Chapter 12 #2
“Really? Because it sounds to me like she’s only ever wanted you to be her accessory, like a pretty purse on her arm.”
“Jesus, Beau.” I get it. He doesn’t respect me. But he’s out for blood today. “Ouch.”
“You just lost your dad, and she’s more concerned with you serving her selfish needs than being there for you.”
“That’s not fair,” I say, but his words sting. “I usually like distraction when I’m upset—she wants to give me that.”
He shakes his head and turns toward the surf as the tide retreats. “Was it worth it?”
“Was what worth it?” I’ve had a lot of patience for him today, but he’s speaking in riddles, and I’m tired, too.
“The social capital you earned by ditching me. Because it looks to me like you’re a bit like Anna. You traded me in to get ahead. But where did it get you?”
“What are you talking about?” Hungover Beau is the price to pay for carefree, drunk Beau. I knew he was too good to be true last night.
“You were my best friend, Phe. We had all these plans of what we’d do in high school. And then we stepped onto that campus, and I was the nerdy friend you had to shed to capture the cool kids’ attention.” He picks up a rock from the beach and skips it across the waves. It jumps once before sinking.
I turn the wheel on my mental camera shutter, searching for evidence, for any recollection I can dredge up to understand his version of events. That’s not the way it happened, was it? I thought we grew apart. “Beau, I don’t remember it that way at all.”
He scoffs. “I was 6’2" and 140 pounds with acne and glasses too big for my head. I was the only mixed kid in our school, and with a stupid name. And you were, well, you.” He waves an impatient hand over me as if I’m exhibit A.
The wind blows my sundress against my body, and I feel exposed, naked in more ways than I can articulate.
“What does that mean?”
He glances over and looks me up and down, his face pinched into a frown. “You know you’re beautiful. This isn’t the moment to fish, Phe.”
I stammer, struggling for a retort. I’ve never received a compliment drenched in so much vitriol. “I didn’t drop you.”
“You kissed me—and the next week, you were drooling over older guys and clinging to the popular crowd. You loved the attention and didn’t need me anymore.”
I’m not ready to have this conversation—or to excavate those years.
They were awkward and exhausting, and I’ve tried to bury the impact of the choices I made then.
“That’s not true. I just knew you didn’t approve of any of them.
And there came a point when I couldn’t deal with your judgment.
You had your smart clique, and I had my friends. ”
“It’s not judgment when it’s based on fact. Cherry and Simone are so shallow they are essentially well-coordinated cardboard cutouts. And Matty was a seventeen-year-old jerk with a five-o’clock shadow who preyed on my fourteen-year-old best friend.”
“But you weren’t judgmental at all,” I snap.
“I didn’t judge until I had to pick up your pieces over and over again.
Every time they got you drunk and you needed a ride home.
When you’d ask me to lie to your dad for you.
Every time one of your ‘friends’ stabbed you in the back.
All those times Matty would lose interest, and you needed a pep talk.
When he refused to wear a condom and almost got you pregnant.
When he cheated with that volleyball player from La Jolla. ”
“She was a basketball player from Del Mar.” Of all the useless retorts, I chose that one. But I’m confused and angry. I don’t know how to have this argument when I’ve repressed the evidence and buried it under twenty years of more recent memories.
He scoffs. “Not the point. But glad you’ve gotten over it.”
“Hey, I’m not the one with the long list of grievances.”
“Right. Because you’re the bigger person here.”
It hurts that he sees me this harshly, even in the rearview. He’d cataloged my adolescent insecurities and missteps. He was keeping score. He assessed me and found me lacking.
I may not recall everything the way Beau does, but there are flashbulb memories that haven’t faded.
And I hate that Beau’s not entirely wrong.
In all my worst moments, he was the one to glue me back together.
It was Beau who drove me to the free clinic—twice.
It was Beau who answered my call when I needed to be rescued.
But I didn’t know he resented those rare moments when I had the courage to reach beyond our distance to find my old friend.
The wind whips fiercely at my face, pulling errant tears from my eyes to my eardrums as I remember when our friendship finally ended for real.
The day he left for Harvard, I met him in the driveway and gave him a box of stationery stamped with my address.
I hoped it would be a way to start fresh and wipe away the missteps of high school.
The thought of him not being next door made my heart hurt.
But Beau handed them back to me and said he didn’t think it would be a good idea to stay in contact.
“Our lives will be too different,” he said.
“I’ll be at Harvard, and you’ll be at community college.
We need to stop pretending we’re still friends.
We’ve both changed.” I held back my tears until I got home but then cried for hours, and I’ve flinched at the mention of his name ever since.
“Beau, I always knew you were the bigger person. And our lives have proven that. Professor. Author. Checkbook-balancing homeowner with organized closets and extra sheets. I know you’re better than me.”
He growls and throws another rock into the surf.
“Listening to how Anna discarded her friend, and hearing you refuse to admit to Cherry that you were with me just now, it reminded me how that made me feel back then. You’ve always thought of me as ‘no one.’ You owned me, and you knew it.
You kept me on a long leash but tugged on it to make sure I was still tethered. And I was pathetic enough to heel.”
I can’t access the memories as freely as he can.
I remember we grew apart and lived in two different worlds—but found each other when we needed the comfort of our friendship.
Did I take advantage of him? I hadn’t meant to.
“It wasn’t like that. And if it was, I didn’t know I was doing that.
I was a stupid kid and obviously made some terrible mistakes. ”
He turns to me, his face like stone as the waves careen toward shore. “And my mistake was trying to be your hero when I was your doormat. And here I am, doing it again.”