The One That Ran Away Read online

The waiter took their plates away. Shannon didn’t have the appetite to finish her meal, and she didn’t have the heart to take the leftovers home. Decks will try to steal it out of the fridge, anyway. That cat was merciless.

  Kelsey asked if she wanted to go shopping, but Shannon had work back home. Her email was full of potential clients in need of headshots and making appointments for summer weddings and family reunions. Work was good. Work allowed her to stop thinking about Andrew and Jess. Work also helped her pay for her overpriced apartment in Northwest Portland. It had been fine with Andrew’s generous salary, but for Shannon? Alone? She was already looking for cheaper places to live when the year-long lease was up. If she made it that long at $1500 a month.

  A stalker… there’s no way she was a stalker. That accusation still burned in the back of Shannon’s mind as she made her way home. In a way, it made her protective of Jess. Who knew that would happen? After so long? Like this?

  Yet there were parts of Shannon’s past she needed to embrace, so she could let them go. She needed to make things right. Smooth them over. Make peace with the world, her life, and the choices she had made – both the good and bad.

  She looked at the clock when she crossed her threshold. Three on a Sunday afternoon. How late was the teashop open, and would she still be there, doing her astrology thing?

  I remember the astrology stuff. Jess had been into it. Not the crazy kind of astrology buff, who was convinced that everything was real and binding, but the kind who could crack jokes about signs while also tearing her own down. She gave dating advice off the cuff when in the student café, studying her religious texts. That’s right. She was in Religious Studies. One of the only departments Shannon hadn’t known much about. She assumed it was a department for devout Christians, but Jess came off as atheist. Either way, it was a far cry from Shannon’s Politics & Rhetoric departments.

  She stood in the middle of her apartment, waiting for Decks to get out of the reading nook and rub up against her. The little fluffy bastard never moved. This was prime naptime. A sign that Mom needed to leave. Go out and have a life.

  She hadn’t had much of one since Andrew left her. Honestly, she didn’t have much of one when she was with him, either.

  Shannon popped into her closet and changed into a pink blouse. She brushed her hair. She spritzed on perfume and switched out her jewelry. The necklace she chose to wear? A sterling silver piece someone named Jess had given her eight years ago.

  Aquarius. Waves of water. The sign of stubborn pursuits, big egos, and a zest for life that could easily be quashed if a stream’s course was changed.

  Chapter 5

  Jess

  The line for on-the-fly birth charts and tarot readings was exceptionally long that night. Someone had heard on the grape vine that Jess was a “wizard of all things astrology,” and passed it on to their friend, who passed it on to their friend. Patrons who simply wanted to buy a pot of tea gasped to see the commotion erupting by the bay window. Didn’t they know that Sunday night was horoscope night?

  Jess was good at online customer service – the kind that included forms and emails – but handling people who didn’t know how to queue or ask questions was best left to Amanda, who spent most of her days corralling shoppers at the local supermarket. She had the balls to tell one woman to wait in line. She didn’t care how much that dog barked!

  Calm down, Leo. Jess had pegged the woman’s sun sign long before she sat down, her Pekingese dog shuddering in her lap. The dog was either terrified or utterly elated to be surrounded by so many caffeinated people. Jess couldn’t tell. She wasn’t a dog person.

  The woman wasn’t interested in how her personality worked with the world or how she should handle it in love, money, and business. No, what the woman wanted was the reassurance that she was God’s gift to the world and didn’t need to change a damn thing. Jess asked for the time and location of her birth and double-checked her hunch. Look at that. Rising sign is Scorpio. It was days like these that almost made Jess a true believer.

  Almost. She wasn’t quite that deep in the vat of Kool-Aid.

  As soon as the woman was gone with her yappy dog, Amanda announced that she had to bounce so she could get to bed at a reasonable time. A lull in clients meant Jess had the chance to hit the bathroom and top off her glass of water. Her pot of tea was already depleted, but she decided to stick around a while longer to see what happened. Her horoscope had warned her that leaving her commitments earlier than usual could end with bitter disappointment. Nobody hated bitter disappointments more than a Libra like Jess.

  “I think that person went to the bathroom,” she overheard a man say in the back room of the café. “The table’s reserved, anyway.”

  “Oh, I know.” Jess stopped halfway across the teashop. That voice… no fucking way. “I was here to see her. Guess I’ll wait.”

  Jess took another step forward, her boots echoing on the wood floors. Sure enough, there was Shannon Parker, her bushy hair as unmistakable as that soft, confident voice and the outline of her ass in those jeans.

  Some things never changed from college. Like Shannon’s ass looking fantastic. Like Jess always staring at that ass.

  “You’re looking for me?”

  Shannon spun around. Her thin eyes looked Jess up and down before she forced a smile. “Hope you’re not… um… busy.” She glanced around their nook. Aside from the man studying biology in the corner, nobody else was around.

  “You’re here. Here. To see me.”

  Some of that confidence faltered. Shannon was no longer the spitting image of the girl Jess used to bump into on a college campus. A few age-lines had appeared on her face. She had gained a little bit of weight. Her eyes were duller, or that could’ve been the heavy eyeliner obscuring her soul.

  “Yes. Is it okay?”

  Jess was officially in the Twilight Zone. First, the girl who ran out on her eight years ago appeared out of the blue, as if God had decided, “You know what? Fuck it! Jess ain’t got enough problems!” Now, one week later, they had not only bumped into each other again, but Shannon was here on her own volition. To see Jess, of all people.

  “Sure. Have a seat.”

  Was this, or was this not, the woman who glared at her as if she had leprosy when they saw one another at Trader Joe’s? I thought she was gonna call the cops on me! Jess was already figuring out the best places to go instead of her regular haunts. The last thing she wanted was to keep bumping into Shannon and making them both uncomfortable.

  Shannon now sat in the client’s seat, her bag nestled comfortably on the floor and her elbow propped up on the table. Jess’s stack of astrology books cluttered half of the table, and she was keen to get “Lesbian Love Astrology: What the Stars Say About Sapphic Encounters” back in her bag. It was great for a certain clientele, but Shannon once made it clear that she did not belong to that subset of womanhood.

  “I want to apologize,” Shannon said. “About the other day at the store. It was a bad day. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

  Jess finished tidying up her space and said, “It was a shock to the both of us, I’m sure. I mean, what are the odds of seeing each other like this again after…”

  Neither of them said anything.

  “You’re still into astrology, huh?”

  Jess was slightly taken aback. The topic wasn’t unusual, given what she had on the table, but the sudden mention made her brain switch gears faster than it could process. “Yeah. It’s just a hobby, though. Sort of a side hustle.”

  “What else do you do these days?”

  Why do you care? That was a genuine question. Not only had Jess stopped thinking about Shannon after so many years, but having her express this amount of interest in someone else was almost unprecedented. “I freelance. Didn’t get much else employment about college…” Unlike you, I bet. Shannon had a sterling résumé by the time they graduated. The woman ran half of the campus dormitories. Her best friends were the leaders of student unio
ns. A mutual professor once praised her in front of Jess’s class.

  The woman could have any nice paying job she wanted with that track record. What was she doing in Portland? Wasn’t she a Californian?

  “That’s cool. The gig economy is what it’s all about these days.”

  “Guess so. Uh… what about you?” Was it okay to inquire about Shannon’s current life? Or would it be too creepy? Jess still remembered that word like a shot to her heart. “Can’t say I remember what you wanted to do when you graduated. I doubt most of us are doing what we thought we would be doing.”

  Shannon became slightly crestfallen. Was she that sad that Jess couldn’t remember what she wanted to do after college? “I’m also a freelancer. Photography.”

  “Really?” That was one thing Jess wouldn’t have guessed. Was Shannon into photography at all when they were in college? “Huh. Must do pretty okay for you to live around here.” She tilted her head. “Or you have someone to help pay for it, I guess.”

  Shannon stiffened. That slackjawed grin continued to melt until she struggled to say, “I moved here with my boyfriend a few months ago, yeah.”

  Boyfriend.

  Boyfriend.

  Of course.

  “I see.” Jess hid her disappointment by shuffling her notebooks and pens around. “Well! That definitely helps.” You dumbass. Of course she has a boyfriend. Why wouldn’t she? Look at her. Men line up to be her boyfriend. She probably still has her choice of them. That’s the kind of heartbreak a woman like Shannon Parker left in her wake. An insufferable beauty. The kind ripe for the easiest lifestyle the world could throw at her. Not everyone would agree with Jess that this was one of the most beautiful women in the world, but the universe agreed she had a certain je ne sais quoi that made her a karmic favorite. For every woman Shannon surrounded herself with, five men popped up to ask her out.

  Always the most bitter pill to swallow. Gay girls like Jess could never compete with chronic heteronormativity.

  ***

  Memory #5

  I walked into the smallest of the student cafés with a backpack full of study materials. The best way to get a jump on my mountain of weekend homework was to find a quiet corner in a quieter café and either start my reading or fill out some worksheets. I had a billion Biblical passages to memorize by Monday, or else my History of the Old Testament professor would give me a B instead of the A I deserved.

  Naturally, I did not expect to see Shannon there.

  She was studying French, a language I later learned was one of her passions. Because she wasn’t cool enough, she had a number of French novels, freshly checked out from the library, stacked beside her. Her elbow was on the table, and her hand in her bushy hair. Her nose struck out from her profile, contouring the light and air in a way that made her lips pinker and her cheekbones higher. In some cultures, she would be the pinnacle of femininity. The gold standard which all women strove to be like – and to date.

  She scratched her scalp before glancing up. The moment she recognized me, she said, “Oh! It’s you.”

  Yup. It was me. The woman who couldn’t stay away from her. Was she as intrigued by our constant run-ins as I was?

  “How’s your arm?”

  Did she mean my little wound that I would cherish forever? Because as obnoxious as it was to have a cut arm and an inevitable scar, it might be my only souvenir of these chance meetings.

  “Fine,” I squeaked. “Just a scratch.”

  “I’m so sorry. I should’ve…” She shook her head. “Can I buy you something for lunch? It’s the least I could do?”

  Outside, I chuckled. Inside, I screamed. “OHMYGODOHMYGOD! She wants to buy me lunch!” Good thing nobody else could hear it – but they could probably see me shake. “You don’t have to do that. You walked me to the clinic. That’s enough.”

  “Nonsense. How about some fries? Or do you prefer tater tots?”

  I could’ve fainted.

  Instead, I collapsed into a chair at her table. I watched the way she absentmindedly licked her fingers after picking at her French fries. I savored the moment she brushed against me to buy me some lunch at the counter. God, did I become hypnotized by her spritz of perfume that reminded me of the sexiest women I had ever encountered.

  My textbooks joined hers. Next to her French novels, I piled up my copy of an annotated Bible and a textbook on Metaphysical Religions. The Bible intimidated people. Hilariously enough, people always thought that I was some religious nut because I was soft-spoken and didn’t drink alcohol. Didn’t help that I packed around Bibles, even if my interest in them was purely secular.

  “Whoa, what’s that?” A salad and fries appeared next to me. Shannon sat down, eyeing my Metaphysical Religions text. “You can learn about that stuff here?”

  “I’m a Religious Studies major,” I said. “Not the biggest department on campus, but it’s fun.”

  “I see. Didn’t peg you as religious.”

  “I’m not…” It never got easier to explain my interest in world religions and belief systems. So happened my area of expertise was focused on Abrahamic religions, hence the Bibles and their brethren. “I’m actually more into astrology than anything else.”

  That was the wrong thing to say, as usual. When would I learn? You couldn’t be “just” interested in astrology. You always turned into a nutjob in somebody’s eyes.

  “Cool,” Shannon said. “I don’t know anything about it. I don’t even know my own sign.”

  “When’s your birthday?”

  “February 10th.”

  My eyes widened. “Aquarius,” I said, failing to mention that Libras and Aquariuses were perfect matches. I would know. The people I had the biggest crushes on were always Aquarians. I should’ve guessed! “Did you know that the best match for Aquarius is…”

  “Hey, babe.”

  There has been nothing more soul-crushing than sitting next to the woman you’re in love with… and having some dull, mediocre asshole come up and kiss her on the cheek.

  But I’ve lived through it a few times since then, and somehow my soul always survives.

  ***

  “Don’t suppose you could do one of your readings for me, huh?”

  Jess sat back in her seat, hands clasped upon the table. “What kind of reading,” she asked, suspicious as always. For all she knew, Shannon wanted a compatibility reading with her boyfriend. I can’t think of anything more painful, thank you. It was bad enough she constantly did readings that begged her female clients to leave their bad boyfriends, but women heard what they wanted, right? A reading could have a million red flags, but the one sliver of hope would be enough to sate a client for hours.

  “I dunno…” Shannon tugged at her ear, always hidden beneath her hair. “What kind are there? I thought you only did profiles of people.”

  “I recall doing one for you back in college.”

  Shannon blushed a lovely shade of pink. “I may have forgotten most of it. I seem to recall telling you that I don’t know much about it.”

  “Do you at least recall what sign you are?”

  “Aquarius.”

  Wow. So she does remember that much, huh? “I could whip up a quick personality profile for you. Shouldn’t take too long.”

  “Okay. How much does it cost?”

  “Cost?” Jess laughed. “I do this for free. Well, sometimes people buy me drinks, but I’m good for the night.”

  Shannon glanced at the tiny tip jar. “I’ll buy you a cookie for your trouble.”

  “Why not get me some fries and a salad while you’re at it?”

  At first, Shannon cocked her head as if she had no idea what the hell Jess meant. Then, as if a lightbulb turned on in the back of her brain, she laughed.

  “Be right back. Save my seat.”

  Jess glanced at that firm derriere sashaying toward the counter, but didn’t dwell on it. Not only was that a form of self-torture, but that guy studying biology was keeping an eye on her. Probably waiting fo
r the moment when he could gotcha! the biggest lesbian in the room. “See! Knew you dykes leered as much as we did!” Well, yeah…

  Jess wasn’t primarily occupied with that. She was more freaked out that Shannon Parker was officially back in her life and being nice to her. What the shit!

  Perhaps this was a dream. One Jess would wake up from anytime now. She had merely seen a woman who sorta looked like Shannon, and it triggered a series of strange dreams she was never meant to have. That was it. One of those little things about turning thirty.

  Jess pinched herself. Nope. This was real. Guess that meant she had to scribble together a personality profile for the woman she knew more about – in the astrological sense – than anyone else. Well, perhaps aside from herself.

  Because as soon as Jess realized how much she liked Shannon, she stayed up half a night in college, determined to figure out how much fate was involved. She never anticipated digging up a plethora of evidence that the reason they met, and the reason Jess was so attracted to her as if a light shone upon Shannon’s existence, was because their destiny was written in the stars.

  Still, she had to look as if she didn’t know that off the top of her head. By the time Shannon returned with three macarons, Jess had cobbled together a makeshift chart using what she knew off the top of her head.

  “What time were you born, and in what city?”

  “Huh?” Shannon chuckled. “Why do you need to know that? Thought you just needed my birthday.”

  “That determines your sun sign. To get a more accurate reading, I need to know your rising sign. It’s the ascendant at the time and location of your birth.”

  “Wow, uh…” After a few moments of contemplation, Shannon spat out a time and a location deep in the SoCal wastes.

  Even so, Jess continued to pretend she didn’t already know Shannon’s ascendant sign.

  “Taurus,” she announced. “Congrats. You’re an Aquarius sun with Taurus ascendant.”

  “What does that mean?”