The Romantics

by Leah Konen

But it wasn’t as simple as Gael just moving on to the next one, either.

  Remember back at the beginning when I told you about the Rules? When I said, and I quote, “Real love makes you better than you ever knew you could be.” I wasn’t just blowing smoke. Here’s the thing—those words could not possibly apply more appropriately to Gael. Because I could peek into the future, and this is what I saw:

  I saw Gael’s love of movies working so beautifully with his love of, well, love.

  I saw him, years down the road, drawing on his own experience of young, authentic love to make a gorgeous, heartbreaking movie that rocked the festival circuit and put him on the map as a promising new director.

  I saw a girl who would encourage him, always, to be his best self, to go after everything that he wanted. Whose own passion inspired him day after day.

  I saw a career of him making these sorts of movies, ones that inspired people to believe in love the world over.

  Some people might even call them romantic comedies, though he’d always protest the association with his least favorite genre.

  I may have even seen a shiny statue in his future.

  I’m not saying that the romance I had in store for eighteen-year-old Gael would last forever. But I am saying that, no matter how long it lasted, this one would change his life—and the lives of others—for many years to come.

  And on the other hand? If my machinations didn’t come to fruition?

  Well, I saw that future, too. I saw the ache of another bitter heartbreak when Cara eventually got tired of the newness of it all.

  I saw a desk job. Maybe a movie review blog on the side. Some good dates here and some bad dates there, and maybe, when he was old enough, he’d marry a nice girl and settle down.

  He’d keep up with the Joneses and polish his car on the weekends and tell himself that he would go to more movies if only he had the time.

  It wasn’t necessarily a bad life.

  But it wasn’t what Gael’s life was supposed to be.

  And I was the only one who could fix it.

  friend-zone defense, continued

  The second half of the game started, and with the greasy sandwich in front of him, Gael found his appetite. He and Cara devoured their sandwiches, while UNC maintained their lead. When he was finished, he licked the barbecue sauce off his fingers instead of using a napkin, something Anika had always despised. Feeling slightly less distraught, he joined Cara in yelling at the refs, another thing Anika hated. Sure, until about five minutes ago, Gael had kind of hated it, too. But this was the new Gael. The uninhibited Gael. The Gael who realized that no one else was playing by the rules, his father included, and he didn’t need to, either. Cara may not be perfect, she may not do everything exactly as he did, but at least she was here.

  (Gael was so far gone by this point that he didn’t even realize how sad that type of logic is.)

  As the mammoth players sunk basket after basket, Gael stopped thinking about his dad and his family. He felt good. He felt alive. He felt like the world could go on, even though it wasn’t going the way he’d planned.

  And that’s when he looked at Cara and saw she was looking at him, her eyes inviting, her face flushed from yelling, strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail delicately framing her face. And that’s when he thought to himself, screw November. Why in the world does it matter if we wait for November?

  And that’s when he guessed she was thinking the same thing.

  (And that’s when I saw my moment.)

  The horn blew, signaling a time-out, and Gael and Cara were shocked out of their secret little world, just as Cara’s ex-boyfriend, Branson, came walking up the steps in search of his own pulled pork sandwich.

  Their eyes locked, and I could almost feel the instant ache in Cara’s belly, the hurt that washed over her, head to toe.

  I knew it could have gone a few ways, as these things always do. She could have smiled and waved and struck up a conversation with him and tried to act like everything was normal while practically ignoring Gael and downplaying their whatever-it-was.

  Or she could have looked down at her feet, waited until Branson walked by, head filled with the thoughts of how much she still cared about him, of how clearly she did not care about Gael.

  Or she could have done what she did. The one thing I’d been hoping and praying for her not to do.

  The band burst into a rendition of “Carolina on My Mind” and Cara jumped to her feet, grabbing Gael’s hand and pulling him up with her, snaking her arm around his back in time for Branson to see.

  I’d underestimated Cara’s bitterness, her desire to make Branson jealous, no matter what the cost to Gael.

  Cara wasn’t a bad person—please don’t judge her—it’s just that people do crazy things when it comes to me.

  Of course, Gael didn’t see any of that. To Gael, the girl he liked had her arm around him and was swaying back and forth as his favorite song filled the stadium.

  To Gael, a place that was filled with painful family memories would now have a new memory—a memory of her.

  “You’re the best for getting these tickets,” he said. And he meant it. With all his heart.

  when cara met sammy

  The next morning, I abandoned my post monitoring Gael and his ever-vacillating emotions to launch a special mission, part of what I was calling Operation Get Gael’s Love Life Back on Track.

  Just after 9:00 A.M., I headed to the campus dining hall where I knew Sammy Sutton would be.

  What most people didn’t know about Sammy was that she was obsessed with chocolate. She even found Gael’s Snickers habit endearing, as much as she made fun of him for it. It was the kind of thing she would do. Scratch that, it was the kind of thing she did do. Her chocolate-chip waffle habit actually began on September 4, to be exact, the day John dumped her, during the second week of school. (Fun fact: The first two weeks of college are breakup city, no matter where in the world you are.)

  However, because her mom used to tell her that the stuff would make her fat, she sadly associated chocolate with shame and therefore hid her love well. But on Saturday mornings, just a few minutes after the dining hall opened, while her hallmates were still sleeping off their hangovers, she religiously made herself a big Belgian waffle loaded with chocolate chips, enjoying her guilty pleasure all on her own.

  Cara was also a waffle-lover. But she normally got to the dining hall a good bit later. Of course, normally, her alarm didn’t mysteriously go off at eight forty-five on a Saturday. And so when she would usually be sleeping, she was lying in her bed, cursing herself for somehow not turning off her weekday alarm, and trying to go back to sleep.

  By 9:15 Cara was begrudgingly throwing on her Birks and heading to the dining hall in attempt to get on with her day, since she clearly wasn’t going to nod off again.

  The two strangers got to the waffle station at exactly the same time. (I swear I’m like an award-winning orchestra conductor sometimes.)

  Cara poured a ladleful of regular batter onto her machine, while Sammy poured her own ladle and grabbed the container of chocolate chips.

  Wait for it . . .

  Wait for it . . .

  “Shit!” Sammy stared at the mountain of chocolate now piled up on the batter. The cap of the container had come off completely and rolled along the floor right into Cara’s feet.

  “Oh my god, let me help you!” Cara sprung to action, as I knew she would, grabbing a broom and dustpan that I’d placed nearby and cleaning up the chips on the floor.

  “Oh, you don’t have to,” Sammy stammered. “I’m sorry—I don’t know how that happened.”

  Cara swept the chips into the dustpan and surveyed Sammy’s half-cooked waffle, which was now completely coated in messy, gooey chocolate. “I mean, I love chocolate as much as the next girl, but even that’s a little much for me.”

  Sammy laughed, then fiddled with the container in her hand. “I think some dick unscrewed the top so they’d all fall out.�
� She rolled her eyes. “College boys.” (Or metaphysical entities. Either one.)

  “Wow, what an asshole,” Cara said. “People are such idiots.”

  The girls carefully threw their ruined waffles into the trash, then Cara poured new waffles for both of them and topped Sammy’s with an appropriate amount of chips. She closed the lids, and the smell of melting chocolate filled the air. “I’m Cara, by the way,” she said.

  “Sammy.” She reached out her hand. “And thank you so much for your help.”

  “No problem. Are you here with anyone?” Cara asked. “I feel like after surviving a chocolate debacle the least we could do is eat our waffles together. I woke up super early today, so none of my friends are here.”

  Sammy smiled. “You’re on.”

  They grabbed seats at a two-person table and proceeded to chat about everything from waffles to the tininess of their dorm rooms to the idiocy of the teacher’s assistant in Sammy’s French philosophy class. The two bonded brilliantly, as I knew they would.

  As Sammy cut apart the last bit of her waffle, she got an idea. (Yes, there may have been some nudging from yours truly.)

  “This is kind of random,” she said. “But I actually have a Groupon for two tickets to the zoo in Asheboro tomorrow, and my roommate bailed. Any chance you want to go?”

  Cara laughed out loud. “That is random.”

  Sammy topped off her last bite with extra syrup. “I know, but animals are fun, right?”

  Cara smiled. “Totally. You’re on.”

  And just like that my plan was back on track.

  meanwhile, on the other side of town

  “How does your apartment have, like, no service?” Gael asked as he stormed out of the sad bedroom in his dad’s apartment and slammed the door behind him.

  In the tiny apartment kitchen, Gael’s dad stirred eggs and fried bacon while Piper cut the tops off strawberries. They were wearing matching aprons that Gael’s mom had gotten the whole family a couple of Christmases ago. Piper’s said “Good Egg” and his dad’s said “Bad Egg.”

  “It works fine in the living room,” his dad said, as he turned over a piece of bacon with tongs.

  “I would like at least a little privacy,” Gael said bitterly.

  “It works fine in my room, too,” his dad offered.

  The thought of making his phone call where his dad ostensibly spent time talking to that girl made Gael sick to his stomach. “I want to talk in my own room,” he said angrily.

  Piper stopped cutting fruit long enough to cross her arms and purse her lips. “Maybe you shouldn’t be, like, addicted to your phone? Mom says you spend way too much time with your gadgets.”

  “Well, Mom’s not here, is she?” Gael snapped.

  His dad put his tongs down and stared at him. “You don’t have to say it like that. We’re all trying the best we can.”

  Gael just rolled his eyes. “The bacon’s burning,” he said, as the smell of smoke filled the air. He headed to the couch while his dad flipped on the fan and Piper ran around the kitchen, whipping a towel around in an attempt to diffuse the smoke.

  Ever since Gael was old enough to look after Piper, their family’s Saturday morning tradition had been for his dad to go for a long run, while his mom went to yoga class. Around 11:00 they’d gather back at home for brunch.

  Which had all been good and fine before they split. Now his dad’s attempts to make it just like it always was just felt pathetic, and like he was obviously trying to make up for something. Even the smell of bacon, previously Gael’s favorite food, had come to bother him.

  Gael sat down and tapped at Cara’s contact on his phone. As the phone rang, he stared at the chipped paint on the wall near the ceiling. The all-white walls of this place were nothing like his house, with colors his mom had picked out and warm polished wood furniture and their fancy chemical-free laundry detergent smelling simultaneously of lavender and home.

  In comparison, his dad’s apartment was bright and dingy, and the balcony that shot out from the living room was a sad excuse for a yard. Not to mention said balcony didn’t have cell service, either.

  “Hello,” Cara answered, as the apartment’s smoke detector went off.

  “Hey,” Gael said. “Sorry. Can you make that stop?” he yelled at his dad.

  “Burning the house down,” Cara said. “I know it was a good victory last night, but there’s really no need to riot.”

  He laughed nervously, as his dad and Piper got the alarm to stop.

  “I was wondering if you wanted to hang out tonight,” he asked, his heart racing as he said it.

  She paused, and took a deep breath. “I can’t.”

  Gael decided right then and there that she hated him, that November was a stupid excuse, and their whole relationship was useless, and—

  “But maybe if you want to hang out tomorrow. I’m randomly going to the zoo in Asheboro with a friend, and she said I could bring people if I wanted.”

  “The zoo?” Gael asked. “Really?”

  Piper ran out of the kitchen and was in front of him in seconds.

  “The zoo? The zoo? I want to go to the zoo. Take me with you, please please please.”

  “Chill,” Gael said.

  “What’s that?” Cara asked.

  Gael turned away from Piper, as if that might afford him a little privacy.

  “My little sister is begging to come.” He rolled his eyes. In his actual home, Piper wouldn’t have been within earshot.

  “Oh,” Cara said.

  Piper kept insisting. “Please please please pretty please.”

  Gael cleared his throat. “I don’t think so—”

  “Come on,” Piper said. “It will be so much fun! Please please pretty pretty please.”

  “Uhh, I guess that works,” Cara said. “I mean, it would be cool to meet her, anyway.”

  Gael looked from his sister to his dad, who was nodding eagerly. “All right,” Gael said to Piper, resigned. “Looks like we’re going to the zoo tomorrow.”

  Piper immediately did a happy dance.

  (So did I.)

  team samgael

  The next day, Piper was mostly quiet on the fifty-three-mile drive to the zoo, which was strange for Piper. She kept pulling out papers from her backpack and looking them over. Gael didn’t ask what she was doing. It was usually easier not to ask when it came to Piper.

  Instead, he spent the entire time going over and over in his head what Cara must be thinking. She’d said no to a Saturday night hangout and had suggested a super-casual thing with his little sister, no less. Maybe she really did just want to be friends . . .

  (Worth noting here is a common little mind trap that you humans frequently fall into: thinking much more about whether the other person likes you than whether you actually like them.)

  Needless to say, Gael was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he was wholly unprepared for what he saw when they finally reached the entrance to the zoo. There, standing right next to Cara, leaning against the entrance to the Africa section, Candide in freaking hand . . .

  Sammy.

  He was so surprised he didn’t even think to wave. He turned right down the row of cars, seeking out a spot to park.

  “I didn’t know Sammy was going to be here!” Piper squealed.

  Gael shook his head as he pulled into an open spot. Could Sammy be the “friend” Cara had spoken of? UNC was a school of twenty thousand students—it would be a crazy coincidence. And yet, she must be.

  “Believe me,” he said to Piper, cursing his luck. “I didn’t either.”

  After the OMG, I didn’t know you were going to be heres, after Cara explained that Sammy was a friend from school, after Piper yelled at Gael for calling Sammy the “baby-sitter,” not the “French tutor,” after all of them marveled at what a small world it was, they purchased their tickets and filed in through the large “Welcome to Africa” plaza.

  Piper immediately ran ahead toward the Crocodile Café. The girl wa
s a fiend for slushies.

  “Piper,” Gael yelled. “You have to wait!”

  Sammy broke into a run, grabbed her, and dragged her back to Gael. He instantly felt bad for her—Sammy should not be having to deal with this on her day off. Meanwhile, Cara, who had basically created this awkward mess, gazed at the map like she didn’t have a care in the world. He felt a tinge of annoyance, and it surprised him. Cara couldn’t have known that her friend was his little sister’s babysitter. It was just one of those things. One of those . . . super-strange coincidence things.

  Gael turned to Sammy. “You don’t have to take care of her. I mean, she’s my responsibility today.”

  “I’m my own responsibility.” Piper crossed her arms. “Mom said.”

  Gael cursed his mom for always indulging his little sister’s view of the world, and a flash of frustration passed across Sammy’s eyes. Still, in that way Sammy had of always putting his sister first, she didn’t let Piper see it. Instead, Sammy smiled at her. “Of course you are,” Sammy said. “But you still have to stick with the group.”

  “Fine,” Piper said hesitantly. “But I have something fun to show you, so can we hurry up please?”

  Piper grabbed Gael’s and Sammy’s hands, dragging them toward the café, while Gael turned to Sammy and mouthed, “Thank you.”

  Once they’d gotten Piper her bright red slushy and grabbed a container of sweet potato fries to share, they headed to a table.

  Piper immediately pulled two sheets of paper out of her backpack and spread them out proudly on the table.

  Gael glanced at the paper. “What’s this, Pipes?” he asked.

  She beamed. “It’s a video scavenger hunt. We divide into teams. I found it on the Internet. Can we do it, please please please?” It all came out in one long Piper breath.

  “Uhh, I don’t really think—” Cara started.

  But Sammy wasn’t having it. “You put this whole thing together for us?” she asked Piper.

  Piper nodded. “I mean, I just printed it, but I looked on every website until I found a good one.” (Thanks to my nudging, of course.)