Page 4 of Just Another Meet Cute

After Linh and I escaped the Dinner from Hell with our parents, we retreated back to her room. I grabbed Ian’s jacket from the laundry heap in the corner while she flopped on bed. Her head was bent down as she fiddled with something on her phone.

There wasn’t anything in the side pockets, but I could hear some jiggling when I shook the jacket. Jackpot! Pulling out a pair of keys in the inside pocket, I let out a happy sigh. “Thank God I didn’t do the laundry this morning like I was planning to.”

Without looking up, Linh raised a fist in the air. “Procrastination for the win. What did you find?”

“A couple keys with a dog key chain. A library card. A flash drive. And a card to … something.” I squinted at the tiny, faded words on the tiny gray key fob. “At least we know he’s a dog person.”

“See? We’re finding stuff out already.” Finally done with whatever she was doing on her phone, Linh clapped and held her hands out. “I’ll take the passes and you check out the flash drive. Maybe you’ll find something useful on there.”

“Like a phone number?”

“Right now, I’d settle for a whole name. But a phone number would be nice, too.”

I unhooked the flash drive from the silver ring and tossed the keys to her. “Okay, so let’s say this actually works. What’s the plan? We track him down and drag him back to our house for dinner? ’Cause that’s just weird.”

“I think we’ll figure it out once we find Mr. Unicorn. Minus the dragging.”

“Mr. Unicorn?”

“A guy who carries around tampons and isn’t grossed out by the thought of us having our periods every month?” Linh wrinkled her nose. “Sounds pretty mythical to me. I’m still not positive that he’s real . I mean, if it wasn’t for the jacket, I’d think you had a heat stroke and imagined him.”

I couldn’t help laughing even as I rolled my eyes. “Okay, that nickname is pretty perfect. Mostly because, like an actual unicorn, I’m positively certain it will be impossible for us to find him.”

“Challenge accepted,” she murmured, always having to have the last word in.

If I didn’t love her so much …

Digging out my laptop, I stuck the flash drive into the USB slot.

As I waited for it to load, I curled on the bench in Linh’s reading nook.

It used to be my closet growing up, but after I moved out, she took the door off, built a little bench, and put shelves on the wall.

She even sewed a couple of velvet pillows to hide the fact that the bench was pretty crooked.

After we left, Linh could have taken over both closets or even moved into B á ’s old room, but she claimed that it was too much trouble to move.

And it was easier to get dressed with her clothes all over the place.

She was obviously lying, but I didn’t call her out.

For the same reason that I slept in her room instead of in B á ’s empty room.

It felt nice to have things back to normal. Even if it was just for a few weeks.

Linh flopped backward until her head was halfway off the bed. “By the way, how’s it going with your dad? Are things any better?”

My eyes were glued to the colorful spinning circle on the screen. “Depends on what you mean by ‘better.’ ”

“Guess that’s a no then.”

It’s no secret that Dad and I weren’t exactly pals. Not even pen pals who emailed once every couple of months to “check in.” I mean, I just recently started calling him Dad, mainly because Mom’s been nagging me about it since they got engaged.

It wasn’t even that hard since that word literally didn’t mean anything to me in the first place. It was just a word. One I’ve barely used my entire life. So I called him Dad, instead of David like Mom did. It didn’t mean anything. Like lollygag or malarkey .

To be honest, part of the reason I didn’t talk to Dad was because of how he completely abandoned his other family. One minute he was with them and now he was with us. Switched families as easily as switching to a different phone plan. And if he did it once, then he could easily do it again.

Wise ol’ Sylvester Stallone once said that love is absolute loyalty. Everything can fade except loyalty. You can depend on loyal people. And I’m not sure Dad was one of them. So why should I bother trying to fit him into my life if he may be a temporary piece?

Plus, my life was fine the way it was without him. I wasn’t missing out on anything. I had everything I needed. Everyone I needed. But he’s here now, and Mom kept trying. And I do want to make her happy …

“I mean, it’s not better , but it’s also not worse? It’s … complicated.” My fingers drummed against the side of my laptop. “Like really complicated.”

“Maybe things will get better later on, ” Linh said with a hopeful grin.

“Like when your mom and my dad stop making snide comments to each other?” My face scrunched up for a minute and I shrugged. “Or, you know, when we get world peace.”

“So, basically, never.” She shook her head and turned back to her phone. “You make me glad that my deadbeat dad never tried to come back.”

My eyebrow rose. “You act like your mom would ever let him come back.”

“That’s true. He is pretty much the source of her man hatred after all. The origin story.” Linh shook her head. “Oh well, back to business.”

When the flash drive finally loaded, I was surprised to see only a few files on it. A history paper on the Civil War. A PDF comic of The Amazing Spider-Man , Vol 1. And a folder that was labeled Essays . Only one file was on in it though and it was barely a page.

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

Family is something that I’ve always considered to be one of my biggest strengths.

It’s the one thing that makes me feel special.

Different. They’re the reason I’m able to strive to do my best. To push myself to go the extra mile.

Coming from a huge family, they’ve been my identity for my entire life. They’re my past and my present.

●

homework nights at the kitchen table

●

weekly hiking trips

●

family vacations (specifically the road trip to Minnesota and Pennsylvania)

But are they my future?

If I’m completely honest, I feel like my family can also be considered my weakness. They can be my biggest cheerleaders, but they’re also my crutch. I don’t know how to be on my own. I mean, who am I without my family? What could I—How could I do anything on my own?

Yet somehow lately, even when I’m with them, I feel like I’m by myself. Alone. Like I don’t belong anymore and now I’m forced to figure out who I am. Sometimes I’m afraid that—

I stopped reading mid-sentence. There were still a couple of paragraphs left, but I—I had to stop.

This wasn’t just an innocent college essay; it was something else.

It was raw and personal. And definitely private.

I felt like I was snooping in Ian’s diary or something.

Me. A complete stranger. I didn’t even know his last name.

I didn’t have a right to know about his strengths and weaknesses and especially not his fears.

Yet somehow, his words felt so familiar to me. Having a family but feeling lost. Not knowing who you were and not belonging. I could understand that on so many levels.

Even when we moved to Houston to be near Dad, I couldn’t jump into this little family that Mom wanted us to be in.

No matter how much time passed or how hard she wanted for us to get along.

It had been almost two years, and Dad and I still tiptoed around each other like we were strangers.

Sometimes it could be so exhausting. All I wanted to do was go back home to B á , Aunt Sarah, and Linh.

Yet now that I was finally here, things were different.

And not in a good way. It wasn’t just because B á was gone or because everything in the house was still exactly the same.

I knew every inch of this house, every creaking floorboard and scratch on the walls, but it didn’t feel like my house anymore.

It didn’t feel the same. And I didn’t know what I could do to fix it.

“Did you find anything?”

My eyes snapped back and forth between Linh’s expectant face and the laptop.

The essay was still open on the glowing screen, beckoning me to take another peek.

I closed the screen and tugged the flash drive out of my laptop before I could be tempted to read anymore.

“No, not really. Just a history paper and a Spider-Man comic.”

“No name on the history paper?”

“Nope.”

She let out a sigh. “Mr. Unicorn isn’t making this very easy, is he?”

Letting out an identical sigh, but for altogether different reasons, I crossed my arms. “If it were easy to find people, private investigators would probably be out of a job, Sherlock.”

“That’s true. Okay, Nancy Drew, next step.

I could ask my friend who works at the library to look up his information for us.

See what books he checked out. When they would need to be returned.

Maybe get his contact information.” She tapped her chin with her index finger and frowned.

“Although on second thought, maybe she won’t tell me. Library privacy laws and all that.”

“Well, getting arrested sure takes the fun out of everything.”

“Yeah.” Letting out a groan, she flopped onto her stomach and pressed her face into the bed sheet. Her words were muffled. “I love you, but I think I might have to draw the line at going to jail with you.”

Grabbing my heart, I let out an exaggerated gasp. “I thought you wanted me to live with you. We could probably get bunk beds and be roomies for life! Think of all the quality time we’d be spending together. We could learn how to knit.”

“Yeah, I’m going to pass.” She tossed the keys at me. “But don’t worry. I’m not just a pretty face. I already figured out that the key fob is for The Fitness Pack gym. I bet that’s where Mr. Unicorn works out.”

What? How did she—I gaped at her in surprise. “How did you figure that out?”

“Because I’m brilliant and awesome.”

With a scoff, I let her preen for another minute or two before tossing a pillow at her face. “And …?”

“And I know how to read.” Dramatically tossing her hair back, she pointed at the key chain in my hand. “The key fob has the letters TFP on the bottom and the faded squiggles on the side? They’re not squiggles. They’re muscles.”

Turning my head from side to side, I squinted at the little key fob. I guess it kind of looked like an arm flexing. Although I never in a million years would have figured that out on my own. I snapped the flash drive back onto the key chain. “Okay, so now we have to figure out which one.”

“Way ahead of you. There are only two Fitness Pack gyms in Austin. I bet he goes to the one by the mall on Century Oaks ’cause the other one is way across town.” Linh dropped her cell on her nightstand and crossed her arms. “So, what do you want to do now? Your call.”

What did I want to do?

An hour ago, I wasn’t even sure about finding Ian. I mean, he was super cute and I felt like we had a connection, but he was still just another guy.

But now … now I had so many more questions. I wanted to know more about him. More than what he wrote in the essay. If he had such a huge family, why did he feel so alone? What was he searching for? Who was he?

The curiosity to find out these answers was overwhelming. His words hit me deep in the gut. Now I felt like I had to find him again. Had to see him. And most importantly, I wanted to see if he found the answers to all his questions, because maybe that would help me find the answers to mine.

Plus, seeing his right dimple again wouldn’t hurt either.

I let out a deep breath and glanced down at the key chain in my hand. Specifically, the flash drive. My fist slowly closed around the flash drive, squeezing it tightly. “I think it’s time for us to hit the gym.”