Sophie tightens her lips. “Monday … as in, this Monday?”
“Yep.”
“Dude.” She grabs my face and forcefully turns it so I have to look straight at her. “For that price, I better hope the place you rented is on a boat or something. Since when do you splurge $4,000 for a week away?”
I knew Sophie wouldn’t approve. My stomach roils. “I wouldn’t pay that much for a week.”
She squints at me, suddenly suspicious. “Avery, how long are you going there for?”
I take a deep breath, preparing for Sophie’s fury. “A month?”
Her face goes still. We stare at each other for what seems like an eternity until she explodes into a fit of laughter.
“What?” I ask, my brows furrowing. “I thought you were going to kill me.”
“Come on,” she gets out once her laughing subsides. She then lunges into a hug. I close my misty eyes, taking in the closeness. It feels nice. I hadn’t realized how much I missed just being close to another person.
“I’m surprised, but hell, I’m proud of you,” she squeals in my ear.
A warm fuzzy feeling spreads over my entire body. It’s okay. I’m going to be okay. In the nearly sixteen years I’ve known Sophie, she has never once steered me wrong. Not even that time she convinced me to shave the side of my head to ‘make a statement.’ If she’s okay with my month-long escapade nine hours from here, then I can’t be too far off from making the right move.
Yet, I can’t help the twinge of uncertainty that remains in the pit of my stomach. How can she approve when I haven’t even told her why I’m doing this? I know she doesn’t quite get my job or the emotional—and physical—toll a copywriting project can take on me. So I’m not sure she’ll truly understand why I see no other way out of this.
I pull back from her hug and lean on my knees. Might as well embrace it since the booking is non-refundable. “You sure you don’t want to know more before you claim you’re proud of me?”
She shrugs and stands, heading to my kitchen. She grabs two hard seltzers from the fridge and heads back my way, handing me one. “A vacation’s a vacation, Ave,” she says as she pops open her can. I do the same and take a big gulp for courage. The cool, carbonated drink calms me down.
“Yeah, that’s the thing,” I say between two sips. “It’s not technically a vacation.”
“Avery, no,” she drones, disappointment flashing across her face.
I can’t help but smile. I knew the other shoe was about to drop. Sophie has been bugging me to take a true vacation for years now, and we both know she’s right about how much it could help me unwind. Especially after the month of heartbreak I’ve endured.
“It’s okay,” I tell her, feeling a bit more confident about my choice. Hearing Sophie’s disapproval is enough for me to reconsider my approach. A bit of the weight has lifted from the pit in my stomach. “I’ll take weekends off. Fall asleep to the sound of the waves crashing against the coast. It won’t be all work and no play.”
She rolls her eyes so hard I fear they’re going to fall out of her head. “So what’s the point of spending $4,000 to get away if you’re just gonna be working all the time?”
I open my mouth to answer, but the words stay stuck in my throat. How do I explain this to Sophie? Yes, we’ve known each other for ages. In fact, there’s probably no one in the world except my dad—and, to a certain extent, my mom—who knows me better than she does.
Well … there is—or was—one other person. But I can’t let myself think about him right now.
The point is, even though Sophie knows me inside and out, there are certain things I know she won’t understand. It’s not that Sophie isn’t creative—quite the opposite. Her booming party planning business is proof of what she’s capable of. But planning parties and writing copy are very different from each other.
They don’t pull at the depths of your soul in quite the same way.
“Who’s the client?” she asks before taking a sip of her drink.
“Oh, you’d love them,” I start. Instinctively, I shift into my happy mask.Be excited. Show her you like this project. Love it, even. “Prakriti Mountain Wellness. It’s this Ayurvedic retreat center down in the States, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. They do a Panchakarma-style cleanse. Super spiritual. They need their entire website rewritten.”
She squeezes her lips together. “Ooh, you’re right. I’d totally go if I hadn’t already planned our trip with Matthew and the girls this year.” Unlike my painfully single self, Sophie’s a mom to two beautiful girls. But apart from her swollen breasts that barely stay put in her pink tank top, you can hardly tell she gave birth four months ago.
In reality, Sophie defies every mom stereotype I know. When she announced her first pregnancy to me nearly four years ago, I feared I would lose her. She’d be too busy pouring herself into this new version of herself to make room for her best friend. And what if, when we did see each other, the baby would be all she’d talk about?
But that turned out to be the furthest thing from the truth. Sophie is exactly the same person she’s always been. I absolutely love her eldest, Gwen. And Heather’s just a baby, but I think I’d die for her regardless.
I won’t lie and say I’m not a bit envious of Sophie. Motherhood has always been something I’ve dreamed of, more so than anything else, but Jasper wasn’t ready back when we were together.
Now, he’ll never be. At least, not with me.
