Teach You to Love Me (Lindon U #4)

Chapter Eighteen

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Rachel

I ’m still thinking about the meeting I had with my adviser when I walk up to my apartment door and hear an enthusiastic, “Hey, neighbor!”

Startled, I nearly drop what little is left of the caffeinated drink I bought from the coffee cart before leaving campus. The meeting had gone about as well as I’d expected. With less than two months left of the semester, my adviser finally got me to apply to three different schools to move forward with my doctoral degree after an extensive conversation about what I want for my life and future.

“So you have options,” is what she told me.

And she’s right. I need options. And the options she gave me cost me one hundred and fifty dollars in application fees and an extra ten dollars for a rush fee since I’m applying so late.

All the schools are in Pennsylvania except for one in New York.

Based on the petite girl with bubblegum pink hair and face piercings standing with a box in her hands, I’d say the landlord finally rented the studio apartment that’s been empty for almost as long as I’ve lived in this building.

She lifts the box. “Do you mind opening the door for me? It’s unlocked. I wanted to keep it cracked open, but my cat kept trying to get out, and she’s an indoor cat only. I don’t think she’d survive two seconds outside.”

She’s talkative, which is already the opposite of how everybody else in the building is.

Walking over, I open the door and make sure her cat isn’t going to escape. “There you go.”

Her smile brightens her face. “Thanks! I’m Berlin, by the way. Like the city. My parents have this thing where they name their kids after the places we were conceived. Kind of gross if you ask me, but I like my name because it’s unique.”

She reminds me of Brie, who can make conversation with anybody, and it makes me feel a tiny bit lighter. “It’s a pretty name. I’m Rachel. No real backstory to it. It was the only name my parents could agree on.”

Berlin stands straighter. “Like from Friends ! Did they watch that? I personally only liked Phoebe and Joey from that show because everybody else annoyed me.”

“Uh…” Slowly, I shake my head. “No, they weren’t really sitcom people. They watched a lot of news mostly.”

Her eyebrows go up, making the diamond stud in the right one shine in the sunlight. “Oh. Well, Rachel is a pretty name too.”

I glance down when a white furry face tries moving past our legs. “You should probably head in before this cutie gets out. People tend to drive like maniacs on this street, so she’s definitely safer inside.”

Berlin nudges her cat back inside with her foot. “Well, it was nice meeting you. We should hang out sometime so you can properly meet Bunny. That’s my cat. I let my four-year-old niece name her, and she doesn’t know the difference between her animals yet.”

My eyes go from Bunny the cat to Berlin the nervous talker who shifts on her feet under my watchful gaze.

“This is my first apartment,” she adds. “I have never lived by myself before, so this is kind of a big deal for me. Dorky, huh? It’s why I got a cat, so I wouldn’t feel lonely. I may have accidentally gotten kicked out of my dorm room for underage drinking, so this was a last-minute decision before the next term, which is why I’m moving in so late.”

Wetting my lips, I find myself cautiously smiling at her nervous admission. I’ve been where she is though, minus the underage drinking and sudden eviction. There’s a sense of freedom when you become independent, but it’s terrifying. When Mom, Dad, and Brie helped me move into my dorm at Lindon U when I was eighteen, I bawled my eyes out when it was time for them to go. I could barely see the taillights through my tears as I waved them off.

Berlin looks younger than me, but I can tell she’s way better off than I was when I was her age. It probably wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world to befriend my neighbor. “Well, you moved to a good town. Lindon is a safe place, so your family doesn’t have to worry.”

I notice the slightest drop in her shoulders as she nods, relaxing into her spot.

“And my schedule can be pretty busy,” I add with a soft smile. “But I’m sure we can figure something out one of these days. Mr. Rogers always said to be kind to your neighbors, right?”

She blinks, confusion furrowing her brows. Then she asks the dreadful question that makes me feel way older than I am. “Who?”

Is this how my mom felt when I asked her if she knew Abraham Lincoln? It wasn’t malicious. The concept of time took me a while to grasp when I was a kid, is all.

When Berlin laughs so hard she snorts, I realize she’s messing with me. “You should have seen your face. I know who Mr. Rogers is. I saw the movie they made about him with Tom Hanks.”

Oh God. That’s worse. If Mom were still alive, she’d tell me this is karma for the time I told her I liked Miley Cyrus’s rendition of “that really old song” by Cyndi Lauper. She wouldn’t let me live that down for years whenever “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” came on the radio.

Berlin’s grin softens. “Anyway, thanks for being so nice. I saw the older woman with the mean face earlier, and I think she hissed at me when I tried introducing myself. I wasn’t feeling super optimistic after that.”

Ah. Mrs. Flynn is known to do that. I learned the same way she did. “I wouldn’t take it personally, that’s just how she is. But I should head inside. If you need anything, you know where I live.”

“Hey! This is totally random, but since we’re going to try doing the friend thing, we should go to the football game. Or a hockey game. There’s a girl named Olive in my class who’s a huge hockey fan. I hear the sports games are big around here, and I think I can make a jersey look cute.”

It’s hard not to smile at her enthusiasm even though me at football games right now probably isn’t a great idea. “Ever seen Friday Night Lights ? Lindon is like that, except the guys are—”

“Hotter,” she finishes for me with a giggle. “Oh my God! I forgot. There was a hottie with a body who stopped by earlier for you. You missed him by like ten minutes. Blond, with the kind of godlike shoulders that they write about in romances. If he’s not on the football team, he should be. I think he said his name was Matt. He slipped something under your door.”

Trying not to think too much about her description of him, or how accurate it is, I give her a high-pitched, “Okay.”

Matt almost never dropped by my apartment unless he was with me. He’d show up at my office at Lindon or stop me sometimes in passing on campus or in town, but never came here.

I unlock my door, ready to push it in, and see what Matt left when she asks, “Is he your boyfriend?” Her curiosity turns my cautious gaze back toward her. “Because if he is, good for you. He looks like he knows how to throw a girl around a bedroom, if you know what I mean.”

Fighting the blush that heats my face, I clear my throat and fidget with the door handle. “He’s not. But we’re…really good friends.”

She must hear the hesitancy in my voice because her face softens. “Oooh. That kind of friend. Got it. Don’t worry. We’ve all been friend-zoned before.”

I practically choke on air. “I wasn’t…” I shake my head, realizing an explanation won’t really do this conversation justice.

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” she reassures me, clearly thinking I’m in some kind of denial. “It really does happen to everybody. I get friend-zoned at least once a year. Then again, I have horrible taste in men. I’m not even sure I could consider them friends.”

Berlin really is just like my sister. “Berlin,” I say to try to stop. “It really isn’t like that. Things with us are just complicated.”

But the attempt to deter her doesn’t work at all. “My dad says relationships are always complicated. Even the good ones,” she reasons. Her expression pinches with thought. “Then again, he told me that when he was trying to explain why he and my mom were getting divorced.”

I suppose he’s not wrong. “True. But trust me on this one. Somebody can be the right kind of person for you but be in your life at the completely wrong time.”

She frowns at me. “That’s sad.”

All I say is, “That’s life.”

Her shoulders drop as her cat makes another appearance. Berlin nudges her back inside with her foot. “Maybe he stopped by to profess his undying love for you. I’m a glass-half-full girly.”

That’s sweet. “Thanks.”

“And if that’s not why he stopped by,” she counters, shrugging. “Then we can go to the next hockey game and watch men beat up other men on the ice and take out our anger by screaming at the refs when they make bad calls.”

My eyebrows go up a little. “That’s…” Nice? I go with the next best choice, “Very considerate of you, Berlin. But I’ve actually got a lot going on right now. I’m actually about to finish grad school, and I have to get ready to go back home.”

She blinks, her frown deepening. “Damn. I make a friend and she’s already leaving me. I don’t suppose home is the town over?”

I shake my head sadly. “Devon, Pennsylvania. Right outside of Philly.”

She responds with a sigh.

“Maybe your next neighbor,” I say, swallowing the lump building in my throat from how final this decision sounds, “will be somebody you can go to games with.”

My lip twitches, and I realize I may actually cry if I don’t go inside.

“I’ll see you later,” I tell her, slipping through the door and closing it behind me while fighting off the burn of tears.

I close my eyes for a second and take a deep breath, knowing I’ve made my choice.

To leave Lindon.

The job.

The people.

Matt.

I look down at the piece of paper on the floor that he slid under the door.

It’s a list of coaching positions.

Not just in New York.

But in Pennsylvania too.

Those damn tears become harder to fight.

Then I see the Post-it attached.

Maybe it’s time for us both to be happy