“You don’t have to love her. But I do.” My best friend shrugs, bringing the back of my hand to her chest. “She made you, after all.” Imani’s mouth quirks to the side. “I know you ... wanted to take back all these pieces of yourself. To take back all these things Scott took ... and I think you should—you should take the pieces of yourself he taught you not to love, and you should learn to love them again. You should let someone help you.” She drops her head to mine. “But ... you’ve been scrambling to try and be this different person all at the same time. I think, as much as it’s time to let Scott go, it’s okay to let her go, too. The old you. Keep the parts you want, and the rest? That’s no longer serving you? Let it go. I think ... after all this time ... the person you haven’t forgiven is you.”
My eyes flutter closed, and I concentrate on my best friend’s breathing. There’s oxygen in there for me too, I think. “It’s that easy? To let go of all your past mistakes and forgive yourself for them?”
“It can be,” she murmurs, nudging me with her shoulder. “Miller isn’t Scott, by the way. You don’t have to paint them with the same brush. And you don’t have to paint yourself in the same colours as the old you, either. You’ve been so scared of making the same mistakes but ... Ren, no one in your life now wants to take from you like that. They wouldn’t let you give yourself away like that again. Do you feel like Miller takes from you?”
I think of Scott, plucking at all the new petals on the growth of me, stealing flowers before they could even bloom. I think of old me, letting him, offering them to him on this silver platter so hecould grow taller and taller and taller and eclipse all the sunlight I still needed.
And I think of Miller. The sunshine that lives in the sound of his voice, all the oxygen that lives in the whisper of his mouth, and those rough, worn hands that I think would till and till and till the soil until it was exactly what I needed.
But mostly, I think of me. Of the old roots tangling with the new roots of the person I became, and how so very, very badly those roots want to grow and stretch and tangle with his.
“No.” I shake my head softly. “He doesn’t take from me.”
Her hand squeezes in mine, and she pulls to stand, a tangle of long limbs somehow more coordinated than usual. “Well, come on then. We’ve got work to do.”
“Work?” I blink up at her when she practically jerks my shoulder out of its socket.
“Work.” She nods, tugging again. “We have to see a man about the league’s sexiest shortstop.”
“I don’t think—he might not want to see me right now,” I start, but I let my best friend pick me up off the floor anyway, even though I could spend all night down here reading and rereading Miller’s list.
“Ren, if for nothing else, I’m not particularly keen on you impacting his batting average. I have money riding on the game tomorrow.” She turns, determinedly stepping over the exhibit wall.
“Oh, we’re gambling now?” I follow, almost tripping as she keeps tugging me along, out of the life before extinction exhibit towards the stairs.
“My profit margin is quite high, actually.” She gives a thoughtful nod before a wrinkle draws across her nose. “These online gamblers really don’t seem to understand physics or statistics at all. They’re just not—”
“As smart as you?” I arch a brow, but I blink at her through watery eyes. “Most people aren’t, as it turns out.”
She smiles, almost shy, her fingers squeezing against mine, and the entire way down the stairs and out of the museum, she tells me everything there is to know about how to strategically bet on baseball.
“You really should have gone into finance,” I tell her when we’re pushing through the front doors towards the stone steps leading down to the street.
“I’d rather use my powers for good. Finance is full of—”
“Assholes?”
“Yes. Usually.” She gives a tiny nod, but her face falls when she sees Scott, one foot kicked up against the landing. “Oh. Speak of the devil.”
Scott pushes off the stone wall, holding out a hand for me. And I almost laugh when I catch his face and realize he thinks that after everything, we’re living in a world where I might take it. “Renny. I’ve been waiting for you. I saw him leave, and I think we should talk.”
“Sure,” I say, inhaling all of the oxygen I can from a world where I’m me and even if I’m flawed and I’ve made mistakes, I’m still someone who gets to know Miller. I let me and him and him and me and all that we are and all that we could be fill up my lungs before I say the words I’ve said before, but I really mean them this time. “Goodbye, Scott.”
“Goodbye?” He blinks, incredulous.
“Yes, goodbye.” I nod resolutely, squeezing my best friend’s hand in mine.
“Goodbye?” he repeats with a scoff, mouth curving into something reminiscent of a sneer. “We work together.”
“Yes, and unfortunately, I will still have to see you on Monday. But I don’t have to keep you anymore.” I give him a tired smile. “But all those old pieces of me? That you seem so desperate tohold over my head? You can have them.” Shrugging, I tip my head, assessing him the way he always did me. I see so many things. Someone who was good and bad and good and bad again. Not entirely unlike me when we were nothing more than kids, but mostly, I see someone I feel endlessly sorry for. My smile turns soft, gentle with him the way he never was with me. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, and I hope I never hear a word about it.”
“Ren—”
“Go fuck yourself, Scott.” I lift a tired hand in a farewell I should have made years ago and finally, truly, really, walk away from him. Leaving all those fragments and pieces sitting at his feet where they belong, I go down the museum steps, hand in hand with my best friend, towards all the reasons I have to be me and a future I want for that me so desperately.
It’s not hard to make this list.
Not like it was to scramble to try and find reasons for why I want to be me—things to like or love about myself.
