Reunion

Mary with the green eyes and reddish hair and the wonderful clothes who all the boys in my middle school had a crush on sent me a message that she wanted to meet up. We hadn't seen each other much since we broke up when we were 13, she left a note in my locker saying that she felt like she loved me too much and that she was too young to get tied down, and how could I argue with that? She was doing the right thing, the adult thing. But that week we were together was the most blissful time of my awkward and tortured youth that I had spent, and although I didn't see much of her for the rest of middle school, I never forgot how she chose me, the weird boy who sat next to her in health class, to take to the spring dance. We ended up at different high schools, unfortunately, and in the summer between eighth grade and freshman year, my body caught up with me, as my mom put it. I started exercising with weights and got really into running. My chin filled out, and although I still had acne, it wasn't as bad as it had been the year before.

At my new school, I ran for the cross country team, wrote for the school paper, and I got a pretty girlfriend who I ended up dating until she cheated on me our Freshman year of college. I had a few flings in college, and then I met the woman who I knew would be my wife. We got married after graduation, and she helped me get a job with her father's law firm. After being a paralegal with him for a few years, I started a new business with a programmer friend that allowed a lawyer to search legal decisions called precident.com. We were able to sell that off for a few million. After some wise investments, I have been able to live without working full time for many years. It's a good life, to be sure, and I don't think any of it would have happened without the confidence that Mary asking me out gave me when I felt so low, so unloved, and so ugly.

When she messaged me, I was so excited that I almost immediately sent a message back telling her thank you, and how much I felt I owed her, but I decided to keep it to myself until I saw her. I did do a little profile stalking of her. She was still friends with some of the kids I knew from middle school. This dude named Skipper who she dated off and on. Noah the skater who wore Black Flag shirts and dipped all day long. Robin the girl who got caught drinking red wine out of a juice box and got juice boxes permanently banned from the school. About 20 kids named Jason and Jennifer who we all called by their last initial, like Jason S. and Jenny C. It had been so long since I thought about them but I didn't remember their last names.

Mary didn't look much different than she did in high school. I was pleasantly surprised. Of course she had eye wrinkles like all of us and some graying hair like all of us but she looked healthy. I knew her immediately.

“Mary!” I greeted her, “is it okay to give you a hug?”

She kind of wiggled awkwardly but ultimately she held out her arms to embrace me.

“How have you been?” I asked, sitting down.

“I'm fine. Doing fine. Getting better.”

“Oh, that's good.” I wait for her to ask me how I am but she never does. I brush it off.

“I was so surprised to get a message from you. Of course I remembered you, but I couldn't think of your last name. After we moved, I lost touch with everyone I knew and of course I haven't been able to find my yearbook.”

“Your mom probably threw it away,” she said.

“Wha-what do you mean?”

“Well, she probably wouldn't want to remember how, um, you looked. I mean, you had what the kids call a glow-up, right?”

She chuckled softly to herself.

“Yeah, I guess.”

I was about to tell her how much dating her meant to me when she said, “I know you're probably wondering why I asked you to meet up with me. I wanted to apologize to you. I mean, I am in a program, and I need to sort of...talk about what I have done and kind of own up to people who I wronged when I was, um, drunk or on drugs, so I just need you to let me talk for a minute.”

“Sure,” I said, “but you never wronged me. I totally understood what you did.”

“It's really good to hear you say that. I fucking should have told Skipper to fuck off when he dared me to do it.”

“Skipper?”

“You know. How Skipper put me up to asking you out. It was just fucking stupid kid stuff.”

I felt a heavy lead weight in my stomach.

“I mean, he knew I talked to you in health class, and he was making fun of me for being your friend, and I don't know why but it made me mad, and he was like, 'Why are you getting mad? You love the little geek or something?' and I just said 'No,' then he got, like, this evil look on his face and he dared me to ask you out.”

I felt all of my blood rush into my face and my heart start to beat hard in my chest. For a moment I thought I might throw up in my lap.

“So I did, and he paid me the fifty bucks that he promised me if I did it, and I broke up with you at the end of the week.”

“Wow,” I said. Then I let out a breath.

“Yeah, but I am in AA now, so I have to go around and apologize to people who I wronged.”

“Huh, really?” I asked. “I mean, I am in the program, too.”

I don't know why I lied.

“You are?”

“Yeah, eight months sober,” I said.

“Good for you. You really look good,” she said.

“Thanks, you do, too.”

We made small talk for the next half an hour, then I excused myself.

I drove around in my car. I felt empty and narrow, like something had been taken from me, my memory and my identity. My sense of self worth. Mary had given that to me so many years ago, and not she took it away. I couldn't get it back, I thought, but I couldn't forgive it, either.

I passed a convenience store with lots of calling card signs in the windows, pulled into the parking lot, and bought a burner cell with cash. I sent Mary a message from that phone.

This is me, I wrote. This is my personal phone number in case you wanted it.

LOL she wrote.

Good seeing you this afternoon! I wrote.

U 2 she replied.

I sent her a U look (fire emoji).

She sent back, U do 2.

I got home. My wife and son were already home.

I gave them both kisses and hugs. I asked my wife, “Do you think I had a glow-up?”

“What, since this morning?” she replied.

***

I get a text that night from Mary. Good talking, it reads.

Same to you, I reply.

Feels really good getting that off my chest, she wrote.

It felt good to help you with that chest thing, I send.

LOL.

We wrote back and forth for the next week or so.

R u married? Your profile said married, she texted.

Separated, I wrote, laying next to my wife in bed.

U r a qt she responded.

U2 I sent.

“Why are you always on that phone lately?” my wife asked.

“Oh, a business deal,” I told her. “It's a little sketchy so I got a burner for it.”

“Okay, weirdo,” she said, “What, helping a Nigerian prince?”

“What? He emailed you too?” I asked.

She laughed and gave me a little kiss.

I texted her, What r u wearing?

She texted back (nut emoji) thing.

Oooooh, can I see? I texted back.

I'm shy, she replied.

That's OK, I texted. We don't need to do that. I hit send.

I watched three dots dance up and down as she was replying.

She sent a picture, a selfie of her in a bathroom with a messy counter and toothpaste smeared mirror, completely naked.

I sent her an (eggplant emoji).

Ur turn, she texted.

LOL I wrote. One minute.

I told my wife I was going to the bathroom. She said, “I don't give a shit,” and continued reading her book.

I sat on the toilet and browsed a MFM subreddit. I found a post of a body that looked more or less like mine. I went to their profile. There were lots more pictures that they posted. I downloaded them to my phone.

I cropped out the head and put a filter on the picture to make it look a little brighter and blurrier, then I sent it.

She sent back (drooling emoji).

Nighty-night, I texted.

Naughty night she texted back.

LOL I texted her.

***

“You are obsessed with that phone,” my wife said. “Should I be jealous?”

“No, of course not, honey. This business deal is almost concluded.”

“Looking good?” She asked.

“No, looks like a dead-end, but it's fun.”

U awake? I texted.

LOL, she replied, I was jst thinking abut U.

Dirty, I hope, I replied.

U want 2 meet up? She texted.

I'm going out of town, I sent. Family stuff.

Ur family lives here

Exes family.

I took the phone and put it in our fireproof safe in the garage.

***

A week later I got the phone out of the safe.

There must have been a hundred texts from her. Several voicemails, escalating desperation. Some highlights:

U there?

A nude.

Hey, u awake?

Delete that. Didn'tmean 2 send.

U there?

(Voicemail) Hey, it's Mare. Calling to see what's up?

WTF?

U bastard.

Just tlaked to my sponsor for like 4 hours about u.

Fuck u. Batard.

Plz call. Im fucked op.

*up

I texted, Srry! 4got my phone and didn't have a way to contact you.

Nothing for a moment. Then the three bouncing dots...

OK. Just delete all. I am so embarrassed.

NP, it's deleted, I sent.

***

“Did you look at this letter?” my wife asked.

“Uh, no, I just opened it and checked to see if it was junk mail. What does it say?”

“It says that we might be the victims of identity theft.”

“Oh, interesting,” I said. The letter came from a piece of mail from a computer security company. I simply scanned it in, opened it in a photo manipulation program, and changed the text to read that our identity had been stolen, then left it open for my wife to find.

“Weird. Anything specific?”

“Just our information has been on the 'dark web.'”

“Oh wow, that sounds serious. I will call the credit card companies.”

“Yeah, good idea,” she said, and she stuck the letter to the fridge as a reminder.

***

Meet me out for a drink? I texted.

Abot time!!! she replied.

I know a place. It's a restaurant and bar, good virgin margs.

Gr8! she replied.

I sent her the address of a Mexican place I used to go.

If I'm running late, get me a Sancho Panza, I sent.

That's what they call the virgin marg.

K! xoxo!

Xoxo!

I was driving across a bridge. I rolled down the window and tossed the burner out into the river below.

***

At three in the morning, there was a pounding on the door.

“Goddamn it! They're going to wake up the kid!” my wife said.

“I'll get it,” I said, and I went down the stairs, putting on my robe.

I opened the door and immediately felt a glob of spit on my face. It was Mary, slouching and wobbling against the door frame. “You bashtard!” she slurred, and she swung for my chin.

“Mary? What's wrong?”

“You know exactly what's wrong, you son-of-a-bitch! I can't believe I fell for you!”

My wife started down the stairs. “What's going on?” she asked. “Who is this?”

“This is that friend from school I met for coffee. You remember. Her name is Mary. Mary, this is my wife.”

“W-wife? I thought you were scheperated...”she trailed off as she stumbled into foyer.

“Why would you think that?” I asked.

“You told me,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“You said that you and your wife weren't together...”

“I never did that.” I looked at my wife. I said to her, “I didn't.”

My wife said, “Let's go to the basement and get this straightened out. I don't want to wake our son.”

We went to the basement, Mary dragging alongside my wife and I. We got her sitting on the couch in the TV room down there, and I took my wife aside.

“She told me she had quit drinking,” I said.

“Well, it looks like she fell off the wagon, poor dear.”

“I know. But I don't know what she's talking about. Maybe you can ask her while I get the extra sheets and pillows. It's probably best if she stays here tonight.”

“I agree. Okay.”

I went up to the linen closet and took my time. By the time I got downstairs, Mary was crying in my wife's arms while my wife stroked her hair. “It's okay,” my wife said, “It's not your fault. It happens to everybody.” She looked at me as I walked in. She shook her head as if to say, Poor lady.

“Can I show my husband?” my wife asked.

“I-I'm so embarrassed.”

“It's okay, I don't need to see.”

“No, it's alright,” Mary said.

My wife tossed me Mary's phone. It was open to one of the nudes that I sent her.

“Okay, why did you show me this?” I asked. “I mean, I appreciate a good body as much as the next guy but...”

“Somebody sent that to her and said it was you.”

“What? Really?”

“I told her it wasn't,” my wife said, “That thing would hurt.”

Mary cried. “I don't know why I believed it. I don't even really think you're that attractive!”

My wife patted her back and calmed her down, and we let her fall asleep on the couch. In the morning, she was gone. There was only a note that read, I am so embarrassed. Sorry.

***

At breakfast, my wife and I were eating in silence, when she suddenly said, “Oh my god, I know what happened!”

“What?” I asked.

“It was that identity thief. The dark web guy. He must have done something to clone your phone.”

I looked at her with the best astonished look I could muster. “That must have been it!”

“For a minute there I actually thought you were having an affair.” She sipped her coffee and smiled. “Oh, that poor woman,” she said, thoughtfully.

“Indeed. That poor, poor woman.”