CHAPTER 3

I felt like my entire world had collapsed around me. Phil and Chris were having screaming matches on the phone, Gertrude refused to talk to me, and the man I confessed my love for completely shot me down. Phil and Natalie were the only people I had left.

"Listen," Natalie said as she put her bags down. She'd flown over from London just to support me. I couldn't ask for a better friend. "you don't want to go back to London anytime soon, right?"

"I don't think I ever want to go back to London." I said, crossing my arms.

Natalie nodded and took a sip of wine. "Maybe you could go stay with Mike and David for a while."

"San Francisco?" I said, giving it some serious thought. "Yeah, maybe I should."

Mike is my brother, and David is the boyfriend he has been with for almost seven years now. Recently they just adopted a baby, Matilda, and were living the absolute dream on the west coast of the country. "Mike does have a way of making everyone happier," Phil said. "and I'm so glad he's settled down now, that way he doesn't pinch my butt anymore."

I giggled. My brother might be the only person in this world that could make me feel happy again.

San Francisco is a contradiction. In the winter it can get to be incredibly cool, with temperatures in the 30s yet it's so humid you can barely see in front of you. Air so thick it feels like you're living in the Amazon, but you wear light jackets and long sleeves all year round. It really is a beautiful city, at the core where the skyscrapers and businessmen are located, and outside, where the hills and boat owners at trolleys thrive. I was looking forward to getting acquainted with it. Since Mike and David moved here a few years ago, I've only come for holiday visits and birthdays. I never got to know the city, and to be honest, I felt I was starting to distance from my big brother.

Three knocks on the door, a few seconds of wait and the door flies open. "Hey Dave." I say as my brother's boyfriend smiles at me.

"Diva!" David says, throwing his arms around me. "It is so good to see you. Mike, your sister's here. Ugh I love this jacket, you gotta tell me where you shop."

I stepped in the doorway and dropped my bags on the hardwood floor. "It is so good to be back here. I really think you guys have the best house in the city."

"Those bastards a block over have the best house in the city." Mike said, walking down the theatrical staircase with his daughter in his arms. "You have no idea how many times we've tried to get their house, but they seriously won't move. Hey dear, good to see you."

I gave my brother a kiss on the cheek. "You're hair is so long."

"He's going for the Bradley Cooper look." Dave yelled from the kitchen. "I keep telling him he'll never pull it off."

Then I looked down at my niece, who was pointing at me with a chubby finger. "Hey Tilly," I said as Mike handed her to me. "it's aunt Zooey. Oh, I've missed that face."

"Do you want to tell us what happened?" Mike asked.

I nodded, and went to sit down on the couch.

"He said he just couldn't." I said. "And that was it."

Mike and David's jaws were on the ground while Tilly was sitting on the floor, laughing hysterically as their kitten licked himself clean.

"Wow." Mike said, rubbing his stubbly chin. "I can't believe Chris would do something like that."

"Well, he did." I said, sipping my tea as it started to snow lightly outside.

Dave scoffed. "The thing I can't figure out is why he couldn't leave her."

"He's an asshole?" I suggested.

Mike sat back and crossed his arms. "I've known Chris for a very long time. His father was terrifyingly strict on him."

I furrowed my brow. "He wasn't that bad."

"He'd always put on a smile when you and Gertrude were there but when it was just me and him, he'd hound him. And I'd mean really hound him on every little thing that had to do with being a good father."

Dave scoffed and poured me more tea. "That's no reason to do what he did."

Mike shook his head. "Oh, I know that. I'm just trying to explain why he's an awful person."

Hearing someone else think that made me feel a little better since I just lost my best friend in the world.

"Here's what you're going to do." Dave said. "You're going to stay with us, enjoy the city, have fun, and once you get over this prick you're going to find a wonderful man and marry him and have lots of babies."

I smiled at the two of them. The "getting over him" process had already started.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nothing in Chris's life was working. The fact that he was having a second child was one of the worst news he'd gotten. He hated Gwyn. He was fighting with all his friends because they knew what he did to Zooey and didn't want anything to do with him. Now Zooey was gone and he had no idea where she'd run off to. He had absolutely nothing.

Six months past and still no word from her. He was in the studio, working on a new album with his band but everything was completely different. He had a new baby at home and a two year old that never stopped crying. Their music sounded terrible and they didn't even talk to each other while recording. They were like acquaintances, working together at an assembly line, just wanting to get it over with without enjoying any of the process.

Gwyn moved out. She bought a house right down the street so she'd be close to the kids, but they were legally separated and absolutely hated each other. There wasn't one day where Chris would wake up and think that he had to get it done with. He had to divorce Gwyn and find Zooey before she found a man who was actually good to her.

But he just couldn't. He didn't have enough courage to go through with it and he knew because of that, he'd be miserable for the rest of his life.