Taming of the Greggo

“So,” Greg stuffed a piece of bacon into his mouth, “you got stuck in Alaska?”

“I wasn’t exactly stuck. I volunteered to go, but I didn’t realize they’d want me to work in the winter. Six and a half months without sunlight sucked. I was tired and sick all the time. And I figured out I really don’t love snow that much.” Ireland sneered at the orange juice Greg had ordered for her, took and drink and immediately took a big bite of pancakes. “You could have gotten me apple juice.”

“Yes, but orange juice is better for you.” Greg waved his fork in her direction before stabbing a sausage link.

“Yes, Mr. Piggy pieces cooked in piggy fat.” Ireland pointed to Greg’s plate of sausage links, bacon, and a bacon omelet. “At least I got pancakes.” She eyeballed the glass of orange juice again. “Would you leave me alone if I ordered a glass of milk?”

“No.” Greg didn’t look up, remembering the same argument they’d had over and over after their 7am Psychology class the first year they’d met. Every time, she choked down half a glass and then gave up. Greg learned to order bigger glasses, and no matter who was buying breakfast, he always paid for the orange juice.

“You suck.” Ireland took another big drink out of the glass and then returned to her scrambled eggs. She pushed the food around her plate for a moment. “You know, I went to San Francisco, too. Kate from day lab said you’d left just a couple months before I got there.”

“Really? That’s kind of weird.” Greg didn’t know what to say after that. He didn’t want Ireland to know that he’d heard she was in San Francisco, but by the time he’d worked up the guts to take a couple days to go up there, she was gone.

“You’re a bad liar, Greg. You always were.” Ireland cocked her eyebrow at him.

Greg tried to give her a dumb look, but it didn’t work. “What?”

“Listen, if you don’t want to talk about whatever it is, that’s fine. But just remember, you can’t pretend whatever it is doesn’t exist. You suck at it in general, and it doesn’t work with me. Ever.” Ireland pointed her fork at him and he bit off the piece of pancake stuck to the end. “Hey!”

“No, but I can distract you into forgetting about it. Cause I can.” He tossed a piece of bacon onto her plate.

“Jeez, this is college all over again, isn’t it?” Ireland laughed at herself. She looked at Greg, sitting in her Stanford T-shirt and for a moment they were 10 years younger, at the Denny’s next to campus, him picking off her plate and making her drink that same damn glass of orange juice.

“Yeah,” Greg laughed. “I almost miss Chemistry finals compared to double shifts staring at skin tags.” He paused for a minute. “I missed you, too.”

Ireland just kept eating. She wasn’t sure what to say anyway. She hadn’t expected to even run into Greg, much less be working with him, and she wasn’t exactly prepared to deal with what had or hadn’t happened over the last 6 years.

“I’m sorry.” Greg touched his fingers to her arm for a second then finished his breakfast.

“It’s ok, I’m just kind of tired and…”

“I meant about not calling. You were busy and I figured you’d wanted some space while you were getting settled with the lab.” He laughed at himself. “I guess I was trying to…”

“I know,” Ireland cut him off. “I…I know.”

“I didn’t mean for it to turn in to 6 years. I got that job in San Francisco and then I got busy and…I didn’t forget you. I guess I was just waiting for you to call, and then I figured you had a boyfriend or something, and I didn’t want to make it weird.”

Ireland finished the piece of bacon Greg had given her, drank the rest of her glass of orange juice, put a $20 bill on the table and walked outside.

“Shit.” Greg got a box of the rest of her food, stuck Ireland’s money in his pocket and paid for the meal. He walked outside and looked for Ireland. He found her sitting on the sidewalk around the corner. The one thing he didn’t find was her box of cigarettes.

Ireland caught the look on his face. “I quit when I went to San Francisco. Can’t smoke in half the city anyway, and I kept hearing you yelling at me about it and since I didn’t know where you were to strangle your ass, I just quit smoking.”

“So I had to yell at your from 4000 miles away to get you to quit. If I’d have known that I’d have taken a vacation years ago.” Greg laughed at her.

“I didn’t have a boyfriend,” Ireland blurted at him. “I never had a boyfriend.”

“Oh.” Greg sat down beside her on the sidewalk.

“I was too busy to call my family half the time. Until you stopped calling, I talked to you more than I talked to my mom. If I slept it was every other day, and when I did it was for about 6 hours. The federal lab almost killed me. That’s why I went to New York. I mean, they’d called me before that, but the feds were running me ragged. Once New York saw what the feds had trained me to do, my phone didn’t stop ringing. I almost became anorexic, not because I didn’t want to eat, but because I didn’t have time. I had a new job every two months for 3 years with few exceptions. I lived in hotels most of the time because I didn’t dare buy a house or sign a lease. The healthiest meals I ate were from Subway and when I actually got to see my parents. Outside of having the occasional beer with a nice co-worker I didn’t make any friends. Hell my phone bill ran me $300 a month just to call my family while I was driving from my room to my job or from city to city. I was doing more procedure manual writing than actual chemistry. Great use of that $75,000 I spent on school, huh? Even if all I said was ‘I can’t talk’, I really needed those phone calls Greg. They kept me human.” Ireland started to cry, knowing how many times she had just not answered the phone because she didn’t want to miss him when she hung up. “I’m sorry, it’s not your fault. I should have made time.”

Greg put his arm around her. “Made time? Out of what, slides and pipettes? I don’t think they’ve quite figured out how to do that yet. I figured you just didn’t want to talk because you were seeing somebody and didn’t want to hurt my feelings. You always were too damn nice.”

“I was always an idiot, too. You never had any problem pointing that out to me.” Ireland wiped at her eyes.

“That was different,” Greg said, cutting her off.

“How exactly was that different? You were supposed to be my best friend.” Ireland wasn’t sure if she wanted to slap him or herself.

“Because I love…” Greg stopped, but it was too late. It was the one thing he’d never told her. He stood up and walked to his car, setting the extra food in the backseat. He let his head fall against the window with a loud thunk. “Ow.”

“Not an effective method of suicide. I’ve tried it.” Ireland was right behind him, but he hadn’t seen or heard her walk up. “Back there though, never tried that. I assume it would be pretty effective.”

Greg turned around and leaned against his car. “You tell me.”

“Well, you’re still standing.” Ireland reached up and put two fingers to his neck. “Pulse is good.” She slid her hand around the back of his neck and pulled his lips to hers. It was so fast Greg didn’t have enough time to close his eyes. “Your body temperature is slightly elevated, but that could be because we’re in the sunlight, or because you’re an idiot. But I’m not picky. Nope, not an effective method of suicide.”

“I’m an idiot?” That was the only thing that sunk in. “Why am I an idiot?”

“Because I already knew. And because you should have given me the letter.” Ireland was standing like she was ready to hit him.

“Why should I have given it to you? You wanted to...” Greg stopped. “How do you even know about that letter?”
“Because I picked it up. You missed the trash can, or it fell out or something and I picked it up to put it back in, but I saw my name on it, so I read it.” Ireland opened the driver’s door and sat down. She wasn’t prepared for any of this and it was draining her, but she couldn’t exactly walk away from it now. “I broke up with you because I didn’t want you to screw up your life. You had six job offers on the west coast, and I had just as many everywhere else. I wasn’t going to make you sacrifice what you wanted. You should have known that.”

“I wouldn’t have sacrificed a career to move to Arkansas, or whatever ridiculous state that great offer was from,” Greg laughed a little. Ireland knew that.

“But I would have!” Ireland clamped her hands over her mouth. Shit, shit, shit! He knew that she would have done a lot for him. She had done a lot for him. That’s why she had to let him go. So she could do a lot for herself. It hadn’t turned out quite like she’d expected, and once she’d gotten settled with something, she wanted to come back, and see what would happen. But the damn federal lab had screwed all of that up.

Greg hadn’t said anything. He was just looking at her. Great, not only did I blow him off and hurt his feelings, he thinks I’m desperate. God would he do something other than LOOK at me?!

After a few more minutes Greg took a step forward. “You would have done that for me?”

Ireland nodded. “You didn’t have much experience with…well anything. I didn’t want to take your life away from you.”

Greg reached up and brushed a piece of hair out of her eyes. “You were my life.”

“That’s why I had to, Greg. Because you needed to have a life.” Ireland put her finger over his lips as he was attempting to object. “A real life, Greg. I’m sorry, you couldn’t make that kind of decision for yourself.”

Greg pulled her fingers away. “So you made it for me?” He held onto her hand.

Ireland’s voice was barely a whisper. “I had to.”

Greg put his arms around Ireland and pulled the scrunchie out of her hair. “I get it. I don’t blame you.”

“Yes, but I was born to Catholics. Guilt is genetic.”

Greg laughed at her. “Go back to my house and watch movies with Ben and Jerry?”

“Greg, this isn’t college.” Ireland wiped her eyes with a napkin from the restaurant.

“Says who?” Greg picked Ireland up, out of the driver’s seat and carried her to the other side of the car.