Chapter 27
I don’t recognize the woman in the mirror.
The lines under my eyes are deeper than I remember, my hair a light gray instead of blonde, my skin sagging and wrinkled. She’s not the girl Lily looked at with wide eyes and flushed cheeks, who she kissed with so much unsaid between us.
A tear slides down my cheek, and then another. I press my palms to my eyes, trying to stop them, but I never can. I hate that I feel like this. I hate that she’s in my head like this, making me feel like I’ll never be enough.
I know she would say I’m being stupid. That it doesn’t even matter. It’s not like Lily wants me like that. She said it herself, she likes women, but she hasn’t tried to make a move.
Not once.
But every time I’m about to see Lily, this happens. I stare at myself in the mirror and pick out every single flaw. I obsess, and I spiral, and I go over every conversation we might have.
I tell myself I’ll be normal, that I’ll act like nothing is wrong, that I’ll be myself, but myself is loud, and messy, and full of the most inconvenient feelings one could have.
Myself wants to push her against the nearest surface and…
Staring into the mirror, I take a deep breath, counting the seconds, willing the thoughts to stop.
I brush my hair again, though it’s useless, it won’t ever be pretty like it used to be. I dab at my carefully applied makeup, wiping the tracks from my tears, and smooth my blouse over my body like that will make a difference.
I tilt my head, practicing a smile that doesn’t reach my eyes. I can do this. I have to.
I’m normal.
I’m not in love with Lily Price.
The garage door is open when I pull into her driveway. Calling it a mess would be an understatement, but after seeing the rest of her house, I’m not surprised.
“Lil?” I call, stepping over a pile of tangled extension cords.
“Back here!” Her voice calls from somewhere further into the mess.
I wander further in, past boxes stacked taller than my head, things falling halfway out of some of them. I can’t help but think of her garden, the inside of her house. How she lives in such chaos, I don’t know, but I get the feeling the answer would break my heart.
When she emerges, I stop looking around, relaxing whatever expression must be on my face, but she’s already seen it by the frown her lips are turning into. “Alright then, let’s hear it.”
“Where do I start,” I say, letting my eyes drift over the piles. “It’s… a lot.”
She shrugs, leaning against a workbench and taking a drink from a water bottle. “I didn’t know we had plans today.”
“We don’t,” I say, trailing off, hesitant now that I’m here. “I thought maybe we could hang out.”
“Well,” she says, grabbing a cardboard box and handing it to me, “make yourself useful.”
I take it, and she nods toward a corner cluttered with old dishes and stacks of half-empty paint cans.
This wasn’t exactly what I had planned, but I can’t complain. Spending time with Lily is always fun, even if we are cleaning the garage of a hoarder. Being near her is the only thing that eases the tightness in my chest I’ve been walking around with for my entire life.
After a while of working in comfortable silence, I stop what I’m doing and glance at her. “Can I ask something?”
“Sure,” she says, adjusting a canvas.
“Why are you doing this?” I nod toward the garage, but I mean all of it. She let her yard go for so long, she clearly hasn’t been out here in years. Why is it so important all of a sudden?
“It’s time,” she says with a sigh, dropping a statue of a cat into a box. “I’m getting older, and this place, it’s not fit for one person. It’s time to move on, sell it to a family who would appreciate it more than I have.”
I don’t say anything, surprise flickering across my face.
“No point in holding onto a house bigger than I need. I’m thinking I’ll get an apartment closer to town. It’s cheaper, less space for me to clutter up.”
I nod, smiling at her attempt to make a joke, but I can’t help but think about how there was once so much love put into this place.
I can see it everywhere, underneath all the clutter. The hand-painted front door, the carved railings, the rusted wind chimes, the additions to the house, only she could have done. Lily didn’t buy this place because it was just a house.
At some point, a long time ago, she loved this place.
We fill boxes with things that haven’t been touched in years. Rusty tools. canvases. The shitty paintings, Lily calls them.
I don’t see that, but I’ll trust her judgment.
“I enjoyed helping the other day,” I say, mostly to fill the silence. “At the market.”
Lily snorts, lifting a bin of dusty old books onto the table. “You can help any time you want.”
“Really?”
“Sure. As long as you don’t glare at every customer who talks to me.”
“I did not do that.”
“You absolutely did.”
“I wasn’t jealous,” I argue, even though it’s a lie. I don’t want her to know that.
“Diana,” she says, turning to look at me with a knowing expression. “You used to get jealous back when we were kids, too. This isn’t a new thing.”
I purse my lips, crossing my arms in the middle of the garage. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She turns back to her books, digging deeper, but I can still hear her when she says, “You remember that summer I made friends with the new girl in the neighborhood. What was her name…?”
Of course, I remember.
I remember the way that Lily laughed at everything she said. The way she leaned into her. The way she touched her.
I hated that girl.
“She was annoying,” I say, feeling a surge of jealousy, even now, remembering that summer I had to share Lily.
“You were so mean to her.”
“She was always around.”
“So were you,” Lily says, and I can hear the smirk in her voice even though I can’t see her face.
“I’m not jealous,” I repeat, lifting another box, carrying it outside before she can see my face. Because some things never change, even after decades.
And I still hate the thought of that girl being all over my best friend.
“For what it’s worth,” Lily says, turning to meet my eyes, “I was jealous too. Back in high school. I’d see you with those girls. All your new friends.” Her jaw tightens. “Laughing. Talking to them. Like I’d never existed.”
My throat threatens to close up, but I force myself to speak anyway, because Lily deserves it. “That wasn’t the same thing.”
Her eyes narrow slightly. “No, it wasn’t.”
“Lily, I’m so—”
She shoves things aside with more force than necessary. “You don’t have to say anything, Diana. That was a long time ago.”
“Don’t do that.”
She stills.
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” my voice cracks, betraying my true feelings. “I didn’t wake up one day and decide you didn’t matter. I cried myself to sleep every single night for that entire year.”
Lily clings to the table, staring at the ground like she’s bracing for impact. “Di—”
“And every day after,” I continue, “every time I saw you in the hallway and didn’t go to you, it felt like I was splitting myself in half.”
She turns around, her jaw clenched tight. “I told you I don’t need to know.”
The air feels suffocating, my mother’s ghost threatening to strangle me here in Lily’s garage, speaking about things we shouldn’t ever acknowledge.
“I didn’t decide to stop being your friend. My mother decided for me.”
Her whole body goes tense.
“She told me I wasn’t allowed to see you anymore.” My fingers curl into my palms. “She said you were a bad influence and that people were going to start thinking I was like you, whatever that means.” Lily tries for a scoff, but it’s too quiet.
“And when I cried, when I begged her to let us stay friends, she said if I didn’t listen, there would be consequences. For me. And for you.”
Her face is unreadable in the dim garage. “You could’ve told me back then.”
“I didn’t want you to see how weak I was.”
“You weren’t weak,” she says, anger written all over her face. “I should have known you wouldn’t have done that to me, Di. I knew how your mom was.”
“Even though she’s gone, I still feel like she’s watching me, waiting for me to mess up so she can be disappointed in me again.”
Lily steps forward, her jaw tight, eyes fixed on me. I brace myself, half-expecting anger again, or dismissal. But when I look into her eyes, I can see it.
She’s not angry, she’s nervous.
“I was mad at you for a long time,” she starts, much quieter than usual.
“I was always worried that you would leave me eventually. Realize that I wasn’t good enough for you.
So when you did….” She shakes her head. “But I forgave you for that, Diana. The second you showed up at my door demanding I let you help save the garden, I forgave you.”
And then she closes the distance between us. Her arms are warm and solid around my shoulders. My hands press against her back, holding her tight in case I never get to feel this again.
Far too long for it to be socially acceptable, we stand pressed together. Nothing matters except this. Forgiveness.
Love.
Reluctantly, I pull back a little, enough to look at her. Her green eyes are calm, steady, the complete opposite of mine, filling with tears.
“Are you crying?” she asks with the most beautiful smile, still clutching my arms as tightly as I’m clinging to her.
“No.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“We’re best friends again, right?” I ask the question I haven’t dared to yet.
“Yeah,” she says simply. “I guess we are.”
Those words, spoken like anything else, lift something off of me that’s been weighing me down since the day my mother made me abandon her. We’re best friends, and no one can tell us any different.
“I always used to imagine us being old ladies together, drinking too much wine, complaining about our husbands.”
She laughs, the sound bright and familiar, yet something I’ve missed for so long. I do too, unable to help myself, but then Scott flits through my mind.
I don’t have a husband to complain about anymore.
She squeezes my arms, pulling my attention back to her grin, turning mischievous. “We can complain about Tommy for Clara.”
How could she even know that was where my thoughts were going?
“You should have seen the massive bear carving I saw him buy the other day,” she continues, startling a loud laugh out of me.
“Oh yes, I did! Clara was so angry!”