“So you brush it off like it has nothing to do with you. Must be nice.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Libby gave her a skeptical look.
“Has it occurred to you that you wouldn’t have met him if it wasn’t for me?Imade that happen.” Jean thumped herself in the chest. “I’m the one who got the ball rolling and dragged you along, kicking and screaming. And do you know why? Because you werenevergoing to do it yourself. So, yeah, you’re welcome. Now do me a favor and take some responsibility for your own crap instead of trying to blame all your problems on me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” It was one of those questions you ask without wanting to know the answer.
Jean rubbed her forehead. “Do you really want to have this conversation right now?”
“It’s not like my day could get much worse.”
“Okay, well for one thing, you have major mommy issues.”
“Uh, yeah.” Libby was mildly relieved to be accused of something she’d admitted to herself ages ago. “I know it’s not a great relationship.”
“I’m talking about the damage it did to you.” Jean twirled a finger next to her head. “Mentally.”
Libby’s heart pounded in her throat as she waited to hear how Jean was going to follow up that doozy.
“My theory is that’s why you need someone like me around. You want to be the kid with a helicopter parent always telling her what to do, since you didn’t get that when you were an actual child. I give you cover.”
That was… a thought that had never crossed Libby’s mind. “I assumed you were going to say I had abandonment issues.”
“That, too. There’s a whole array of things that pile up into a general tendency to choose the path of being chickenshit.” She jabbed a hand at Libby. “You’d rather hide behind someone else than put yourself out there. If you never try, then nothing is your fault.”
“Wow. That C in Intro to Psych is really paying off for you.”
“And what did you get?”
“I got a B, thank you very much.” B-minus, but whatever.
“Then maybe you should apply some of those skills to your life.”
“Why bother? Sounds like you have me all figured out.” Libby crossed her arms, staring at a sticky ring on the coffee table. “It’s kind of amazing you’ve put up with me this long, since I’m such a wreck. Being the poster child for emotional maturity that you are, with your totally healthy family history. When’s the last time you talked to your parents?”
“Now the claws come out,” Jean muttered.
“I thought I was a chicken. Do chickens have claws?”
Jean checked her phone, a little too intently to be faking it as an excuse to look away. “I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere talking about this tonight.”
“Why, are you afraid I’m going to scratch you with my scaly claw?” Libby pawed at the air with three fingers. “I thought youwere all about facing up to reality instead of running away like a big baby.”
“Maybe I have someplace more pleasant to be.”
Libby huffed in disbelief. “Like where?”
“I don’t know. Slaughterhouse? Paper mill? Women’s prison?”
“Ha, ha.” She watched Jean shoulder her bag before heading for her bedroom. “Where are you really going?” Libby called after her.
“To work. Because life goes on,” Jean shouted back, before shutting her door.
She emerged from her room a few minutes later, detouring into the bathroom. Libby heard her rummage in the cabinets, then the sound of a zipper closing, before her roommate stepped into the living room.
“I can’t believe you’re leaving.”When my life is in the toilet and I need my best friend.Libby didn’t say that part out loud. She’d never had to tell Jean those things in the past. Jean’s troubles were Libby’s, and vice versa.
