“You’ve been my closest friend since we were thirteen, Sam. I want to help.” She reached for my hand and squeezed my fingers.
The irony was almost funny. I hadn’t even told my best friend, and here she was, desperately trying to help me. But if she knew? No. Ember would never understand. She planned out every minute detail of her life and controlled every situation she found herself in. Ember was a fixer.
I was a wrecker, in more ways than one.
I slid another brick into the wall I’d been building between us and forced a smile. “Nothing you can do, Ember, really. I have to figure this out for myself.”
“What are you going to do? Do you want to come back to Nashville? You can stay with me until your mom comes home.”
Fuck my life, what was I going to tell Mom? My stomach turned over, and I breathed through the need to heave, reminding my body that it had just done that, thank you very much.
She’d lecture. She’d judge. She’d be disappointed. And if she really knew? She’d say, “I told you so.” And she’d be right.
To hell with that.
“No. I’m staying,” I said with more conviction than I felt. “I’m staying right here.” Are you convincing Ember or yourself?
“Okay?” She tilted her head to the side.
“I’ll get a job, work through the summer, and keep applying to schools.” And keep opening rejection letters.
“Okay.”
“There’s a ton of places I can apply to for a job down here, and maybe with a solid work reference, I’ll have a better chance at getting back into a good school.” The more I spoke, the faster my words came, like my brain was vomiting because my stomach couldn’t.
“Okay.” She nodded her head slowly.
“Right. That sounds like a plan. Work. Apply to schools. Get in. Get my life back.”
“Okay…”
“Will you stop saying okay?” I snapped. “It’s not okay. It’s shit, but it’s the best I can do, and it’s not like I didn’t do this to myself, right?” Staying here? Was I nuts? You will not go back to Mom with your tail between your legs.
Ember sighed. “People flun—” Her eyes widened. “Shit. I mean, people leave college all the time. It’s not the end of the world.”
I rolled my eyes. “Flunk. You can say it. I flunked out of college. Flunk-a-fucking-roo, there went two and a half years of my life down the toilet.” My head fell back, knocking the glass of the sliding shower door.
Silence stretched between us, more uncomfortable than the tile floor currently making my ass numb.
“You can talk to me about it, Sam. Holding it in isn’t doing you any good.”
The last tether holding me to my civility, my reason, snapped. “No, I can’t. Because you weren’t there. You left. You were my best friend, and you got into Boulder for Riley, and you left. And that was okay, because I was happy for you, and I wanted to stay in the Springs. But then you quit returning calls, and I know it wasn’t on purpose, you got…busy. You can’t tell me you didn’t feel that distance.”
She looked down at her hands. “I’m so sorry. I got caught up in Boulder. I didn’t mean for us to grow apart. It just happened.”
“I know. It happens to a lot of high-school friends, I just never thought it would happen to us. And then your dad died…” My words failed.
“And you took me in and put me back together, no questions asked.”
I shook my head. “That wasn’t what I meant…no. You are my best friend, and the closest thing I have to a sister. Hell, you were my sister that year I lived with you during Mom’s last deployment. Of course I was there for you when your world fell apart. I wasn’t going to let you go through that alone. When you’re around, we skip over what we’ve missed, and go back to being us, but you left again. You got into Vanderbilt, and I’m so proud of you, but you weren’t there, you didn’t see…” I took a deep breath. “Things happened. I did bad things.” My throat closed. “I made stupid choices, and this is all on me.”