But god bless her friend—her first question was a beauty.
“Let me guess: you just finished the secret night time marathon.”
“Oh my god. Is that seriously how I look?”
“Pretty much. But only if the secret night time marathon was in that pit of hands fromLabyrinth, and all of them ran through your hair repeatedly.”
Lydia touched said hair the second Letty mentioned it.
And, sure enough, it felt enormous and crazy.
“Shit, I didn’t even think about that.”
“You don’t have to think about it. Not if you’d still rather not. Instead, we could talk about whether or not the secret night time marathon was an enjoyable experience,” Letty said, and all Lydia could think in reply was:God, has there ever been a better friend than you?
Not only did Letty not care that she hadn’t shared anything, she was willing to invent a fantasy, so Lydia could talk without really talking about it. In fact, it was almost easy to just reply, “It really was. In like a million ways.”
“Nothing made you feel uncomfortable.”
“I was completely comfortable all the whole time.”
“No freezing up. No panic attacks. No disturbing thoughts.”
“To be honest, those things have kind of stopped happening.” She paused there, unsure of how to go on. And then it came to her, in fits and starts. “My…my marathon trainer is a really, really good guy. A really patient and kind guy.”
“So he’s never rushed you into…running moves you weren’t ready for.”
“Oh, god no. The opposite. More than the opposite. Like literally, think of the most amount of opposite that could ever exist, and you probably wouldn’t even be close.”
“I think I might love this secret night time marathon trainer.”
She stopped dead then. In part, because it was cool hearing Letty saylove.
But mostly because her first instinct was to say:
I think I might love him, too.
Though Letty caught it a second later, anyway.
She almost fell right out of her chair, over it.
“Holy shit,” she said. “Doyoulove this secret night time marathon trainer?”
“Well, the idea is kind of blowing my mind right now.”
“It should be blowing your mind. I mean, you haven’t known him that long.” Letty laughed, after she’d said the words. But when Lydia winced, she got it. “Unless of course you’ve known him for months and months and I am just an idiot.”
“Yeah, I probably wouldn’t use the word idiot.”
“But only because we’re besties, right?”
“Thatisthe primary reason.”
“The months part is true.”
She tried not to wince again and failed.
In fact, the wincing spread to her voice, too. “It kind of sort of maybe definitely is.”
