60. Simone #3
“So,” she says, still probing. “Was it…good?”
I roll my eyes, smiling. “Better than good.”
Lydia squeals like a little girl, kicking her feet. “I knew something was going on, but I didn’t know it was that deep…” She looks around and smiles. “Or he was that deep—”
“Lydia!” I hiss, embarrassed.
“Okay! Sorry, sorry. Celibate Lydia is a little jealous right now.”
I throw my head back again. “It was just supposed to be a friends-with-benefits thing…”
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Simone. That boy was far past friendship.”
“Yeah,” I say, sighing. “Well, I was too.”
“So…what happened?” she asks.
“So much…too much.”
She sits up straighter and pulls my legs closer. “Like…the drinking stuff?”
I look over at her, curious about what all she knows.
“From one addict to another,” she says, pointing at herself. “I could tell. And also…Bash told me.”
I just nod for a moment. “Yeah, well, that was a big part of it…of why even when it turned into more, I couldn’t let it be more.”
“Because you were scared?”
I nod.
“Because you watched me do the same thing?”
I nod again.
Her face drops. “You always have been the sun that finds the darkest clouds to hover above.”
That makes me get choked up a little.
I wipe a stupid tear from the side of my eye. “You can’t say stuff like that.”
She smiles, getting emotional too. “It’s true. If you were anything like you were with me, with him…he’s a pretty lucky guy.”
“I love him,” I admit quietly, staring at my hands. “And that’s what scares me.”
Lydia’s voice softens. “Why?”
“Because I don’t think he loves himself enough,” I whisper. “And I can’t…I can’t love someone into healing.”
Lydia nods slowly. “No, you can’t.”
“Yeah. And I just…couldn’t stay in the cycle. Too much had happened.”
“Like what?”
I start to feel emotional again, not being able to stop the other truth from coming up, too. The one I’ve been carrying like a secret I don’t know how to place anywhere.
“There’s…something I haven’t told you, Lyd,” I whisper.
Lydia looks at me. “Okay.”
“I haven’t told anyone, actually. Not even Mason. Nobody other than Lani…which she only knows because…she was…there.”
“There for what?” She pauses for a second. “And why didn’t you think you could tell me? We tell each other everything.”
“Because you had so much going on,” I rush out. “And I didn’t want to stress you out, and I didn’t want to put my crap on anyone else, and I also didn’t know how to feel about it myself, and still don’t, so I just—I just—”
Lydia looks concerned now.
“Simone,” she says softly. “Tell me.”
“A couple of months before school ended…I had a…miscarriage,” I whisper.
Everything stops, and the room gets so quiet you could hear a pen drop. Lydia looks at me like she’s trying to get her brain to catch up to the words I’m saying, then her face falls completely.
“Oh my gosh,” she whispers.
I’m crying again for the second time today, and don’t even care to stop it. I need to let it out, especially with her.
“I didn’t even know I was pregnant until I was already fully miscarrying,” I say as my voice cracks. “I thought it was my period and then it wasn’t, and then I was on the shower floor, and there was so much blood, and I was so scared, and Lani helped me, and took me to the hospital and—”
I break.
Full body.
Ugly sob.
Lydia’s arms wrap around me instantly.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers over and over. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I shake my head against her shoulder. “I feel stupid. I feel ashamed. I feel like—like I’m grieving something I didn’t even know existed until it was gone.”
Lydia pulls back and looks at me, tears in her eyes.
“I’m so sorry that I’ve been such a crappy friend to you the last couple of years.
I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t come to me with your pain because you were afraid it would affect mine.
” She takes my face, making me look at her.
“You can always come to me; you can always lean on me. I need you to let me be that person for you the way you’ve always been for me. ”
I plant my face in her chest, crying. “I—I had to have a procedure to have…it…removed. I was two months along and didn’t even know it, Lydia.”
She holds me tighter, letting me cry on her.
“It was…awful. I felt like a shell of myself for days after. I kept telling everyone I was just so sick and on my period—”
“Wait,” Lydia says, the memories and realization hitting her. “I remember that. I mean, you never get sick. I remember you being in bed for days. That’s when…?”
I nod, wiping my tears away.
“I’m so sorry you were going through that, and I didn’t know. I hate that I wasn’t there for you. I should have been.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her.
Even though deep down, I wish she could have been, too.
After that way too emotional exchange, we spend the rest of the night stuffing our faces and feelings with food, and watching every classic Rom-Com we can find.
I felt a little lighter, telling her. Hell, a lot of things have made me feel lighter today.
Yet there’s still one thing that sits heavily on my chest.
One person.