“You didn’t.” Her voice was firm. No space for argument. “You didn’t know. And he didn’t know. This isn’t some dark twisted scandal. This is yourparents’fuckup, not yours.”
“But what if I can’t even look at him again?” I asked, voice small.
“Then you don’t. At least not until you can. And in the meantime, you get to rage, cry, buy an unnecessary amount of peanut brittle, and plan your dramatic coming-of-age memoir.”
I pulled back, wiping my eyes with the edge of my sleeve. “You think anyone would actually read that?”
“Please. I'd pre-order it, annotate it, and submit it to Oprah’s Book Club myself.”
That made me laugh again, this time less watery, and a little more real.
She handed me her slushie. “Here. You look like you could use three cups of sugar and half a brain freeze.”
I took a long sip. It was violently red and tasted like cherry-flavored chemicals and comfort.
Rachel pulled a pair of fuzzy platypus socks from the cart. “I also got you a present. You’re welcome.”
“I hate that I love these,” I muttered, sniffling.
“You’re welcomeagain.”
For the first time all day, I didn’t feel like the floor was about to fall out from under me. Rachel might not be able to fix it, but she didn’t try to. She just stood there, matching me wound for wound, sarcasm for sadness, and fury for grief.
She was exactly what I needed.
Maybe more than I deserved.
“Okay,” I said, nodding slowly. “Let’s buy too much sugar and maybe something completely ridiculous that I don’t need.”
“Like a collapsible kayak?” she asked, already steering the cart toward the back.
“Exactly like that.”
For a few minutes, in the middle of a gas station wonderland where no one knew who I was, I almost felt okay.
The cart clattered down an aisle of souvenir shot glasses and novelty keychains while Rachel narrated a hyperbolic plan that involved duct tape, a tarp, and “very dramatic lighting.” Her mind went from disaster response to arson-movie set design in about three seconds flat, which I appreciated even though I’d promised myself I wouldn’t laugh. She rattled off options like a bad infomercial host—lawyers, PR, burying the phones in the ocean—and then paused, like she’d remembered something crucial.
“Oh, right,” she said suddenly, her expression all business. She dug into the bottom of the cart and produced, no joke, a little red jerry can and a shovel with a bright yellow handle. “I always keep a shovel,” she added, as if that explained everything. “For planting things. Or metaphorically burying the past. Oractual burying if we decide to commit felonies, which we won’t. Mostly.”
I stared at her. The shovel looked absurdly small and very, very clean. The gas can looked exactly like the one in movies—ominous and too red.
“You’re joking,” I said.
“Maybe.” She leaned toward me, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “But, for real, I’m pragmatic. If you want to disappear for a weekend, you won’t need to drag anything more than this. If you just want to bury your feelings in a literal hole and pour some coffee on top, we have options.”
Her ridiculousness was a kind of antidote. I let myself be ridiculous back. “Do we get matching trench coats and accents? Because I’ll only go full fugitive if you promise a trench coat.”
Rachel considered this, brow furrowing. “Only if you promise to wear the tiny sunglasses on the third day.”
We laughed—half hysterical, half relieved—and for a minute I actually imagined us in those sunglasses: two fugitives in the aisles of Jax Mart, stealing granola and the quiet anonymity of other shoppers’ indifference.
Then my phone vibrated.
It felt like a punch.
One message, then another, then a full-on landslide. The preview on my lock screen showed the first hint: a group pic, a party, someone’s hand too low on a girl’s waist. Then came more—the guys. Myfriends. Mybestfriends, the ones who’d taken a silent vow to keep me locked behind some glass wall like I was sacred or radioactive.
Yet… here they were.
