Which I took to mean, ‘get away from Ben’, who was still living in my old room.
She had that antsy quality about her now.
“Becka, is everything okay?”
To my alarm, she laughed. But it was the kind of laugh that was closer to manic than amusement.
“Becka, what’s wrong?” I asked sharply, sitting up in bed.
“Nothing!” She cried. “That’s the problem. Nothing!”
“I don’t understand.”
I peeled the covers off my legs as if I could get out of bed and make my way to the airport.
She made a noise that was somewhere between a giggle and a gurgle.
“Look,” I said impatiently, “hang on.” I pulled the phone away from my ear and pressed the camera icon. I needed to see what I was dealing with. It took a moment, but eventually, Becka turned on her camera.
“Fucking hell,” I gasped, “why does your face look like that?”
Becka looked stricken. Stretched thin and pale, like her patience was all in her face and it was about to snap. Dark shadows smudged under her eyes, making them appear wide with an expression that – if I didn’t know better – looked like… grief?
“Becka, what’s going on, and I swear to God, if you say ‘nothing’ one more time I’ll–”
“I’m not okay,” she croaked, chin trembling. “I thought I was, but I’m not.”
I sighed, sitting back down.
“Talk to me,” I said gently.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said, and she sounded baffled. Becka was always so certain. She had such a no-nonsense approach to life. I’d envied that certainty over the years.
“Can you narrow it down for me?” I coaxed, although I suspected I knew where this was going.
When she’d first told me that Ben was effectively moving back in with her, I’d honestly expected them to pick up where they’d left off but that had been months ago, and since then, all I could get out of her were various monologues of how unsure she was about the whole thing.
“It’s Ben,” she said, confirming my suspicion. “I think–I think this might have been a mistake.”
“What’s that fucker done now?” My eyes narrowed to thin slits as I watched my best friend shrink into herself.
“Nothing-”
“Becka,” I growled, “this is clearly not ‘nothing’!”
To my ever-increasing alarm, Becka burst into tears. Great, heaving sobs. Somewhere in the middle of them, she manage to prop her phone up, granting me the view of her slumping down on the kitchen island, face buried in her arms as her shoulders heaved.
I watched for what seemed like minutes. Helpless.
Eventually, Becka lifted her face. It was streaked with tears.
I let her catch her breath before I said anything.
“Has he done something?” My voice was quiet thunder. Because if he had–
“Its-not-that,” Becka gulped, forcing words out between hiccups. “I don’t know what’s going on! He won’t talk to me!” She wailed, and descended into another fit of crying that it took a couple of minutes before she settled enough to get words out. “I keep trying to talk to him about… about when he just… left me, and he keeps trying to act like nothing happened!”
Becka grabbed a roll of kitchen tissue, tore off a sheet, and proceeded to loudly blow her nose.
