After an agonizing Monday morning, I took a break to call Gretchen. “Are you still asleep?” I asked when she picked up the phone.
“Maybe,” she rasped.
“Why aren’t you at work?”
“It was a long weekend.”
“Lucy’s back from Paris,” I said. “Should we do happy hour tonight? She still doesn’t know you and Greg reconciled. We can surprise her by having him show up.”
“Um, no.”
“Why not?” I pouted, thinking it had been a very clever idea.
“Greg . . . we’re off,” Gretchen said. “I think it’s over.”
“What?” I asked. “Oh, honey. What’d he do?”
“He didn’t do anything,” she said. “It was me. I left with someone else on Saturday night.”
“From Revelin? Who?”
“Does it matter?” she asked. “I didn’t even really know the guy.”
“Why would you do that?” I waited as I heard her shifting around, most likely sitting up in bed.
“I don’t know,” Gretchen said finally, her voice cracking. “I just freaked, I guess.”
“Freaked?”
“I spent years hating Greg for what he did, and all of a sudden I’m supposed to forgive him?”
“You aren’t supposed to do anything.”
“Things are just moving too quickly. I think maybe this is for the best.”
“I’m really sorry, Gretch.”
“Why? It’s my fault.”
“Because I know how much he means to you,” I said. “And I know it’s not just about some other guy.”
“Um. Why are you being so understanding?”
The question caught me off guard. I guessed I’d really been a pill the last few months. Or was I slowly softening up, both from my guilt and from whatever new feelings bloomed in me? “Listen, I’m coming over tonight and bringing something really bad for us to eat,” I said. “We can talk about everything.”
“I’d like that,” Gretchen said. “Actually, I’d love it.”
Her tone made me realize how much she needed to talk. And I hadn’t been there for her. I hadn’t even asked her how things had been with Greg, the one who’d broken her heart all those years ago.
* * *
That night, Lucy and I knocked on Gretchen’s door. She answered in her pajamas, and I wondered if she’d been wearing them all day.
“We come bearing gifts,” I said.
“Really?” Gretchen asked when I handed her a DVD. She stepped aside to let us into her apartment. “My Best Friend’s Wedding? That’s like the worst thing you could have picked.”
“Why?” Lucy asked, clearly hurt.
