Fourth Comings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [123]
Furthermore, there were countless sins of omission. Many were harmless, such as any conversation that went like this:
Not me: What are you doing?
Me: Writing.
Not me: Writing what?
Me: I’m writing to Marcus.
Not me: Why?
Me: Because he asked me to.
[Pause.]
Not me: Are you almost finished?
Me: Not yet.
Not me: When will you be finished?
Me: I’m not sure I’ll ever be finished.
Not me: Oh.
Me: No matter how much I write, there will always be something else I should have said.
seventy-six
Perhaps this is something I should have said earlier:
Last Saturday I left your room and walked the twisty, half-mile path that led to the Dinky train that led to the bigger Northeast Corridor train at Princeton Junction that led to Penn Station, NY, that led to the 2/3 subway that led to the Grand Army Plaza stop that led to the ten-block walk that led to my home sweet subterranean home. More than two hours, point to point.
As I sat alone on the Dinky train, I thought about all the smart people in this town, in the world, and wondered when someone would use his brilliant mind to invent a teleportation technique that could reduce the Princeton–to–New York travel time from two hours to the blink of an eye. The very notion of the long-distance relationship wouldn’t exist. If I had instantaneous access to you, and I didn’t have to give up my life in New York, would I have tried to end it? Would you have asked me to marry you?
I looked at the ring on my finger to confirm that this had actually happened. I wiggled my fingers in front of me, as countless brides-to-be have done with blindingly new platinum-and-diamond showpieces. Only my ring was hammered by your hands out of an old quarter. I used to wear this ring on my fuck-you middle digit. It was too big for my ring finger on either hand, and yet now it fits perfectly. This was not a miraculous sign. This was nothing more significant than hot weather and water retention. Or so I’ve been telling myself for the past week.
I was about to take it off when a five-pack of young men and women came staggering through the train car. At first I thought Dude and his preppy posse had met and mixed with Marjorie (how’s Marjorie?) and the volleyball groupies, and I squirmed at this unnerving coincidence. Then I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that this was an altogether different but totally identical group of Princeton undergrads. They were very intoxicated, and Ivy League intellectual drunk tends to be a very pretentious form of drunkenness. That is, when it isn’t a totally imbecilic kind of drunkenness.
“I’m telling you,” said one of four guys wearing fitted polo shirts, long khaki shorts, and flip-flops, “everyone wants to be happy, but no one even knows what happiness means.”
“Happiness is a warm gun,” interrupted another guy, who distinguished himself from the rest by the radical degree to which he was red and gleaming with perspiration.
“Happiness is a warm puppy!” chirped the cutest girl. She was also wearing a polo shirt collar up.
“Happiness is a warm body!” shouted Red-N-Sweaty as he grabbed the cutest girl, who shoved him off just because she could.
“Happiness is a cold beer!” the other, less cute girl suggested. And they all cheered.
Then the tallest male with the thickest neck said, “Happiness is not having to listen to you fucktards wax pseudo-philosophical about happiness.”
I quietly nodded in agreement because Thick Neck was sort of right. Studies have shown that happy people do not spend their hours contemplating the nature of happiness, because they