It Had to Be You by Georgia Clark (e reader for manga .txt) 📗

it didn’t feel good, that wasn’t good love. But over the years, he’d learned that loving someone meant doing things he didn’t want to do. Go to a party he didn’t want to go to. Indulge a hobby he found tedious, a friend he found boring, a behavioral pattern he found annoying or strange. Pay for a part-timer to allow his significant other to pursue an expensive, time-consuming pipe dream that was quite possibly motivated by a crush on someone barely out of college.

Henry was up for it. Gorman was his best friend and he’d made many compromises to give Henry the life he wanted: the flower shop was primarily Henry’s dream. Gorman was good with numbers but he didn’t enjoy balancing the books like he enjoyed writing. Henry trusted that eventually, his partner would provide what he needed. But that hadn’t stopped Henry from shoving the stand mixer deep into the back of the pantry, unopened. The sight of it still made him upset.

34

When Savannah lived in Kentucky, she’d cook dinner for her roommate-slash-best-friend, Cricket, every other night. Chicken tacos or mac and cheese eaten in front of the TV while they caught up on the always-depressing news or a ridiculous reality dating show. It was one of the best parts of her day; homey, but also more fun than being home with her family. So it came as a shock to realize at the beginning of her fifth month in New York City she’d not once prepared a home-cooked meal for her Brooklyn roommates. Savannah and Cricket lived parallel lives, privy to each other’s every waking thought. But Arj, the grumpy bartender; Cool Leonie, who she only ever saw leaving for or returning from an online date; and Yuli, the hippie with anxiety, ranked only a notch above strangers. Her three roommates’ daily activities, relationships, and yes, meals, were a complete mystery. Living with them was like watching a scene from an unfamiliar TV show: things were happening, but it was unclear what it all meant.

It was a hot, sunny Sunday. A full day before she’d have to throw herself back into the challenge of Vanessa and her misguided father and the business of weddings. She’d cleaned her room, a precisely organized shoebox decorated with the cheerful, aspirational women she admired so much: Michelle Obama, Reese Witherspoon, Ellen DeGeneres. She’d caught up on a few text chains, gone for a run, and gone to church, a hipster Christian event in Williamsburg. It was more like a concert than a service. There was a VIP section, and the pastor wore edgy streetwear that wouldn’t be out of place at New York Fashion Week. But connecting with God in the company of other Christians still felt comforting. God was real. He had a plan for her. With life changing all around her, this could still be her one constant.

She called her loving, absentminded father, Terry, which descended, as always, into an IT tutorial. “Dad, you have to flip the screen so I can see you.”

“I’m making quesadillas!”

All she could see was a sliver of ceiling. “Dad, flip the screen.”

Her father’s bespectacled face filled the small screen. “We miss you, Pookie Bear. Look, I made salsa!” He tasted a mouthful and gagged. “Must’ve used sugar instead of salt. Okay, that’s no good.”

“Miss you too, Dad.” She loved talking to her parents, even if it was disorienting. The life she’d left was still happening without her. Her dad’s bad cooking, her mom’s endless knitting, Pickles, the ancient cockapoo, perennially underfoot.

“This is great!” Terry wandered into the living room, away from the meat sizzling on the stove. “What’s this called?”

“FaceTime, Daddy.”

“FaceTime! How much is it?”

A dog yelped.

“Well, I didn’t see you, Pickles, I’m talking to Savannah. C’mon, outside.”

“Free, Dad. It comes with the phone.”

“Free? How about that! So, what else, honey? You booked your flight back yet?”

“Back where?”

“Home! You said you’d be home by Christmas!”

Technically, her parents had said she’d be moving home by Christmas, and at the time, she hadn’t disagreed. But the first half of the year had flown by and she was still finding her feet. What would her life even look like back home? An easy job somewhere on Main Street, drinks with Cricket and the girls at the same three bars, seeing her parents every weekend for countless hours doing who-knows-what. New York was challenging, but it wasn’t predictable.

“Here’s Mom, knitting a—what is that, honey? A hat?”

“I’m making you a scarf for fall, Pookie!” Sherry sang out. “Do you like the color?”

“I can’t see you, I can only see Dad.”

His giant forehead filled the screen. “How do I flip it? Ah, here we—” He hung up on her.

Savannah decided to make pan-fried chicken for her roommates. Her grandmother’s recipe. Nothing brought people together like fried chicken. Maybe she’d bring Honey a piece. She twirled her keys as she skipped out the door.

The L train, her straight shot from Bushwick into Manhattan, wasn’t running: weekend repairs. The subway, while noisy and crowded, was fast and efficient: thoroughbreds at the top of their game. Which made the rumbling city buses dispatched to cover for the train seem like slow-footed Clydesdales one misstep from the glue factory. The trip to the Trader Joe’s by Union Square should’ve taken twenty minutes but instead took a staggering hour and a half. Oh well: onward. Savannah marched to the sliding doors, only to be stopped by an acne-sprayed employee. “There’s a line,” he said, pointing to it.

Mildly confused why the line for the register started outside the building, Savannah explained she didn’t have anything yet.

“It’s a line to get in,” he clarified. Savannah almost laughed out loud. A line to get in? What, was Billy Joel playing a free concert in the frozen food section? Billy Joel was not. Instead, it seemed every New Yorker on the island of Manhattan had decided to get their groceries at the exact same time. Savannah almost had the last bunch of collard greens