“Shit. You weren’t supposed to see that.”
“Daphne.”
I rip the tag off one pair of my new shorts and step into them. “The reason I don’t go home? I don’t go home because then I’m the Daphne who was an epic fuck-up and things justhappenthat aren’t supposed to happen because I have the worst timing ever, and something happened again, butI am okay, and I’ll be home…sometime…and I just didn’t want you to worry.”
“There is nothing about this conversation that isn’t making me worry.”
My heart squeezes so hard in my chest that I almost can’t breathe.
She’s my age, and she worries too much about everyone. Because she’s had to for the past decade since her parents died in a house fire and she left college to move home to finish raising her brothers. I hate making her worry about me.
“Remember when I moved in with you?” I say in a rush while I tear the tag off of my new bra. “When you had to teach me to drive and how to do laundry and grocery shop on a budget?”
“Yes.”
“I have to do that for someone else right now.”
“Who?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Daphne—”
“Bea. Listen. I love you more than I love anyone else on this planet. You saved my life, and I would literally die for you, but I cannot tell you who I’m with. It’s—it’s sensitive, and it’s just easier if you don’t know, okay? But I’m okay. I’m on a little unplanned road trip. My phone is, erm, temporarily out of commission, so I got this burner phone. I’m going to have it off a lot, but if youneedneed me, you can call me on this number or my other cell. I’m…working on getting it…working again.”
“What about your job?”
“I’m calling in sick for the week. If Margot calls—if Margot calls, just tell her I got twitchy and had to go camping off-grid, and that I’ll call her back in a week or two, okay?”
“Daphne—”
“Did you make up with Simon?”
“Yes, but?—”
Yes!My eyes prickle with tears. The good kind. When I left, she was debating if the hot single dad she’d accidentally starteddating this summer was worth a real risk after he betrayed her trust. “For real?”
“He’s right here. Want to say hi?”
I do.
I want to hear Bea’s British boyfriend say something normal and funny, and I want to tell him if heeverlies to her again about anything, I’ll murder him, and then I want Bea to tell me every last detail about how they made up, but I don’t have time. “No, I need to go. He’s going to notice that I’m taking longer than I should in the bathroom.”
“He? Who’she?”
“Bea, I really have to go. But quick—are you happy?”
“Other than my best friend disappearing with an unnamedheand being really cryptic about it? Yes. Very happy.”
Best.
News.
Ever.
“I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
“Madame Petty told me you wouldn’t come home one day,” Bea blurts.
