By Francesca
I wasn’t sure what to expect for my five-year college reunion. All I knew was that it wasn’t going to be a victory lap.
I feel lucky to have gone to Harvard. I got a great education, and I made a handful of very close friends and lasting connections with professors. But I didn’t always love Harvard, and Harvard didn’t always love me.
I had crazy roommates. I had a couple friendships that went down in flames.
I had one professor who hated my guts. I had many more who couldn’t pick me out of a lineup.
I wasn’t the president of any clubs. I co-founded one, but I left after my co-founder demoted me for rejecting his sexually offensive behavior.
I tried to have fun and find myself along the way, but mostly I worked my butt off and kept my head down.
So my thoughts about going to the reunion were mixed. But nervous energy and curiosity are closely related, and I had far too much of both to skip it.
The only thing I wasn’t worried about was running into my college sweetheart. And not because I’ve matured beyond ex-boyfriend-anxiety—God no, do we ever grow out of that?—but because I knew he wouldn’t be there. He’s in the military and married. I expected the former would keep him too busy to come, and on the off chance he did show, the latter lent a finality that made things no longer interesting.
And anyway, I was much more intimidated to see ex-friends than ex-lovers. Women are ten times scarier than men. And I had some straight-up mean girls in my collegiate past. These were the interactions I was rehearsing in my head on the train ride up to Boston.
My plan was to take the high road, and take it fast. I wanted to rip off the Band-Aid and avoid an evening of side-eye over drinks. So I made a point to say hello to the Queen Bee as soon as I saw her.
She’s a doctor now, so at least if she cut me, she could also stitch me up.
We shared a stiff hug and some small chat. It wasn’t as bad as I thought.
I had the Hippocratic Oath on my side.
Or maybe she just didn’t scare me anymore.
I counted that a win.
Later, a guy I sort-of knew, a biochemistry major, now PhD student, came over to say hello. I remembered him as nerdy but sweet. He was one of those guys you’re not interested in when you’re young, but then you think back on with a little regret. As we were chatting, I thought, maybe I had judged him too superficially, I bet he’s going to make some girl really happy.
“So, are you married?” he asked.
“No. But I’m dating someone,” I said.
“Are you engaged?”
I held up my bare hand. “Nope. Are you?”
With some friends who made Harvard wonderful
“No, but,” he placed his hand on my lower abdomen and said, “Clock is ticking.”
I looked down at his hand and then up at him with a look that drained the color from his face.
“Sorry, that was weird,” he said.
“Ye-ah.” I backed away.
Some people are best left in the lab.
The rest of the evening, I had a good time with my friends, although most of them were the same people I still hang out regularly with in my adult life.
At the end of the night, in the ladies’-room line, I ran into a girl I knew only tangentially because she dated a friend of mine. In college, she seemed to have it all—she held a prestigious position in her activities, she did well in her classes, she was ambitious and outgoing. Back then I’d heard rumors she didn’t like me, but because I have the type of self-esteem only an Italian mother can instill, I didn’t believe it. How could she not like me when we hardly knew each other?
That she struck up a conversation with me now only seemed to confirm my sense that we were on the cusp of being friends. I greeted her warmly.
“So I just got to have a half-hour conversation with my asshole-ex-boyfriend. Isn’t reunion the best?” she said.
Game for girl-bonding, I commiserated. “Exes are the worst. I’m lucky, my college boyfriend isn’t here.”
“I know who that is. You dated…” and she said my ex’s full name for the whole line to hear, which struck me as edgy. Maybe we weren’t about to become new pals.
She didn’t leave me wondering long, as she added, “He’s an assassin now, right?”
I recoiled. “He’s serving in our armed forces, if that’s what you mean.”
“He shoots people out of an airplane, doesn’t he? What’s the difference?”
“There’s a pretty big difference.” With the “ABORT” alarm blinking in my brain, I tried to escape her when it was my turn in the restroom, but she found me again by the sinks. I refused to meet her eyes in the mirror, but I could feel her reflection glaring at me.
“He’s married now, you know,” she said.
I walked away; she followed. “I do know,” I said, “and we’re on good terms. I’m proud of him, and I wish him the best.” I was now striding away from her, but she was literally jogging to keep up.
“They have a child, did you know that?”
I didn’t. And hearing it from her first embarrassed me. But I was more flustered by this near stranger’s animosity toward me and overinvolvement in my life. I turned to face her, held up my hand, and said only, “Stop.”
She laughed in a weird way, and I wasted no time getting away from her. When there was some distance between us, I heard her shout:
“Their baby’s name is Henry!”
I could only shake my head.
Thing is, I’ve moved on. My ex has moved on. For some reason, this girl had not.
I felt sorry for her.
So my reunion reminded me that college wasn’t the best time of my life. The men there weren’t my best options. My friendships weren’t the best I would ever have. I wasn’t my best self.
Thank goodness.