It was nothing like old times. The starkness of the change drove home the enormity of what I’d lost. I tried to swallow, but the saliva stuck halfway down my throat. The tickling sensation made me want to cough; I cleared my throat instead. It sounded like I was gagging.
“How come you’re not avoiding us anymore?” Arden darted a glance at me before returning her attention to the water bottle she was turning in circles.
“What? I wasn’t. I mean, I was, but not becauseIwanted to.”
“You bailed on us,” Lydia blurted.
Arden snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”
“Like you didn’t care,” Terry whispered.
“No! It was the opposite. I care a lot. A really lot.” Why did words always desert me at the most inopportune moments? My mother would have had the perfect quote for the occasion.
Lydia hooked a finger under the chain of her necklace, rolling the enamel daisy pendant back and forth. “Then it wasn’t all part of a master plan?”
I looked at her blankly.
“A plot,” Arden put in.
“Because if getting with Alex was your goal, then it would make sense that you dropped us as soon as you had what you wanted.” Lydia’s tone fell just shy of accusing.
“No,” I said quickly. “It wasn’t like that at all. That would be diabolical. And incredibly complicated. What made you think that?”
“We’re kind of in the habit of looking for the deeper meanings behind things,” Arden reminded me.
“Psychology,” said Terry.
“Hidden motives,” added Lydia.
It dawned on me that they were talking aboutmyinfluence. I had trained them to see everything as a twisted reflection of something that once happened in a book.
“I wanted to be friends with you,” I said slowly. “That was my only secret agenda. Except not secret. If anything, I was using him to impressyou.” Not the actual Alex, of course, but the Vronsky I’d conjured.
“Then why have you been ignoring us?” Blotches of color appeared high on Arden’s cheeks. “I kept thinking, ‘We need Lady Mary to lay down some truths, because this sucks,’ and then it was like, ‘Oh wait, that’s not going to happen, because she ditched us!’”
Startled by this unexpected outburst, I was slow to respond. “I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”
“You’re the one who jumped out of my car and ran away!” Arden reminded me.
“Do you have any idea how long we spent cruising your neighborhood?” Lydia asked. “It’s a miracle nobody called it in.”
I bowed my head. “It was my fault, so I figured I should be the one to suffer. I didn’t want to offend you with my presence.”
Arden exhaled loudly. “That’s not how it works.”
“It’s probably because of what happened with her other friend,” Terry said.
“Or maybe it’s from abook!” Lydia jabbed a finger at me.
My mouth opened and then closed again, cutting off the denial I’d been about to issue. Therewassomething highly literary in the idea of succumbing to a fatal, solitary misery, like working myself to death making hats.
“Maybe,” I allowed. “I can’t tell anymore.” When it came to my own behavior, I felt less insightful all the time.
“If those books were even real.” Arden lifted her chin. “Some of that stuff sounded way over the top. Like the one where they find that lady’s exact double and then put her in an asylum so they can get the other lady’s inheritance?”
“It’s a real book,” I assured her. “They all are. In fact, there’s one that’s really apropos, about a dying heiress and this couple that wants to get married, but they don’t have enough money.” I broke off when Lydia held up a hand.
“No books.”
