still at my desk.

Paulina Radowski is flushed and out of breath, holding a hand to her heart to steady herself. She yanks her AirPods out of her ears, tosses them on her bed.

It isn't as though we don't speak. It's just that the time we spend together is usually limited to when we're both semiconscious.

"Did you just run up the stairs to get here?" I ask.

"Yes, but that's not important right now." She takes a few gulps of air. Her long red hair is in a messy braid, one of her shoes untied. "Okay, so. I was studying in the library and then they shut down for the night, and as I was on my way here, I realized something."

I close my laptop screen, intrigued mainly because it's the first time I've had Paulina's full attention. "I'm listening."

"I've been in Boston for nearly five months, and I've yet to experience what I'm sure is the life-changing magic of Boston cream pie." Her blue eyes go wide with a desperate sense of urgency as she white-knuckles her desk chair. "I can't let another day go by without it."

"It's one thirty in the morning," I say, laughing, even as my stomach growls. I've never had it either, and it does sound delicious.…

She just blinks at me, as if to say, so?

"It's a Saturday night," she says. "There's got to be somewhere in the city that has some."

There's none of her earlier indifference. This is a new Paulina, and that must be the explanation for what I say next.

"Then let's go find some."

As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize this is precisely what I need to do. I've been cooped up all month, marinating in my anxiety. And even though I can barely keep my eyes open, I could use the break. A quest with someone who isn't connected to the writing program, who I may not have anything in common with except for the randomness of Emerson's roommate match.

If Paulina wants Boston cream pie, we're going to scour the city until we find it.

Our plan is only slightly foiled by the weather, powerful gusts of wind and freezing rain that make us consider turning back for a split second.

"Just think how amazing it's going to taste when we finally get it," I say, and so we soldier on.

The first place, a diner that's known for serving up some of the best, doesn't have its hours posted online, and when we show up, it's closed. But we refuse to let Paulina's dream die, even though her phone does and we have to rely on my 20 percent battery to navigate the city.

"This might be a stupid question," I say, clutching Neil's scarf tightly to my throat as we head down Tremont Street, "but what exactly is in Boston cream pie?"

"Well, you have the cream. Obviously."

"Obviously."

"And then it has all that chocolate on top." She considers something for a second. "You know, I think it might be more of a cake than a pie." Then she spots an open door up ahead and breaks into a run, almost slipping on a patch of black ice. "Excuse me!" she calls.

A guy in an apron pauses as he reaches to take in the restaurant's sign.

"Do you have any Boston cream pie?" she asks. "I know you're closing up, but whatever you usually charge—I'll pay double. Triple, even."

He shakes his head. "Ran out hours ago."

"Thanks anyway." I give him a wave as he hauls the sign inside. "Have a good night!"

The next few places are all closed too, for the evening or for the weather.

"We might have to call it," Paulina says, dejected as I continue to frantically Google Map the dessert, clutching my coat tighter against the wind.

"No no no—there should be a place right around here.…" Then I blink down at my phone. "Except it might actually be a—"

I break off, the sight in front of us stealing my words. We stare up at the neon pink-and-orange logo I've seen around the city only a thousand times since arriving here in August.

It's a Dunkin' Donuts.

And it's beautiful.

Paulina and I glance at each other before bursting out laughing, then hustle inside and out of the cold, ordering two Boston Kreme donuts and cups of hot chocolate to warm up. Then we wait in a dingy booth with a few other college kids, taking refuge from the cold in one of America's most cherished institutions.

"Cheers," she says, tapping her chocolate-glazed donut to mine, and together we bite into creamy, chocolaty, doughy goodness.

"Mmm—oh my God," I say with a mouthful of vanilla custard. "Incredible. Amazing. Showstopping. Spectacular."

"After all this, we could have just gone to any of the five Dunkin's across the street." Paulina marvels at the intricate pattern of frosting on the donuts. "But there's something special about this one, isn't there?"

Even if Dunkin' is like Starbucks in its ubiquity, there aren't any in Washington State, and it's still something of a novelty for two West Coasters.

"We have them in California," Paulina explains. "But they're nowhere near as popular. And Dunkin' was founded here, so technically we're supporting a local business."

"True." I take another bite, unable to sit with the awkwardness much longer. "Okay, this might sound weird, but… I've been convinced that you hate me?"

Paulina's eyes go wide. "What? No! Why would you think that?"

"You barely spend any time in our room."

For a few moments, she doesn't say anything, just chews silently. "I guess I've been really busy with school," she finally explains, a bit of a mask settling over her features. "A lot of homework. A lot of study groups."

While I get the feeling there's more to the story, at least I'm fairly certain now that it's not about me. A difficult thing for an anxious, overthinking perfectionist to admit, but college is supposed to be a place for maturity and growth.

She tells me more about her major—she's studying business of creative enterprises and wants to work in music management.

"I love music and want to be near it all the time," she says, taking the last bite of her donut. "But I can't play anything to save my life."

"Favorite bands?" I ask, and this leads us into a ten-minute conversation during which she names at least a dozen I've never heard of.

"Perfect," she says when I tell her about creative writing. "My bands can play the soundtrack for your future movie adaptation."

"It's a deal."

As we re-layer ourselves to make the trek back to campus, the idea of transferring seems as ridiculous as it would have a few months ago. How could one person not feel indebted to the other? Maybe I just needed to remember why I picked Boston to begin with.

All it took was a single night. A single adventure.

Maybe that's what I need to do with Neil, too.