At the next red light she turns to me, her blue eyes so big and clear. “I already called her. We do these things together.”
“She knew from the beginning it was a bad idea. Self-immolation, she said.”
“She’s not going to crow over you, Zoe.She loves you.”
I swallow back a fresh wave of tears, close my eyes, and lean my head back on the seat. That we’re even having this conversation—that I’m afraid to face one of my best friends in the world—is another profound, painful reminder of the mistakes I’ve made these last couple of months, letting this thing with Aiden drive any kind of wedge between us. If Kit tells me she told me so, she’ll be right.
When we pull up to the curb, she’s on the front porch, her arms crossed over her chest and her brow furrowed beneath the rim of her glasses, and before Greer’s even switched off her engine, she’s down the steps and out her small gate, reaching for my door even as I’m opening it. “Are you okay?” she says, her eyes cataloging my puffy eyes, my tear-streaked face. It’s possible, I realize, that this is the first time she or Greer has seen me cry, so long as we’re not counting laugh-crying, which I’ve done a lotwith these two.
They hustle me up the front steps and into the house as if I’m some damaged starlet, bailed out from a dumb, reckless mistake, hounded by the press. As soon as we cross the threshold I see Ben’s boots inside the foyer, and feel a sudden shock of embarrassment, enough to stop me dead in my tracks. It’s bad enough that Kit and Greer are going to see this.
“Maybe we should stay on the porch,” I manage.
“It’s too cold out there, hon,” says Kit, and the kindness in her voice almost breaks me again.
“Z,” says Ben, coming into the foyer. He’s got a giant bag of peanut M&M’s in his hand—my favorite—that he holds out to me. “If he hurt you, I’ll fuck him up.”
Kit rolls her eyes, but I can tells she’s a little proud too, and a lot grateful. I offer a weak smile and take the candy. Sweet, genuine Ben. I was so hard on him, back when we first met, grilling him at Betty’s like he was a danger to my friend. He loves me because Kit loves me, but I think helikesme, too. He reaches out, gives me a brief hug before he slips up the steps.
It’s just the three of us then, and I breathe my first sigh of relief in hours.
* * * *
“He said—you were an opportunity?” says Greer, sounding surprised.
I’ve told them the whole thing now, though it’s taken a while, because I’ve done a bit more crying and because Greer and Kit seem so rattled by it that they keep offering me things: the candy, water, alcohol, a sandwich, a blanket, and—at one particularly desperate point, I guess—a hot towel, like we’re on a first-class flight toPatheticville.
Ishrug. “I was.”
“He’s an asshole,” says Kit. “He wouldn’t have made it past the first week without you.”
That doesn’t have the desired effect, probably. Probably Kit wants me to start feeling indignant, remembering all the shit I shoveled for him that first week at the campground, my bag of breakfast food and my smiling, eager friendliness with Paul and Lorraine and everyone else who’d been there. But there’s no indignation there, not yet, and probably not ever. To me, memories of that first week feel oddly tender and simple, such a contrast to the intense complexity of the last few days, and to the messy, chaotic unraveling ofit all tonight.
“Maybe that would’ve been better for him, though,” I say. “If he wouldn’t have made it past the first week. If I hadn’t said yes.”
“Zoe,” says Greer, her voice firmer than usual. “Please don’t blame yourselffor this too.”
Kit looks over at her, surprised that Greer’s beat her to it. “Yeah,” she says, looking backat me. “Don’t.”
I take a deep breath, flatten the bag of still-unopened M&M’s on my thigh, feeling the bumps of candy against my palm. “It’s not the right thing for him, this camp. It’s not what he really wants, not for himself.”
“This is the face I make,” Kit says, gesturing vaguely at her head, “when I am trying really hard to give a shit.”
“Kit, I know—Iknowwhat he said, and I know it wasn’t pretty.”An opportunity.I hear it echo in my head again—still true, and still painful. “But he’s so—he’s sosad. And he feels so guilty, and he’s been trying to—” I break off, meet her eyes. She’s sympathetic toward him, I know she is. But what she feels for me is always going to be bigger than any feelings she can muster toward him. “I love him,” I tell her, and I watch her eyes widen in shock. “I know it’s over, but still.”
I let that sit in the air between us, this big thing I kept from them—that I kept from myself, I know, for longer than I’m willing to admit. With sudden, painful clarity I realize how much I would’ve enjoyed telling them more—how much fun it would’ve been to tell them about the way Aiden and I had fought and laughed, the way we’d pushed each other, the way being with each other had been easy and hard, all at the same time. And now that it’s over, it feels like I won’t ever reallyget the chance.
They’re both quiet for a minute, the only sound in the room the crinkle of plastic from my candy-bag fidgeting, and eventually Greer stops that by taking it from me and opening it. I’m pretty sure the handful she takes is stress-eating related.
I take a deep breath, steady myself. “You know that night we bought the ticket, and we all said what we’d buy with the money?”I ask, finally.
“You said you wanted an adventure,” says Greer.
I nod, my head feeling heavy, congested with tears I still haven’t shed. “What I really thought, that night, was that I wanted to be forgiven. I wanted to feel better about the things that I’ve done. The stuff I did at my job, the stuff I did after my dad died—I don’t know. The person I’d become.” From where I sit in Kit’s armchair, I look out the front window, across the street. A porch light illuminates the neighbors’ fat dachshund digging a hole in one of the flower beds, covering itsbelly in dirt.
“You’re a great person,” says Greer. “You’ve always been agreat person.”
I give her a small smile in thanks, not even really taking her words in. “I wanted forgiveness from Aiden, from his family,” I say. “And I guess I got an adventure instead.”
