Chapter 3 Packing Up

EMBER

With a beer in one hand and a roll of packing tape in the other, I carefully made my way across the hardwood floors of my small student apartment in Cambridge. Those floors had heard me laughing, crying, and had me sleeping on them from time to time over the past three years.

Tomorrow, I was leaving behind my sweet little apartment on Harvard's campus and heading for New York City. How I was going to fit all the boxes scattered around my apartment into my car, I had no idea.

At least I wasn't going alone. My best friend Gracie was coming with me. Surely between our two cars, we would be able to fit all this crap. I toed one of the smaller boxes out of my way and flopped onto my gray couch one last time, lifting the tepid beer to my lips.

Drinking beer on my couch wasn't going to help me get done packing any sooner, but since I was leaving student life behind and hadn't indulged nearly as much or as often as some of my friends, I figured I'd better make the best of my last twenty-one hours as a student.

Once my feet hit Manhattan's soil, or sidewalks rather, I was officially a grownup. An adulty adult with a job in finance in-predictably-the Financial District. I had a signed lease for a loft I would be sharing with Gracie and two new suits already packed into my suitcase, washed and ready for my first day of work.

Excitement hummed in my veins, causing a wide smile to spread across my face. Blood, sweat, and tears had been shed to get this far, but I was finally on my way. I had a shiny, brand-new degree from one of the top Ivy League universities in the world to back me up, my brother was already in New York, and my best friend was starting at the same firm I was.

Life was good. Even if I was going to miss having my hair piled up in a messy bun on top of my head and spending the day studying in yoga pants and my worn Harvard sweatshirt.

"Why are you smiling like that?" Gracie's voice filtered into my self-congratulatory thoughts. "Is there someone else here?"

"No." I hopped up off the couch, nearly tripping when my ankle caught on the box I'd forgotten was in front of me. Laughing, I managed to steady myself just before face-planting and picked my way across my open-plan apartment to my kitchen to grab a beer for Gracie. "I was just thinking about how far we've come."

Gracie shrugged her narrow shoulders, her wispy blonde hair framing her pixie face. Nervousness made her big gray eyes round and shiny. "I know. I still can't believe it's over. Where did the last three years go?"

"Away," I quipped before grabbing a beer from the six pack standing on my kitchen counter and handing it over to her. " finally, it's on to the next step. Harvard was great, but you can't tell me you're not excited to finally get out there."

Picking at the label on her bottle, she sighed. "I guess. Our lives are finally starting. I should be excited."

"Our lives started twenty-three years ago," I pointed out, smiling as I pointed my beer at my chest. "I don't really see it as our lives only starting now. This is just another step. The next phase."

"But I liked this phase," Gracie argued, rolling pieces of the beer label she'd picked off between her fingers. "Why didn't we apply for jobs somewhere in Cambridge? We could have stayed put. This is a great city. We could have been happy here."

"We were happy here," I reminded her. "But now it's time to move on. Onwards and upwards and all that."

"New York just seems so... big," she whispered before finally taking a few small sips of beer. "I never should have applied for a job there."

"But then you wouldn't be working with me." Gracie and I had landed jobs at the same firm, a miracle feat that I took as a sign from the universe that we were doing the right thing. "Or living with me, for that matter."

Gracie shuddered, as if the thought was too much for her. "If you weren't going, there's no way I would have gone."

"You would have," I insisted. "Because you're too smart not to have ended up in one of the top firms in one of the big cities."

She shrugged again, looking a little lost as she shook her head. Gracie was my best friend in the whole world and had been for years. We met during freshman orientation, and as unlikely friends as we were, we quickly became inseparable.

Our friendship didn't seem likely because we were complete opposites in almost every way. We were a textbook example of the old adage that opposites attract.

Gracie was thin as a rake with wispy, almost-white blonde hair, whereas my tresses were thick and black. I'd also never been accused of being thin. In the chick lit I had piled four-books deep on my nightstand, I would have been described best as a big, beautiful woman.

Not that I was beautiful, but I was passable. Gracie, on the other hand, was beautiful in every sense of the word, inside and out. She was soft and gentle to my bold and, sometimes, a little brash. Where Gracie only spoke when she had something to say and was very shy around new people, I had trouble stopping myself from saying everything on my mind. As far as new people went, I figured strangers were only friends I hadn't met yet.

I once got on a bus, and in the three-hour trip from my hometown in Texas to where I was going in Houston for a weekend, I met a couple around my age, and not only did I know their entire history by the time we got to Houston, but I had been invited to their wedding.

We kept in touch for the next few weeks, and I ended up being surprised when she asked me to be a bridesmaid. It was crazy, but it was also fun. We were still good friends, even though we hadn't seen each other since I moved to Cambridge.

The trouble with talking so much was that I suffered from a hilarious case of foot-in-mouth disease. I rolled with it, but there had been some instances where I wondered if I should start being as polite and proper as Gracie.