This May Sound Crazy (3 page)

Gift opening is coming to an end. WE HAVE A LARGE FAMILY. WE ARE NOT WASTEFUL, OKAY?

8:00 p.m.

After everyone has taken a slothlike nap from all the Christmas treats, we all go out to dinner at Tony's. We are super orig.

10:30 p.m.

We come home, watch a movie (
The Grinch
), and go to sleep cuz we are all tuckered out from all of our festiveness.

 

 

Anyway. Now that you've LITERALLY gotten a play-by-play of my entire EXISTENCE, I hope this recipe for my great-great-grandmother's nutmeg cookies makes it better.

NUTMEG
COOKIES

(AKA THE MOST DELICIOUS THINGS YOU WILL EVER EAT IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE. THEY ARE JUST FILLED WITH WINTER JOY AND THEY WILL WARM YOUR SOUL TO ITS VERY CORE.)

1 cup sugar

½ cup shortening

¼ tsp. salt

½ tsp. nutmeg 2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

½ tbsp. baking soda

2 cups flour

Mix it all together in a big bowl.

Roll it into little two-inch-wide cookie balls.

Grease a cookie sheet.

Throw it in the oven, 15 minutes, pre-heated to 350 degrees.

<3

Picture this: Me in the middle of an Italian restaurant at the Grove, an outdoor shopping center in LA. I'm getting a call from my doctor to tell me my allergic reaction was actually “Coxsackievirus.” To which I replied, “But doctor! I don't even have a boyfriend!”

[   I'M DISGUSTING.   ]

ANYWAY . . . This particular virus is most commonly seen in little kids who eat glue :) For me, I got it on an airplane. It causes hives on your feet, hands, and scalp. Not very cute—and itchy as HELL.

As I sat in the restaurant, Summer
*
walked in. Summer was (and is again) one of my best friends. I met her on Twitter, of course, through a bunch of mutual friends, who told us we had a TON in common. For example, we freaked out about guys and makeup the same way. Summer was super fun. Back then
she had this really long mermaid hair that was naturally brown but she always longed to dye it blonde. And she had this way of making everywhere she went seem cooler and everyone she was with feel more important.

Before I even sat down to join the table, Summer started explaining to me that she had decided to move to London. She had met Joel
*
there in November and she really liked him. They had discussed her moving there, but I never believed it would happen till now. Now it felt suddenly real.

The person who had gotten me through the past four months was leaving the country. How would I survive the bad days (especially the bad eyeliner days)?! The last year had been tough. I had been obsessed with two different guys and both crushes ended HORRIBLY. Literally, one guy was just your average, everyday jerk. I was apparently the “only girl” he was seeing, but alas! WASN'T.
Shocking, I know. The other guy was one I actually really cared about. He was a good friend of mine before we started dating, and we ended up in one of those awful Non-relationship Relationships (refer to Chapter 16: “The Dangers of Non-relationship Relationships”).

But Summer was always there for me. She was the only friend I could TRULY count on for vent sessions over Skype and a constant stream of hilarious yet uplifting texts. TWIN FLAMES. And now she was leaving the COUNTRY? What was I honestly gonna do?

But she was happy and I was happy for her and I didn't want her to think otherwise SO . . .

Duh.

She told me about this guy Matt
*
, who was her boyfriend Joel's friend. She had never met him but heard Joel talking about him a lot. So I did what I do and followed Matt on Twitter, but he never DM'ed me. (No hard feelings, Matt!) He probably didn't DM me because HE DIDN'T KNOW ME. (THANKS, SUMMER, for making me look insane.
)

After lunch was over and Summer left, I realized how sad I was. I mean, my best friend had decided to move to another country! We promised to Skype and text all the time, but still . . .

We Skyped as soon as she got to London. I remember she was blow-drying her hair on the floor of Joel's room. They were about to go meet Adam
*
at the pub. “The pub” was always the meet-up spot for them, but it isn't a specific place. It kinda just means a lot of different restaurant/bars. The legal drinking age in the UK is eighteen btw, and Summer was nineteen. (I was still seventeen . . . but
hey, R-rated movies hollllllaaaaaa.)

Needless to say, I was jealous of Summer by this point. (And yes, I know, she's only just arrived!) But she had everything I wanted. A cool boyfriend, independence, and happiness.

When I told Summer she had to find me a cool British boyfriend, one who'd get it when I was stalking them, Joel got an idea. He texted me the next morning saying that he found me a British boyfriend. SAY WHAAAAt.

I was obviously super skeptical cuz these kinds of setups never work out, right?

Right?

Like ever?

After seeing his pic I was like
. Long story short, it was his friend Adam, the
guy from the pub. We started talking and it turned out we had a lot in common. Adam was really nice and funny and cute and totally interesting and cool. You know when you first start liking someone and everything they say is like “Omg you're so poetic and wise.” This was that. It was crazy how immediate it all was. We instantly started talking every single day. And Adam even asked me to be his valentine. I thought this was sweet but impossible, seeing how he was in London and I was in NYC. But he said we could have a Skype coffee date.

I kicked my family out of the surrounding rooms and spent the next hour adjusting my light dimmer (yes, I have a light dimmer; they are brilliant!) and fixing my makeup and choosing what to wear.

I prepared first with a group text with Summer and Joel, who coached me by saying things like:

. . . . SUMMER:

     
k abba remember not to show him your creepy weird doll head collection right away.

. . . . JOEL:

     
Ya, that's serious, abigail.

. . . . SUMMER:

     
don't have skype sex right away

ME: . . . .

SUMMER OMG THAT'S DISGUSTING.

I HAVE TO GO. BYE HATERZ

. . . . SUMMER:

     
I love you

. . . . JOEL:

     
Love you both

THEN. THE SKYPE HAPPENED. It was weirdly awkward cuz the connection was bad. On SKYPE, I mean. On SKYPE, THE CONNECTION WAS BAD. THE LOVE CONNECTION . . . THAT WAS STRONG. Like, he was really cute and really funny and really smart and cool and—ughhhhhh—perfect, I guess.

After that, we were basically inseparable via Skype and text. We would have “double dates” on Skype with Summer and Joel. It really felt like things were going perfectly. The only thing was, I wondered how long we could keep this up with me being all the way in New York and him being in London. I knew I had to see him. But how . . .

This is where we delve into —

I asked my mom, “Um, so Summer's really sad and lonely in London. Do you think I could go visit her for my birthday?”

My mom's initial reactions were a series of very cliché Mom questions such as:

“Is this for that boy?”

“I don't think so.”

“London is very far away.”

“For how long?”

“How are you gonna finish your book?”

To which I was like:

“MOMMMMMMMMMMM, I DON'T EVEN HAVE A PUBLISHER YET. THE BOOK IS JUST AN IDEA. IT'S AN EGG WITHOUT SPERM.”

And then my mom said no and went to go get her nails done. (Note to self: Never fight with Mom about seeing a boyfriend by making egg-sperm arguments.)

Summer volunteered to text my mom and beg? But nah. My mom wouldn't go for that.

Luckily for me, my mom is totally a cool mom. When she got back she said, “If you can convince your dad, you can go.”

YASSSSSS.

I knew this would be easy because if there's one thing I know my dad can't resist, it's tears.

Flash forward to me telling my dad, through sobs, that I really missed Summer and she was super homesick. After a lot of back and forth, he finally said yes.

So I booked my flight for April 10, 2014.

My mom, my brother Spencer, and his best friend, Trevor, came with me. My mom spent time with them while I went off with Summer, Joel, and Adam.

From the moment I got there, I knew London was where I belonged. I loved the city. I went to dinner with Summer the first night there and then met with Joel and Adam right after. These were the people I wanted to be with.

Summer and Joel ran into a frozen yogurt shop and told Adam and me to wait outside. I was, like, whaaa . . . until I realized why. Twenty seconds later, Adam kissed me. It wasn't so much that there were “fireworks” or whatever. More like I was hit by a train. Cupid laid me out, big-time.

The four of us spent the rest of the evening wandering the city before stopping to get tea. Because as stated previously, I was still
only seventeen, which is still NOT the legal drinking age in London. So, my after-dinner drink was peppermint tea. The rest of my time there was spent walking through London, taking endless amounts of pictures and sharing secrets with the three of them that I have never shared with anyone else. Summer and I refer to this time as Wonderland. It was only two weeks of all four of us being there, but it felt like the world had slowed down and we had been together there for years.

We had fallen down the rabbit hole and landed on our heads and everything was upside down in the best way. I was so in love and in awe of these people. It all seemed so ideal and beautiful; I thought I was dreaming for most of it.

But I wasn't.

It was real.

IT HAPPENED.

For my eighteenth birthday, they took me to a club.

We spent most of the night being the lamest people in the club sitting at the table, drinking champagne (totally legal now in London!) and talking about our feelings. Lame? Maybe. But to us it was perfect.

Adam got up to use the restroom and Summer went to get another drink. Joel slid over next to me, put his arm around me, and whisper-shouted over “Talk Dirty to Me” (such a sentimental romantic song):

“We are gonna
remember this for
the rest of our lives.”

It sounds cheesy, but it was true.

That night was still, in my opinion, the best
time of my life so far.

Yes. So far.

I look back on it wishing I could go back there, knowing how awesome it was. But I think what made it so good was that I didn't see it coming.

I miss it. I miss that time. Not just the weeks I was there with all of them, but the weeks leading up to it and the weeks after. The whole five months when we were the most important people in each other's lives. I mean, think about how crazy it was: My best friend up and moves her life to London, falls madly in love with a British boy, introduces me to the British boy's best friend, WE fall in love, I randomly go to London for weeks to be with them, we have the most amazing time of our lives, and then just as quickly as it all began, it all ended. Summer flew back to the
States the same day I left London. I still don't know exactly why Summer left when she did. I know she says now it's just because she was sad, but I wish I had known then what made her leave. She and Joel planned to stay together, but they wound up breaking up a month later. And what it all showed me was that everything that happened was because of the four of us. Specifically us. You couldn't re-create that time with other people. One missing piece, and the whole thing comes crashing down.

So I know how hard it can be to let go of the past and move on when you don't feel like you'll ever have something that amazing again. But as Summer said to me today, “You were Alice and that was your Wonderland. But Alice had many stories. You just need to find a new Wonderland.”

So I will.

I will.