The Girl He Used to Know Read online

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  For anyone who’s ever felt like they didn’t belong

  And for Lauren Patricia Graves, who is the light of my life

  Acknowledgments

  I have taken creative liberties with this story. The Illini chess club does not meet in the food court of the University of Illinois Student Union but rather in a specific room. Vivek Rao, who is a real person, appears in the book as a member of the chess team who represented the University of Illinois in the 1991 Pan American Championship. From what I learned via research, he is a truly phenomenal chess player. The other members of the team who appear in the book are all fictional. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Eric Rosen, who was a member of the University of Illinois chess club and team and whose knowledge and input was so beneficial in the writing of this book.

  Thank you to my editor, Leslie Gelbman. I am deeply grateful that you connected so strongly with this story. It has been a real pleasure to work with you.

  To the wonderful and talented folks at St. Martin’s Press and Macmillan, thank you for welcoming me with open arms. Special thanks to Lisa Senz, Brant Janeway, Marissa Sangiacomo, and Tiffany Shelton.

  To Brooke Achenbach, thank you for advising me on all things related to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus. I hope you enjoyed the trip down memory lane as you provided the names of lecture halls, dining establishments, and bars.

  To Jana Waterreus, thank you for providing information about the role of a librarian and the academic path one would follow in order to make this their career. I appreciate it so much.

  To Tammara Webber, thank you for not only reading the manuscript, but for encouraging me regarding my vision for this book. Your input was invaluable.

  To Hillary Faber, thank you for lending your expertise and experience in working with students who are on the autism spectrum. You helped ensure that Annika’s character portrayal was authentic, and I appreciate it so much.

  To Elisa Abner-Taschwer, your cheer game is stronger than ever. Thanks for believing in me from the beginning and continuing to provide feedback seven books later. Your support and enthusiasm is immeasurable.

  To Stacy Elliott Alvarez, thank you for always assuring me that writing is what I should be doing.

  I am also deeply grateful for the contributions, assistance, and support of the following individuals:

  David Graves, because his ongoing encouragement means more to me than he’ll ever know. Also, you’re a pretty good typo-catcher.

  My children, Matthew and Lauren. Thank you for always understanding when I’m on a deadline or caught up in the imaginary worlds in my mind. None of those things will ever be more important than the two of you. I love you both.

  Jane Dystel, Miriam Goderich, and Lauren Abramo. You are truly the trifecta of literary-agent awesomeness. Thank you for your continued guidance and support.

  I am eternally grateful to the book bloggers who have been so instrumental in my ability to reach readers. You work tirelessly every day to spread the word about books, and the writing community is a better place because of you. I also want to give a special shout-out to the readers’ groups who are so passionate about championing the books they love: Andrea Peskind Katz of Great Thoughts’ Great Readers, Susan Walters Peterson of Sue’s Booking Agency, and Jenn Gaffney of REden’ with the Garden Girls.

  I want to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to the booksellers who hand-sell my books and the librarians who put them on their shelves.

  My heartfelt gratitude goes out to all of you for helping to make The Girl He Used to Know the book I hoped it would be. Words cannot express how truly blessed I am to have such wonderful and enthusiastic people in my life.

  And last, but certainly not least, my readers. Without you, none of this would be possible.

  1

  Annika

  CHICAGO

  AUGUST 2001

  I run into him at Dominick’s, of all places. I’m poking around in the freezer case, searching for the strawberries I put in my morning smoothie, when a man’s voice somewhere off to my right says, “Annika?” He sounds unsure.

  From the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of his face. It’s been ten years since we’ve seen each other and though I often struggle to recognize people out of context, there’s no need for me to question whether or not it’s him. I know it’s him. My body vibrates like the low rumble of a faraway train and I’m grateful for the freezer’s cold air as my core temperature shoots up. I want to bolt, to forget about the strawberries and find the nearest exit. But Tina’s words echo in my head, and I repeat them like a mantra: Don’t run, take responsibility, be yourself.

  I draw an uneven breath that doesn’t quite fill my lungs, and turn toward him. “Hi, Jonathan.”

  “It is you,” he says.

  I smile. “Yes.”

  My hair, which used to be waist length and usually in need of a good brushing, is now shiny and straight and stops a few inches below my shoulders. The tailored shirt and slim-fitting pants I’m wearing are a far cry from my college wardrobe of skirts and dresses two sizes too big. It’s probably thrown him a bit.

  At thirty-two, he still looks the same to me: dark hair, blue eyes, broad swimmer’s shoulders. He’s not smiling, but his brows aren’t knitted together in a scowl, either. Though I’ve vastly improved my ability to read facial expressions and other nonverbal cues, I can’t tell if he’s harboring any angry or hurt feelings. He has every right to feel both.

  We take a step forward and we hug, because even I know that after all this time—and all we’ve been through—we’re supposed to hug. There is an immediate feeling of safety and comfort when Jonathan’s arms are around me. That hasn’t changed at all. The smell of chlorine that used to cling to his skin has been replaced by something woodsy and, thankfully, not too heavy or cloying.

  I have no idea why he’s in Chicago. A prestigious financial services firm in New York had whisked Jonathan out of Illinois almost before the ink finished drying on his diploma, when what had once been a planned move for two turned into a solo endeavor.

  When we separate, I stumble over my words. “I thought you lived … Are you here on business…?”

  “I transferred to the Chicago office about five years ago,” he says. It astounds me that all this time, as I’ve walked around the city I now call home, I never knew bumping into him was a possibility. How many times have we been within a certain-mile radius of each other and not known it? How many times were we behind or in front of each other on a busy sidewalk, or dining in the same restaurant?

  “My mom needed someone to oversee her care,” he continues.

  I’d met his mother once, and I liked her almost as much as I liked my own. It had been easy to see where Jonathan’s kindness had come from. “Please tell her I said hello.”

  “She died a couple of years ago. Dementia. The doctor said she’d proba
bly been suffering from it for years.”

  “She called me Katherine and couldn’t find her keys,” I say, because my recall is excellent and it all makes sense now.

  He acknowledges my statement with a brief nod. “Do you work downtown?” he asks.

  I close the freezer door, embarrassed that I’ve been holding it open the whole time. “Yes, at the Harold Washington Library.”

  My answer brings the first smile to his face. “Good for you.”

  The conversation sputters to an awkward halt. Jonathan has always done the heavy lifting where our communication is concerned, but this time he doesn’t let me off the hook and the silence is deafening. “It was great to see you,” I finally blurt. My voice sounds higher than it usually does. Heat rushes to my face, and I wish I’d left the freezer door open after all.

  “You, too.”

  As he turns to go, a pang of longing hits me so hard my knees nearly buckle, and I gather my courage and say, “Jonathan?”

  His eyebrows are raised slightly when he turns back around. “Yes?”

  “Would you like to get together sometime?” I tense as the memories come flooding back. I tell myself it’s not fair to do this to him, that I’ve done enough already.

  He hesitates but then he says, “Sure, Annika.” He removes a pen from the inside pocket of his suit coat and reaches for the grocery list in my hand, scrawling his phone number on the back.

  “I’ll call you. Soon,” I promise.

  He nods, his expression blank again. He probably thinks I won’t go through with it. He’d be justified in that, too.

  But I will call. I’ll apologize. Ask him if we can start over. “Clean slate,” I’ll say.

  Such is my desire to replace the memories of the girl he used to know with the woman I’ve become.

  2

  Annika

  CHICAGO

  AUGUST 2001

  At my initial therapy session with Tina it took my eyes almost five minutes to adjust to the dimly lit room. When I could finally see my surroundings clearly, I realized it was intentional, and that everything in the room had been placed there based on its ability to soothe. The floor lamp in the corner—the only source of light—had a cream-colored shade that threw muted shadows against the wall. The brown leather furniture felt buttery-soft under my fingertips, and the thick rug covering the floor made me want to kick off my shoes and wiggle my toes among its soft, fluffy fibers.

  “I ran into Jonathan,” I tell Tina before she’s even shut the door when I show up for my weekly appointment. She sits down in the armchair and I sink into the overstuffed couch across from her, its cushions enveloping me in a way that has always eased my anxiety about being there.

  “When?”

  “Last Tuesday. I stopped at Dominick’s on my way home from work, and he was there.”

  We’ve spent many hours discussing Jonathan and she must certainly be curious, but knowing what Tina’s thinking by the look on her face is a nut I’ll never crack. “How did it go?”

  “I remembered what you said I should do if I ever saw him again.” I brightened, sitting up a bit taller despite the couch’s continued attempt to swallow me. “We had a conversation. It was short, but it was nice.”

  “There was a time when you wouldn’t have done that,” Tina says.

  “There was a time when I would have escaped out the back door and then taken to my bed for two days.” I had felt drained when I’d finally made it home with my groceries. And then, when I was putting them away, the grief I’d felt about the death of Jonathan’s mother finally caught up to me and I had myself a good long cry because now he doesn’t have any parents at all. I’d also neglected to tell him how sorry I was even though I was thinking it in my head. Despite my fatigue, it had taken me a long time to fall asleep that night.

  “I thought he was in New York?”

  “He was. He transferred here to take care of his mom before she died. That’s all I really know.” Jonathan’s appearance had been so unexpected, so random, that I hadn’t been capable of articulating many questions. It had occurred to me belatedly that I had no idea if he was married. Glancing down at a man’s ring finger is the kind of subterfuge that occurs to me later—and in the case of Jonathan, two full days after the fact.

  “What do you suppose was going through Jonathan’s mind when he saw you in that grocery store?”

  Tina knows how difficult it is for me to understand what others are thinking, so her question does not surprise me. In the ten years since I’ve seen Jonathan, I’ve replayed the final weeks of our relationship, and the last message he left on my answering machine, over and over in my mind. Tina had helped me see these events through Jonathan’s eyes, and what I’d realized made me feel ashamed. “He didn’t seem hurt or angry,” I say, which doesn’t really answer her question. Tina knows everything there is to know about the situation, and she could probably tell me what Jonathan was thinking. She just wants to hear my take on it. One of the things I like most about our sessions is that I’m the one who determines what I’m comfortable discussing, so Tina won’t push. Not too much, anyway.

  “How did he seem?”

  “Neutral, I guess? He smiled when I told him about the library. He started to walk away, but I asked him if he wanted to get together, and he gave me his number.”

  “You’ve made real progress, Annika. You should be proud.”

  “He probably thinks I won’t call.”

  “Will you?”

  Though it fills me with anxiety to envision the road I’m about to travel, I answer firmly. “Yes.”

  I study Tina’s face, and though I can’t be certain, I think she might be pleased.

  3

  Annika

  THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

  AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

  1991

  In college, if you wanted to find me, you’d need only to look in three places: the Wildlife Medical Clinic, the library, or the student union, where my chess club meetings took place.

  With the amount of time I spent volunteering in the clinic, one might think I aspired to a career in veterinary medicine. Animals were one of the few things that brought me extreme happiness, especially those in need of my attention. The other volunteers might have assumed the animals provided a respite from the loneliness and isolation that surrounded me during my college years, but few would understand that I simply preferred the company of animals over most humans. The soulful look in their eyes as they learned to trust me sustained me more than any social situation ever would.

  If there was one thing I loved almost as much as animals, it was books. Reading transported me to exotic locales, fascinating periods in history, and worlds that were vastly different from my own. My mother, frantic with worry one afternoon when I was eight, found me outside in our tree house on a snowy December day engrossed in my favorite Laura Ingalls Wilder book, the one where Pa got caught in the blizzard and ate the Christmas candy he was bringing home for Laura and Mary. She’d been searching for me for half an hour and had called my name for so long she’d lost her voice. Though I explained it to her repeatedly, she couldn’t seem to grasp that I was simply playing the part of Laura waiting in the cabin. Sitting in the cold tree house made perfect sense to me. When I’d discovered I could pursue a career that would allow me to spend my days in a library, surrounded by books, the joy I’d felt had been profound.

  Until my dad taught me to play chess at age seven, there wasn’t a single thing I was good at. I did not excel at sports, and I was all over the board academically, earning either the very highest or the very lowest marks, depending on the class and how much it interested me. Debilitating shyness prevented me from participating in school plays or other extracurricular activities. But much like books, chess filled a void in my life that nothing else had been able to satisfy. Though it took me a long time to figure it out, I know that my brain does not work like other people’s. I think in black-and-white. Concrete, not abstract. The game of chess,
with its strategies and rules, matched my worldview. Animals and books sustained me, but chess gave me the opportunity to be a part of something.

  When I played the game, I almost fit in.

  * * *

  The Illini Chess Club met in the food court area of the student union on Sunday evenings from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. The number of attendees varied widely. At the beginning of the semester, when members weren’t yet bogged down by their course loads or busy studying for exams, there might be thirty students. By the time finals drew near, our numbers would plummet and we would be lucky to have ten. The Sunday chess club meetings were casual, consisting mostly of free play and socializing. The chess team meetings—for members who wanted to participate in competitive play—were held on Wednesday evenings and focused on competitive training games, the solving of chess puzzles, and analyzing famous chess matches. Though I possessed the necessary skills and would have preferred the more formal structure of the chess team meetings, I had no desire to compete.

  Jonathan joined us on a Sunday evening early in my senior year. While the rest of the club mingled and talked, I fidgeted in my customary spot, board set up, ready for play. I’d kicked off my shoes as soon as I sat down, pressing the soles of my bare feet down on the cool smooth floor because it felt so good to me in a way I could never explain to anyone no matter how hard I tried. I watched as Jonathan approached Eric, our club president, who smiled and shook his hand. A few minutes later, Eric called the meeting to attention, raising his voice to be heard above the din.

  “Welcome, everyone. New members, please introduce yourselves. Pizza at Uno afterward if anyone’s interested.” Eric turned back to Jonathan and then pointed toward me. The gesture filled me with dread, and I froze.

  I almost always played with Eric, for two reasons: One, we’d joined the chess club on the same day our freshman year and as the two newest members, it made sense for us to partner up for our first game, and two, no one else ever wanted to play with me. If Eric and I finished our game quickly, he moved on to play with someone else and I went home. I liked playing with Eric. He was kind, but that never stopped him from playing his hardest. If I beat him, I knew I’d earned it, because he spared me no handicap. But now that Eric had been elected president and spent some of the meeting answering questions or handling other administrative functions, he wasn’t always available to play with me.