“Ohmygosh! Thank you, Ellie!” I shouted, moving as fast as I could to give her a hug. A hug. I was hugging my nanny. But I didn’t even care because I was that happy. She hugged me back, and goodness, she gave good hugs. The kind that made you want to melt into it. It almost reminded me of Mom’s hugs.
For that reason alone, I held on a little tighter.
***
I suppose Ellie wasn’t the worst person to ever nanny for Lorelai and me. Ever since she somehow convinced Dad to let me hangout with Ash even though I was still grounded, Ellie had shot to the top of my favorite-nanny list. Not that I needed a nanny, but still... she was doing OK.
Without Ellie’s help, I figured Dad would’ve forbidden me from seeing Ash. If he had it his way, no boy would ever hang out with me. Not that Ash and I were anything more than friends. Even though sometimes my mind thought,What if?Whenever the what-if thoughts appeared, I was quick to push them to the side. I didn’t see a reason to dream of such a thing when the reality was that Ash would never see me as more than a friend. No one ever would.
But still, his friendship was enough for me. I was lucky he even gave me that.
Ash:Are you sure we can’t hang out at the cemetery? I’m sure there’s a few ghosts who would love our company.
I smiled down at Ash’s message. I wished that was a possibility. Not to sound weird, but I missed the cemetery. I missed Mom. Unlike Lorelai, I felt as if Mom lived more at her final resting place than floating through the air, following us around.
Karla:I miss that dark, creepy place.
Ash:I haven’t been since you and I met there.
Karla:I bet the ghosts are really struggling without you.
Ash:Yeah. It’s a known fact that people and ghosts suffer without me.
I smiled again.
A friend.
I had a friend.
A friend who sometimes made my heart skip a few beats from the mere idea of him.
A friend who had a way of making me smile even when I felt like crying.
A friend who was coming over later that afternoon for a Saturday hangout session.
A friend who saw me for me and still liked to stick around.
I still had a ton of anxiety over that fact. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d hung out with a person outside of school. Most of my evenings were spent alone as I scrolled on social media looking at the friends I used to have living their lives without me.
It felt so strange to see people who were so familiar doing things that I’d introduced them to. They didn’t even know about Frankie’s Ice Cream Parlor right outside of town until I took them there for my birthday two years ago. Now they posted pictures from Frankie’s as if they’d known about it all on their own.
They also seemed happy. That was hard for me, because how could they be so happy without me when I was so miserable without them?
It had been a few weeks since Brian said hello to me in the hallway, too.
Two weeks and four days. Not that I was keeping track.
I missed his random hellos and how sometimes, when no one was looking, he’d smile my way. Missy never smiled at me, but sometimes I’d catch her staring at me with sad eyes. The moment I caught her staring, she’d look away.
It was OK that my old friends didn’t talk to me as much, because now I had Ash as a new friend. Us and our verypublicfriendship. He smiled at me even when other people were looking. There was no secret about Ash wanting to be my friend.He made that clear as day. Sometimes, my mind still doubted it, though. Why would he want to be friends with someone as broken as me? He could’ve done better. Even though he was odd, he was a cool kind of odd. He could’ve easily been sitting at the popular kids’ table. He even told me he used to be an all-star basketball player at his old school. That was more than enough to make him homecoming royalty.
But Ash didn’t seem to care about popularity. We were different in that way. I cared what people thought of me, but he didn’t. I envied him for that. He would’ve fit right in with my old group of friends, yet he chose to be with me. I didn’t fully understand why. I was grumpy and mean, and still... he stayed.
Mom would’ve loved him.
She would’ve called him a sweet young man and asked me all about him. I would’ve lied about the way he made my cheeks heat up whenever his light-brown eyes locked with mine, because I would’ve been too embarrassed to tell her that I was developing a tiny crush on a boy who was too good for me.
Mom would’ve said no person was too good for me, but I would’ve thought she was lying. Even back then, I wasn’t that confident.
