It wasn't fair. It wasn't goddamn right. She had made so much progress in getting over Ada. Her first year of college, she hadn't been able to go a day without thinking about her, even though they were hundreds of miles apart and hadn't spoken since the summer. Her stomach had felt punctured every time she walked to class or sat down to eat in the student center. Even with all the new friends she was making, she had still felt so lonely--like they would never understand her the way Ada had.
But Sutton had forced herself through all that. By her sophomore year, Ada had become a thing of the past. A phantom. Sutton had filed away all her photos of her. She had even deleted her phone number.
And then she had reinvented herself into someone Ada didn't know. It was the ultimate healing tactic. She met new people, pushed herself to try new things, listened to music Ada would have spurned. Late in college she had started hooking up with girls and, somewhere in the back corner of her mind, she felt a sweet satisfaction knowing that Ada would never know.
By the time she'd started law school, she had forgotten Ada all together.
But this morning, when Ada had walked into the conference room, it was like none of that evolution mattered. Suddenly Sutton was 18 years old again, flailing in Ada's presence.
It was too much. Sutton needed to talk to someone who would understand.
"Hello?" Amber's voice said through Sutton's iPhone.
"Tell me how old I am," Sutton said.
"What?"
"Tell me how old I am."
"Er--dude, I don't know, didn't you just turn 25 last month?"
"Hold on, are you actually uncertain about that?"
Amber laughed with that old familiar laugh she'd had in college--the same one she'd had when Sutton first met her. "You're the one who's asking how old she is," Amber said. "What's going on?"
Sutton flopped onto her old bed and stared up at the ceiling, where a faded poster of Fall Out Boy remained taped to the plaster.
"Fall Out Boy is fucking stupid," Sutton said.
"What? Sutton, are you on something right now?"
"No. Sorry. I'm staring at a picture of them that I taped to my ceiling when I was, like, 15. Which was a long time ago, right? I'm not still a teenager? I really am 25?"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Sutton let out a big breath. "Do you remember me telling you about my friend Ada? From high school?"
"That girl you were like obsessed with?"
"I wasn't obsessed with her."
"If you say so, boss. What about her?"
"She works at Cyntera."
Amber was silent on the other line, waiting.
"I saw her today," Sutton continued. "On my first fucking day of work. She just waltzed in to the company meeting we were having, looking exactly the same, except older."
"Damn. What'd she do when she saw you?"
"We stared at each other like Oh fuck and then we both looked away. I have no idea what the rest of the meeting was about."
"Is she still as beautiful as she was in those pictures you had?"
Sutton let out a mirthless laugh, remembering the 18-year-old Ada who had adorned her freshman dorm walls. "I think she's even more beautiful."
"Jesus."
"What do I do?"
Amber was silent again. Sutton closed her eyes, willing the heaviness in her chest to go away.
"Are you sure you can't be friends with her again?" Amber asked. "What if this is the universe's way of directing you to something that's missing from your life?"
"Are you joking? Don't you remember how torn up I was freshman year? I already went through the whole grieving process over her. I don't want to be back in that place."
"Okay," Amber said gently. "Then...put up a wall. Don't let her in. Don't put yourself in unnecessary situations with her."
"I work with her, Amb."
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean she has to invade your life again. Listen, everybody has cliques at work. Find the one she's not a part of and hang out with those people. Even if they're lame or weird."
"Okay."
"You'll recalibrate soon enough, I promise. Now talk to me about something different. She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named aside, how was your first day of work?"
Tuesday was marginally better. The new position was overwhelming, and there was a lot to learn about Cyntera's business practices, but at least Sutton didn't experience a feeling of shock when she saw Ada again. In fact, she hardly saw her at all. Ada stayed planted in the sales nook, staring hard at her computer screen, sunlight streaming through the windows and lighting up her sepia-toned skin.
Not that Sutton was looking at her skin. Or any part of her, really.
Debbie, the girl from sales who had offered to tell Sutton everything about Cyntera, provided a welcome distraction to Sutton's grump. She hung out in the legal nook and told Sutton everything there was to know about Cyntera's business operations, their revenue stream, their board of directors, even their founder's obsession with Cyntera's name.
"He once fired a guy for pronouncing the name wrong," Debbie said, with an air of wanting to impress. "This guy said CYN-tera instead of Cyn-TER-a, and Wallace absolutely lost his shit. He sent the guy to pack up his desk, and the next day he came in and delivered a Powerpoint presentation on the importance of names."
"Don't scare her, Deb," Wyatt said, kicking back in his chair. "Wallace doesn't even work here anymore. He retired almost two years ago."
"I'm giving her the scoop. If you want to be successful in any company, you need to know as much about it as possible."
"Isn't Marta going to be mad about you hanging out in here?" Sutton asked. "I'm grateful for everything you're telling me, but I don't want to put you on the line--"
"No, she asked me to tell you all this stuff," Debbie said, brushing off Sutton's concern. "Ada didn't want to do it."
Sutton's heart rate picked up. "What?"
"She asked Ada first, but Ada had too much to do. Which is fine, you know, I mean I understand that people have different priorities at work. But I'm the kind of person who prioritizes teamwork and community over sales logs. That's why I wanted to help you."
"See?" Wyatt said, pointing his pen at Sutton. "It's everything Javi and I told you yesterday."
"What did you tell her?" Debbie asked, swinging her shiny hair back.
Wyatt shook his head. "We gave her the skinny on Ada."
"Oh, Wyatt," Debbie said, knocking his shoulder with her hand. "Don't be like that. Let her form her own opinion."
"I have my opinion already," Sutton said, with an edge to her voice.
Debbie stood straighter, balancing her weight on her wedge heels. "Try to keep an open mind," she said. "Everyone in this office has good and bad to them. Wyatt just doesn't like Ada because she insulted his tie once."
"What?" Wyatt cut in. "That's not fair. That's only a small part of it--"
"For some reason he decided to wear a tie with patterned elephants on it," Debbie continued, talking right over him, "and Ada made fun of him. Anyway, she has a good side, too. She and I have actually bonded lately."
"It's a great tie," Wyatt grumbled.
"It's ugly," Debbie said, but then she smiled at him.
"Thanks," Sutton said, wanting to end the conversation. "I'll try to be open. But right now I'm going to look over some paperwork."
Somehow she made it to Friday. Each day became easier--not only in terms of her new-job stress, but also with how she felt about being near Ada.
Amber had been right during their Monday night phone call: the office had small cliques, and Sutton needed to attach herself to the one Ada wasn't part of.
Which was easy enough to do, as Ada didn't seem to be part of anything. As far as Sutton could tell, the only people Ada went out of her way to talk to were Marta and Debbie. It almost made Sutton worry about her.
Almost.
Sutton fell in with Wyatt, Javier, and Debbie--and occasionally Mikey P., who trailed after them like an unwanted pet. They were a good, no-bullshit group of people, and they made work much more tolerable.
And that's how Sutton found herself agreeing to go to Friday afternoon Happy Hour.
"It's tradition to buy a beer for the new kid on campus," Wyatt said, rolling up his shirtsleeves. "Everyone will think you're a wash if you don't come."
"I like beer, I want to come," Sutton said. Then she paused. "Do you know who else is going?"
Wyatt smirked. "Are you playing into office politics already? I think it's just you, me, Javi, and Debbie. Oh, and Mikey P. Though we're not actually sure he's 21."
"He's probably not."
Wyatt shrugged. "Not our concern. We're off the clock."
She followed Wyatt out of the legal nook, through the sales pit and past Marta's office, and out to the elevators. A cluster of people was already there waiting.
And Ada was one of them.
Shit.
Ada seemed to be thinking the same thing, because she dropped her eyes and visibly huffed under her breath when she saw Sutton.
"Onward, my compadres?" Wyatt asked, pressing the elevator button.
"Yeah, man, I'm ready to get fucked," Mikey P. said.
"Careful, Mikey," Ada said, adjusting her pencil skirt, "your underage douchebag is showing."
Mikey glared at her but didn't say anything. Wyatt snorted under his breath.
They stepped into the elevator all together. Sutton made a point to stand as far away from Ada as the elevator allowed.
Meehan's Pub was crowded, as Sutton had expected for five o'clock on a Friday. But Wyatt pushed past the throng of people pressing against the bar and motioned for the rest of them to follow. Sutton tailed close behind him and watched as he clapped one of the servers on the shoulder. The server led them to a table and nodded disinterestedly as they expressed their thanks.
"This is why you have to do Happy Hour with Wyatt," Debbie told Sutton as they slid into the booth. "He always gets us the best table."
"I can't take the credit," Wyatt said, though he looked pleased. "It's all Trivarius. He's my man. He's never failed to save us a table."
"This booth was open anyway," Ada frowned. "All those people we passed wanted to be at the bar."
Wyatt ignored her. "Alright, what are we buying for the new kid? Something high-gravity, huh?"
"Bad idea," Sutton said, taking the menu he passed her. "I'm an insufferable lightweight."
Ada laughed a short, close-mouthed laugh. Sutton looked at her before she could help herself, but Ada didn't meet her eyes.
"You know what, choose whatever you want," Sutton said, passing the menu back to Wyatt. "I'm game for whatever your heart tells you."
"My kind of girl," Wyatt nodded.
"Let's play a game," Debbie said, placing her hands on the table. "I'll set a timer on my phone and Sutton has to tell us as many things about her as she can within 30 seconds."
Sutton gawped. "Er--what?"
"Debbie alarms people sometimes," Javier said.
"Shush, Javi. We play this game with all the new people."
"No one played it with me," Mikey P. said.
"Dude, you're an intern," Wyatt said. "You don't count."
"We played it with Ada when she started," Debbie said. "You spoke as slowly as you could, Ada, remember? It was like talking to On-Delay."
"I didn't trust you all," Ada said coolly, looking up from typing on her cell phone.
"What did you tell them about you?" Sutton asked, before she could help it.
Ada met her eyes for a shining second. "Nothing interesting."
"Okay, I've got the 30 seconds set up," Debbie said, pushing her iPhone toward the middle of the table. "Ready, Sutton? And--GO!"
"Um, I...well, I was born in New Jersey. I have a brother. I grew up here in Atlanta. Well, in the suburbs. Um...I did undergrad at Duke. I loved it there. Then I went to law school at UT. I graduated in May and now I'm working here."
She stopped talking and squeezed her shoulders into her body. Her co-workers looked at her with glazed eyes, bored by her sharing.
"That was only 15 seconds," Debbie said. "Tell us something else."
"Er--like what?"
"What you do for hobbies, where you live now, your weekend plans...Come on, make it fun!"
"I have a cat," Sutton said stupidly. "Um. I never liked cats, but then I found this stray in Knoxville, so I took her in and got her healthy again. Her name is Wilson Phillips. Like the band?"
The others looked at her in confusion--everyone except Ada, whose mouth had crept into a half-smile.
"I've never heard of that band," Mikey P. said aggressively.
"Well you're, what, 12?" Sutton said.
"Ha!" Wyatt laughed.
"Is Wilson Phillips your favorite band?" Debbie asked.
Sutton didn't know how to answer. She felt Ada's eyes on her, and suddenly there was a canyon of unsaid things between them.
"I went through a phase in eighth grade," Sutton said, not meeting Ada's eyes.
"We all go through phases," Javier said sagely, stretching his arms back behind his head, and Sutton nodded and waited for someone to buy her a drink.
They bought her several drinks.
Several high-gravity Abita Andygators, to be specific.
"I'm drunk," Sutton said after the second one.
"Ah, come on, they're only 8 or 9 percent," Wyatt said, handing her a third one. "Buck up, new kid."
"I'll take it if she doesn't want it," Mikey P. said desperately.
"No," Wyatt said, as if it was his decision. "You deserve to be punished just for trying to use that pathetic fake ID."
"Yo, dude?" Javier called to the waiter. "Can I get a Guinness-Red Bull?"
The waiter hesitated. "You mean a vodka-Red Bull?"
"No," Javier said in disgust. "A Guinness-Red Bull."
It went on like that for 90 minutes. Sutton slurping Andygators, Wyatt chugging Bud Light, Debbie twirling a straw around her cocktail, Mikey P. sullenly drinking Coke, Javier ordering nonsensical Red Bull mixes, and Ada, sitting on the end of the booth, saying nothing while she sipped from a whiskey.
When Sutton's mom texted her to ask when she would be home, Sutton couldn't type properly.
Coming hone in a few..
The others were perfectly sober; only Sutton was drunk. She tried hard to disguise it, not wanting to look like an irresponsible fool in front of them, even though they were the ones who had bought her all these beers in the first place.
"I'm spent," Wyatt said after a while. He lay down some bills on the table and stood abruptly to leave. "Y'all have fun weekends. I'm out."
"Me too," Debbie said, abandoning her cocktail. "See you Monday, everybody!"
It was harder to ignore Ada with two fewer people there. Sutton tried to talk to Javier, but he was preoccupied with a game on his cell phone. Every other minute, he'd let out a burp in Mikey P.'s direction. Mikey P. made a big show of whipping his head to the other side and rasping in disgust, but no one paid him any attention.
Ada's drink ran out, but she didn't order another one; nor did she ask for her bill. She just sat there coolly, looking haughty and bored, her eyes rolling from one corner of the bar to the next. Sutton couldn't figure out why she wouldn't leave. Wasn't this close proximity after all these years torture for her, too?
"Bye," Javier said suddenly, slamming his pint glass down and fishing loose change and crumpled bills from his pocket. He tossed them down onto the table and ambled out of the bar without another word.
"You guys wanna go to a club or something?" Mikey P. asked.
"No," Sutton said.
"Go home, Mikey," Ada said, pulling a precisely folded bill from her clutch. "Sutton, let's go. I'm driving you."
"What? No. I'm fine."
Ada gave her a burning look as she stood up. She took one last sip of her whiskey and then stalked off through the bar.
"Club?" Mikey asked.
"No," Sutton said, grabbing her purse, suddenly panicky as she realized how drunk she was. Ada had been the only one to offer her a sober ride, and she had thoughtlessly turned her down. Now what would she do?
"I--have to go," she told Mikey. "I'll see you on Monday."
Mikey slurped from the bottom of his Coke glass. "Yeah. See ya."
She moved woozily through the bar, trying to gauge whether or not she was fit to drive. She had half-convinced herself that she was fine when she stepped out of Meehan's and found Ada waiting for her.
"Come on," Ada said, stepping gracefully off the sidewalk. "Hurry up before Mikey comes out here and makes even dumber proposals."
"What?"
"Sutton. Come. On."
Wordlessly, Sutton traipsed after her, wondering why her own heels were clacking so hard on the asphalt. She felt unsteady in her own body. Ada glided ahead of her, cool and certain, like the world belonged to her.
They walked back across the street to their building's parking lot. Sutton followed Ada to her car, an Audi S3 with spotless black casing. It looked so new it could have been sitting in a showroom.
"This is your car?"
"No, it's my pimp's car. He's letting me borrow it for the night."
Sutton stared at her for a moment. "Somehow I'd forgotten how disarming your sarcasm can be."
"Disarming," Ada repeated, her attention focused on her car key. "There's an adjective I hadn't heard in a while."
They got into the car and Sutton asked, "What about my car?"
"You can get it in the morning. Building management won't care."
"You're sure?"
"Even if I'm not, what choice do you have?"
"You don't have to drive me."
"You're drunk."
"I'm perfectly fine."
Ada shook her head. "The rest of them might be stupid--or selfish--but you can't fool me. You were drunk before you even finished that first beer."
Sutton sighed, defeated.
"Where do you live?" Ada asked, business-like.
Sutton tucked her head against the window. "I'm living with my parents right now. You can just take 400 up to Exit 9--"
"I know how to get to your parents' house, Sutton."
Sutton rolled her head around to look at her. "You used to know."
Ada stared through the windshield and said nothing.
Sutton went into a trance as Ada drove. She held her head up with her hand, digging her elbow against the passenger side window. How strange was it to be sitting here in Ada's car, unintentionally drunk, while Ada drove her to a place they had both considered home for so many years?
She didn't dare to believe that Ada could still find her way there. Sutton's parents' house was at the back of a windy, overpopulated subdivision, where all the streets sounded the same (Deer Valley Drive, Deer Hunt Overlook, Deerborn Lane) and every house was a carbon copy of the one next door. Sutton had used to joke, when she had been in high school and had first started driving, that she took stock of her friends by seeing which ones could get to her house without calling and asking for directions.
But Ada knew her way. A left turn, a right turn, a long straight road through three different stop signs, another left, another right. And suddenly Sutton was looking up at her parents' house through the passenger window of Ada's car.
"I--" she said.
Ada looked at her, that bored, haughty expression still on her face.
"How did you remember how to get here?" Sutton asked.
"It's just muscle memory," Ada said, looking away from her. "You could probably still get to my parents' house, too."
"Maybe," Sutton said, unable to look away.
"Go drink some water. A lot of water." Ada hesitated. "And eat something."
"Yeah...I will. Um. Thank you. You really didn't have to drive all this way."
"It's fine. I'd rather put myself out than have you get a DUI and jeopardize our company culture."
Sutton stared at her. "Yeah. Okay. Bye."
"Bye," Ada said, already scrolling through her iPhone.
Sutton stepped out of the car and shut the door on Ada. She walked up the driveway and let herself into the garage without looking back.
***
There's a lot of talk when the new girl shows up. First, because almost everyone has been in this school since kindergarten and they never get new kids anymore - especially not in September, a whole month into their eighth-grade year. And second, because the new girl has brown skin. Skin like the people they've been reading about in their study of the Civil Rights movement. Skin like only three other kids in the whole school have, and like no one else in their grade has.
Sutton watches the new girl from her position in the back of the social studies classroom. She has to turn around in her seat to see Mr. Harney when he talks at the front of the room, and whenever she turns around, the new girl is right in her line of sight. Sutton used to whine about having to sit in this horrible seat, but today she's grateful for it, because it means she's the only person in the class who can get away with watching the new girl without being obvious.
The new girl has big, scared eyes that magnetize to Mr. Harney's every movement. She sits absolutely still in her chair, with her spine straight and her chin at a 90-degree angle, like Sutton's mom is always lecturing her to do. When Mr. Harney tells them to take notes, the new girl slides her gel pen across the page to create perfect, computer-like handwriting, and Sutton gawps, fascinated, forgetting to take her own notes.
The new girl looks up suddenly, her eyes fixing on Sutton with a defensive look. She thinks Sutton is judging her, or copying her, so she juts her elbow out on the desk, blocking Sutton's view of her notebook.
"Sorry," Sutton mouths reflexively, but the new girl doesn't see.
They talk for the first time at afternoon carpool. Sutton's best friends, Bailey and Jessie, have already been picked up in the first carpool group. Normally Sutton's mom would have been there for first carpool, too, but today she has a tennis match that's keeping her late.
The new girl stands by herself, her arms crossed over her sky-blue polo shirt: the school uniform. Sutton watches how her eyes tick over the incoming cars.
"I wasn't cheating off you today," Sutton says, stepping near to her. "Just so you know."
The girl's eyes sweep over her, but she does it without moving her head - she's totally rigid, like a deer hearing the snap of a twig. But after a second she turns her head to fully look at Sutton, her arms still crossed, and she says, "How is it even possible to cheat on notes?"
Her voice is softer than Sutton expected, but it's clear, too, like a crisp echo down a tiled hallway.
"You know what I mean," Sutton frowns. "I wasn't copying you, I just thought you had cool handwriting."
The girl blinks once. "Thanks."
"What was your name again? I didn't understand Mr. Harney when he said it."
"Ada."
"Ada?"
"Like Ate-a-whole-pizza?"
"Oh, okay."
"It's a family name."
"Okay."
Ada keeps her arms crossed, but she swivels her whole body toward Sutton. "Well...aren't you gonna tell me your name?"
"Oh! Sorry, yeah, I forgot. It's Sutton. Like 'button,' but with an S."
"That's pretty."
"Thanks," Sutton smiles. Dozens of people have told her her name's pretty, but when this girl--Ada--tells her, Sutton actually believes it.
"You can sit with my friends and me at lunch tomorrow," Sutton says. "I mean, if you want. I know you sat with Laura and them today, but if you want to try a different end of the table..."
"Okay," Ada says, and then, like a magic trick, Sutton sees the hint of a smile on her face, and she knows this is the beginning.
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Thank you for reading this story! For more of my work, check out my published novel, Her Name in the Sky, a young adult lesbian story about two best friends who fall in love. Link in my profile.