Chapter 41 Childhood Friend Picks Them Up
Amidst Chloe's constant, wide-eyed gasps of wonder, the commercial flight touched down on the frozen tarmac in Minnesota.
As she stepped off the plane, she was still marveling at the sheer speed of modern travel. "Oh my god, it really was only an hour and a half! Driving here used to take us a whole day!"
She turned to Nathan, her eyes sparkling. "If we work in Chicago, we could practically fly home every single weekend! That's so convenient!"
But the moment the words left her mouth, her smile faltered.
"Oh." Her voice dropped to a soft, crushed whisper. "But coming back wouldn't really matter much. There’s... there’s no one left in the house."
Chloe lowered her head, her golden-brown hair falling to hide her face as a fresh wave of grief washed over her.
Nathan immediately stepped closer, his large hand gently wrapping around her shoulder, pulling her against his side. "Come on," he murmured softly into her hair. "Someone is here to pick us up."
Chloe blinked, looking up at him curiously. "Huh? Who?"
Nathan didn't answer. He just offered a faint, reassuring smile and guided her toward the baggage claim.
As they walked out through the arrivals gate, Chloe stopped dead in her tracks.
Standing in a loose semi-circle near the automatic doors were seven or eight middle-aged men and women. They were all bundled in heavy winter coats, clearly in their mid-forties.
The moment the group spotted Chloe, absolute chaos erupted.
"Oh my God! Chloe! It really is her!"
"Chloe!"
"Holy shit! She hasn't aged a single day!"
Chloe’s eyes widened, frantically scanning their faces. Weren't these... weren't these her childhood friends?
How had they all changed so drastically?
Overcome by a sudden, violent rush of emotion, she practically threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around a blonde woman and bursting into tears. "Lisa! How did you get so big? I almost didn't recognize you!"
Lisa, her best friend since middle school, was both thrilled and instantly offended. She hugged Chloe back fiercely, playfully smacking her shoulder. "Try pushing out two massive kids and surviving a brutal divorce, and see if you don't gain a few pounds, you little brat!"
"Oh my gosh, you've all changed so much," Chloe sobbed, completely overwhelmed, her hands covering her mouth as tears streamed down her face.
In her memory, she had just seen them at a New Year's Eve party a few months ago. Back then, they were all bright-eyed, athletic, and beautiful college students. Now, some had gained weight, others were losing their hair, and exhaustion lined their faces. Yet, looking into their eyes, she instantly recognized the absolute, unwavering love of the friends she had grown up with.
"Alright, alright, stop crying. We’re making a scene," a tall, composed man said, stepping forward to pat the sobbing women on their shoulders. "I reserved a private room at The Bayview. Let's get out of this airport and go eat."
"Mm-hmm!" The women wiped their tears, immediately linking arms as they walked toward the parking garage, completely refusing to let go of Chloe.
Chloe kept glancing around the group in awe. These were the people she had partied with, studied with, skipped class with, and grown up beside. They looked so different, yet she could feel that their bond hadn't eroded a single bit over the last two decades.
"Chloe and Nathan can ride with me," the composed man instructed, twirling a set of car keys. "The rest of you follow behind. The reservation is under Lakeview."
No one argued.
Eugene had always been the undisputed ringleader of their friend group.
When they were younger, Chloe had found him a bit bossy and full of himself. But as they grew older, everyone realized he was fiercely loyal and incredibly responsible. As long as you let him take charge, hanging out with Eugene was effortless—he handled every logistical detail flawlessly.
Oh, right. Chloe had actually harbored a massive, embarrassing crush on Eugene in high school.
He had never noticed her pathetic attempts at flirting, and for that exact reason, Nathan had relentlessly, mercilessly mocked her throughout their entire senior year.
Sitting comfortably in the back seat of Eugene's SUV, Chloe studied him in the rearview mirror.
At forty-four, he was still solidly built, his broad shoulders hinting at his former days as a varsity athlete. But his hair had turned a distinguished silver, and deep nasolabial folds bracketed a slightly downturned mouth. With his serious, black-rimmed glasses, he looked terrifyingly similar to the strict high school principal they had all once dreaded.
Chloe couldn't help but smile at the irony.
Just as she turned her head to whisper a joke to Nathan about it, she froze.
Nathan was sitting beside her, his arms crossed over his chest, shooting her a dark, incredibly sharp sideways glare.
When she met his eyes, he instantly turned his head away, staring out the window with haughty, icy indifference, completely refusing to acknowledge her.
Startled, Chloe snapped her spine straight, gluing her eyes to the back of the passenger seat and absolutely refusing to glance at Eugene again.
Ah, crap. She had completely forgotten. The man sitting beside her had always been violently, aggressively possessive.
Back in their youth, Nathan had thrown countless silent, freezing tantrums simply because he hadn't been her "first crush."
She vividly remembered her sophomore year of college. Eugene had taken a train down to Chicago to visit some friends, and he had called her to hang out.
Naturally, Chloe had agreed. An old high school crush wanted to see her? She was thrilled.
The problem was, it was a Saturday, and she had already promised to meet Nathan at the medical library to study for her midterms. They weren't officially dating yet. And honestly, studying calculus versus walking around the city with a handsome older guy? The choice was obvious.
She had called Nathan to casually cancel their study date.
“Where exactly are you going?” Nathan had asked, his voice dropping an octave over the phone line.
“Eugene is in town! He wants me to walk around Lincoln Park with him, and then he’s buying me deep-dish pizza,”Chloe had gushed, entirely oblivious to the danger.
Nathan’s tone had turned instantly, terrifyingly cold. “Did you pass your microeconomics midterm? No. Have you mastered the calculus equations I highlighted for you? No. And you want to go out on a date?”
“Ugh, Nathan, it’s just one day! I need to relax! I’ve been rotting in the library for a month!”
“Absolutely not,” Nathan had ordered flawlessly. “No breaks. Get over here right now. I’m waiting at the front desk.”
“No! I’m going out!” Chloe had argued, her teenage stubbornness flaring.
“Fine. Go. But if you ever ask me to explain another equation to you for the rest of the semester, I won’t do it,” Nathan had snapped, violently hanging up the phone.
Chloe had paced around her dorm room for twenty minutes, violently cursing his name, before finally throwing her textbooks into her bag and stomping all the way to the medical campus.
She sighed, remembering it now. Who had really been completely whipped by whom?
When she had finally arrived at the library, she had slammed a cup of coffee onto Nathan’s desk from behind.
He had looked up, his lips pressed into a tight, displeased line. “Didn't you say you weren't coming?”
His voice had been hushed for the library, but a thick, petty resentment practically dripped from every syllable.
Chloe had leaned down, whispering directly into his ear. “I was afraid you'd be angry!”
Nathan had snorted dismissively, looking back at his textbook. “It's your own academic funeral. Why would I care?”
“Right.” Chloe had rolled her eyes, pulling out her own notes.
A few minutes later, Nathan had glanced at her sideways. “If you really want to go to Lincoln Park... I'll take you after exams are over.”
“I didn't want to go to the park,” Chloe muttered, aggressively highlighting a paragraph. “Eugene did.”
“I knew it. You still like him, don't you?” Nathan’s expression had darkened completely, his voice soft but laced with a sudden, razor-sharp urgency.
Chloe hadn't fully caught his tone. She had leaned closer, a playful smile on her lips. “What did you say?”
Too embarrassed to repeat his jealous accusation, Nathan had rigidly turned back to his book, adopting a fake, academic severity. “I said focus on your studies. Stop daydreaming about romance all day.”
Chloe had giggled, cupping her face in her hands, her eyes sparkling as she looked at him. “But what if I really do like someone? What if I just want to date him? To hold his hand every single day, to eat with him, and to miss him so much I call him at 2:00 AM?”
Nathan had gripped his pen so hard his knuckles turned white. He didn't look at her, his gaze heavy and fixed on the paper. “Who do you like?”
Chloe had tilted her head, her face radiating a sweet, absolute adoration. She had tapped her cheek lightly with her pinky finger, smiling directly at him. “I'm not telling you.”
Nathan had shot her a vicious glare before aggressively aggressively writing in his notebook. A minute later, he had picked up his water bottle, taken a tense sip, and slammed it back onto the table, completely failing to suppress the dark, chaotic emotions swirling in his chest.
Even years later, long after they had officially become a couple, Nathan’s jaw would still tighten whenever Eugene’s name was mentioned.
He had confessed to her once, late at night, that his greatest, most agonizing fear back then had been that she would walk into the library one day and casually announce that she and Eugene were officially dating.
Now, sitting in the back of the SUV twenty-three years later, Chloe watched Nathan staring rigidly out the window, his jaw clenched tight.
Some things, Chloe thought with a tiny, triumphant smirk, never change.