Skyler
My best friend is out of orbit.
I’ve been suspicious of it since the summer, when he all but ignored me. And once we got back to school for fall semester, I knew it was true. He’s too quiet, too broody, too shut off. He’s not cracking jokes or cracking beers, and both are tell-tale signs that he’s not okay.
Which is exactly why I’m flopped on the bean bag in Clinton’s room while his legs hang off his bed above me, both of our eyes fixed on his television screen. We’re both silent, save for the clicking of buttons as we play some stupid video game that I only marginally understand.
But that silence is about to be broken, because I’m tired of pretending like everything is fine.
“So,” I say as our characters traipse through the mystical woods of another world in search of our next mission. “How are classes going so far?”
Clinton grunts in lieu of an answer.
“That good, huh?”
No answer.
“You been spending a lot of time with Becca?”
Again, he doesn’t answer, and when I glance at him, he just shrugs.
“How’s Baby Bear?” I ask, referring to his little brother.
“Seems good.”
I sigh, pausing the game before I pop up off the bean bag and sit on the bed next to him. He scowls at the screen, trying to restart the game on his own controller, but since I’m the one who paused it, the play remains frozen.
“Bear, can we stop? Please?”
“Stop playing?”
I narrow my eyes. “Yes. The video game and whatever game it is you’ve been playing since last semester.” I relax my glare on a sigh, reaching over to squeeze his forearm — which is so buff from all his working out that I can barely squeeze it at all. “Something is going on. Talk to me.”
Bear drops his shoulder and the controller at that, a long exhale leaving his giant chest as he scrubs his hands over his face. When his hands fall, he stares at the paused television screen, opening his mouth before he closes it again.
“My mom is back.”
I blanch, because that was the absolute last thing I was expecting him to say. “Back? As in…”
“As in, she messaged Clayton on Facebook a couple weeks ago, and I told him not to answer until I talked to her.”
“And did you?”
He nods, just once, barely visible.
I swallow. “What did she say?”
“I asked her what the hell she was doing messaging Clayton, and told her if she was looking for more money to piss the fuck off.”
“Fair,” I say, but I reach for his hand, squeezing it in my own because I know this kind of callousness doesn’t come from my best friend unless he was really, really hurt.
“She said she just wanted to talk, to catch up. She’s back in Pittsburgh.”
“Shit…”
“I told her to stay away from Clayton. At least, until I can see her and make sure she’s clean.”
“What’d she say to that?”
Bear finally looks at me then. “She booked me a plane ticket home.”
At that, my jaw hinges open. “She… like, she paid for it?”
He nods. “I’m going the weekend before Halloween.”
A long silence passes between us, and I watch him, searching his eyes for some sort of clue as to what he feels about all of it.
“Want me to go with you?”
He shakes his head immediately. “I need to do this on my own.”
“Okay,” I whisper. “So… this just happened a couple weeks ago?”
He nods.
“Then… what’s been going on before this? You haven’t been yourself all summer, all fall semester.”
Clinton’s jaw ticks, but before he can answer me, his eyes shift to something behind me, and he stands.
I turn, finding my Big standing in the frame of his bedroom door.
Erin is completely put together, as she always is, with a Lily Pulitzer dress and matching bow in her hair. But aside from her perfect makeup and outfit, there’s something off about her, too. There has been ever since she betrayed me at Spring Break last year.
But whereas I’ve felt a calling to find out what’s wrong with Bear, I haven’t felt anything toward Erin.
Other than the urge to stay away from her.
Her big, brown eyes are locked on Bear, and when I look up at him, he’s staring right back at her. Erin’s hands are folded in front of her, and she picks at her nails, but Bear just stands stoic, unflinching, his jaw still hard set from our conversation.
I finally clear my throat, addressing Erin. “Uh… what’s up?”
Erin blinks, as if I’ve woken her from a daze, and then her eyes find mine. “I was hoping I could talk to you.”
She says the words to me, but her eyes move to Bear’s again, and I can’t help but feel whatever weird tension is going on between them.
I know they were friends before last semester, but I also know that Bear lit her ass up after what she did to me and Kip.
I had no idea if they’d ever worked through it.
Judging by the way they’re acting now, I’d say it’s a big fat nope.
“Um, sure,” I answer, standing. I turn, giving Bear a big hug and assuring him I’ll text later before I make my way to where Erin is.
She and Bear don’t exchange a single word.
When we’re out of the Omega Chi house and on Greek Row, Erin takes a deep breath, like she’d been stuck on an exhale the entire time we were inside.
“Thank you for talking to me,” she starts.
I nod, and for a few steps we’re both quiet, other than the clicking of her kitten heels and my sandals on the sidewalk.
“I know things aren’t going to get better overnight,” she says after a while. “Between us. I know I royally screwed up. I betrayed you, asked you to do something… horrid,” she whispers, shaking her head. “And then I went full-on crazy and you were in the line of fire.”
My nose flares, but I tell myself to listen, to be open to what she has to say.
“But,” she continues. “I’ve been going to therapy for months now, and something I’m really trying to do is make amends with the people I’ve hurt.”
Her expression morphs then, her brows folding together as she casts a glance back at the Omega Chi house. Then, she lets out a long sigh.
“Last semester, when I apologized, it wasn’t sincere. I know that now, looking back. I tried to blame you, too — to make it somehow partly your fault that I did what I did to you.”
She stops walking, waiting for me to face her, and it’s such an interesting sight to behold — this perfectly put-together girl falling apart on Greek Row on a sunny, South Florida day.
“I am so sorry, Sky. Truly,” she whispers, her bottom lip quivering.
“I’m sorry I asked you to lure Kip in for me, that I manipulated you with the presidency, that I turned on you in front of everyone we know.
” She chokes on a sob, shaking her head and covering her mouth.
“I am truly ashamed. I was in a very, very dark place, but that does not excuse what I did to you. And I hope we can start over, from this moment on. And I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I hope one day we can have a friendship again. ”
My heart breaks at the sight of two tears streaming simultaneously down each of her cheeks, and I sigh, reaching out for her. In the next instant, she’s in my arms, holding me so tightly I chuckle.
“I already forgave you,” I tell her. “But I appreciate the genuine apology.” I pull back then, looking her in the eyes. “And I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you. I just… I guess part of me wondered if that version of you I saw last semester was still hanging around. I was a little scared.”
“That’s fair,” she says, sniffing. She pulls a tissue from her purse and wipes daintily at her nose. “That version of me was an absolute monster.”
“And who are you now?”
She laughs at that, shaking her head as she folds the tissue. “Figuring that out.”
I smile, squeezing her arm. “You said you were in a dark place… what happened?”
“Oh, boy,” she says, blowing out a breath and looking around Greek Row.
Then, she loops her arm through mine, steering me toward the house once more.
“There’s a lot more to the story of everything that happened last semester, and before that.
But… I can’t tell you. Not yet, okay? I’m just…
I’m not there yet.” She looks at me with a glossy smile.
“But I will be. One day. Hopefully soon.”
I cover her hand that’s looped through my arm, smiling back. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“Right now, I was kind of thinking… margaritas?”
I nudge her. “Oh, now you’re just trying to butter me up.”
“Is it working?”
“Add in some chips and guac, and I’ll be as buttered as a biscuit.”
We both laugh, and just like that, the past is the past.
At least, for now.