Page 95 of For the Boys
“So what’s your sister’s name? How old is she? And how old is your brother? Logan, right?” Brent asked, turning the attention back on her.
“Whoa, slow down.” Berkley laughed. “Her name is Jessica, and she’s almost twenty. Logan is twenty-seven. He’s the reason I decided to become a lawyer.”
“So you two are close then?” Brent asked.
“Very.”
“Shit, I better watch out.”
“Yes, you better.”
“I was joking.”
“I wasn’t.” She laughed. “And it’s your turn!”
“Hmm,” he hummed, shifting to wrap his arm around her shoulders. “Okay, got one. What’s your middle name?”
“Iris. It was my great-grandmother’s name. It’s old-school, but I like it.”
“Mine is Winston,” Brent offered, “after my uncle, who died in a car accident just before I was born.”
“I’m sorry,” Berkley whispered.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I obviously didn’t know him. My dad talks about him a lot—he was his little brother. I like hearing about him, and it makes my pops feel better.”
“Well that’s good then.” Berkley yawned. “Okay, next question. How long ago was your last relationship, and why did it end?”
“That’s two questions!” Brent argued.
“Not if it’s in the same turn! Plus you just asked me like four in a row.”
“Fine,” Brent said begrudgingly. “My last real relationship was when I was a senior in college. Her name was Ashley. We had been together for a while, but she was way more serious about us than I was. That’s why it ended. She basically gave me an ultimatum: put a ring on her finger or walk, so I walked.”
“How did she take that?” Berkley asked, genuinely curious. “Should I be worried?”
Brent laughed and pulled her closer. “No, of course not. Obviously she didn’t take it very well at first. She thought she was going to marry this future professional fresh out of college and be set for the rest of her life. It was a pretty messy breakup, but she’s married to some Wall Street broker now and living happily in New York.” He paused. “What about you?”
“What about me?” Berkley asked, even though she knew what he meant.
“When was your last relationship, and why did it end?”
“Remember that guy from New Year’s? Lee? He was my last relationship.” She paused and swallowed, afraid to say what she knew she had to. “We were trying to make long distance work, but he was a few years older than me and lived back in Traverse City. He played a lot of mind games with me, like making me feel really guilty that I couldn’t be there to fall asleep next to him or take care of him when he wasn’t feeling well. He was really jealous too. If I was hanging out with even one guy, even when it was strictly platonic, which it always was, I had to let him know. I couldn’t go anywhere with my friends without him checking up on me every twenty minutes. It was exhausting, but I thought I loved him, so I didn’t think I could leave. Then I heard a rumor he was cheating on me, and we broke up because he didn’t think I believed him when I called him out on it. When I went home to get the few things I had at his house, his new girlfriend, the one he actually had been cheating on me with, was already living with him.”
“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” Brent said. “But that guy sounds like a fucking loser.”
Berkley laughed. “He definitely is.” She sighed, remembering the days after she and Lee had broken up; she’d been so sad she could barely get out of bed. “But I started drinking a lot after that. It’s honestly a wonder I didn’t flunk out of law school that first year,” she whispered, so quietly she wasn’t even sure he heard her.
“What changed?”
“What do you mean?”
“Not to sound insensitive, but you were clearly depressed,” he said. “What snapped you out of it?”
“You’re dragging all of my deep, dark secrets out of me tonight.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
She took a deep breath. “No, it’s okay. So one night Kimber and I each bought a fifth of vodka. We were planning on sharing one that night and having the other the next night. Instead, we started drinking super early and went to a basketball game on campus completely wasted. I really should have stopped drinking then, but I finished that whole fifth that night on nearly an empty stomach. It was the one and only time, other than the time we got drugged, that I’ve blacked out. All I remember is going to Contour. After that, the night only comes back to me in flashes. Next thing I knew, I was throwing up in the street. When I came to again, I was in the bathroom at a friend’s dorm after I puked my guts out and passed out on the floor. Don’t ask me how we got there or why we even went to the dorms, because to this day, no one knows. All I know is that I slept in the bathroom that night. The next morning, after we got home, my friend Rob called me while I was trying to piece together what happened. He asked me if I was okay and if our friend Joe had tried to talk to me again. Rob and Joe were a couple of undergrad guys we had met earlier in the year, and Kimber was pretty good friends with them.” Berkley paused, thinking. “I guess that explains how we ended up in the dorms. Anyway, I was confused because I had no memory of talking to Joe or Rob the night before. Turns out, while I was passed out in the bathroom, Joe tried to come in and take advantage of me. Thankfully, Rob caught him halfway in the door and stopped him.”
