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She shook her head.
“You’ll get in,” Melanie reassured her. “They would be fools not to accept you.”
She stared at her friend in awe. “Mel…you want to know why you’re going to be incredible at helping others?”
Melanie rolled her eyes. “Why?”
“Because you’re so fucking nice,” she said. “I mean you’re literally in the middle of grieving and your selfish friend comes over to cry about her boy problems and you…just…listened to me.”
“Is that why you didn’t tell me about Tyler? Or when you broke things off with Jay?”
Rory sucked in a breath.
“Why do you keep pushing me away?”
She sat up, brushing the snot dribbling down her nose with the back of her hand. “Because I felt like my crap was meaningless compared to all the stuff you were going through. It seemed silly compared to…um—”
“Losing a brother?”
She cast her eyes down and nodded.
Melanie paused, her arms still tight around Rory. “Isn’t that what friendship is about, though? I spent so much of my life trying to hide the pain, not letting anyone in. And then I came here and met people like you and Calvin and…I realized that friendship is so much more than going to football games or eating gross ice cream cakes on the beach. True friends are the kind who sit in the hard places with you, carry grief with you, hold you when you cry, make you feel welcome and seen and loved. You’ve been that for me, Rory…since the day I met you. And I know you want to sit here and think that your problems are silly or not as important as mine, but that’s just not true. They matter to me because you matter to me. And I want to sit in the hard places with you and remind you that I choose to be here with you and be your friend.”
She was crying again, but Melanie simply reached for the tissues and pulled her in, the sounds of her soft weeping covered by the rolling thunder coming from outside the bay window.
“Promise me you’ll stop shutting me out,” Melanie said.
“I promise.”
“Promise, promise?”
“Triple-scoop promise.”
Rory didn’t at all feel deserving of the kind of friendship she had with Melanie. But maybe her friend was right—maybe that’s what being a friend was all about. Friendship didn’t have to be earned, but something that was given unconditionally.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rory was scrolling through the final proofs of the yearbook, making sure everything looked good before giving her seal of approval, when the email came in. The notification blinked at the corner of her screen, and she immediately clicked it open.
Tears welled in her eyes as she read.
The front door creaked open downstairs. “Ry, do you want to ride to this thing together?”
A laugh escaped her chest as she wiped away her tears, sitting up from her desk. She tugged on her sweatshirt and raced downstairs, feeling utterly bewildered.
Tyler was standing in the kitchen when she turned the corner. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
She smiled, eyes crazed. “I-I got in.”
Tyler beamed at her, and in one swift moment, lifted her in a hug and twirled her around the room. Rory was crying happy tears, her arms wrapped tightly around Tyler’s neck.
He set her down gently and cupped her face. “Congratulations. You’re amazing.”
She scoffed and shoved him. “I don’t know about that.”
“You are. You are going to kill it at Baybrook. They won’t know what’s coming.”
She grinned at him, still in shock. But as reality set in, her face fell. “But…I won’t be able to go. Gabi—”
