REAL LIFE
Friday
“YOU KNEW?” I say.
She doesn’t reply. “Sabrina,” I snap.
She throws her arms out to her sides. “Of course I knew! Not that I heard it from you. Not like my best friends tell me a single thing about their lives these days.”
It’s like missing the top step, only to realize the stairs lead directly to the edge of a cliff.
I get out, “How?”
“Parth visited Wyn a few weeks ago.”
The harbor starts to swirl around me. “Did he . . . tell him?”
“No.” She crosses her arms. “Wyn went to the bathroom, and Parth was going to send you a picture of himself or something from Wyn’s phone. Only when he opened your text thread, there was nothing new for months. And I guess Wyn had this whole long message drafted, apologizing for how things ended.”
“So he read it,” I say, the words bitter on the back of my tongue.
“It wasn’t intentional,” Sabrina says. “And not the whole thing. But enough to know what happened.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I say.
“Me? You’re the one who hid this, Harry. For months you’ve told me almost nothing about your life, and meanwhile Cleo cancels every set of plans she makes, and Wyn wasn’t even going to come this week until I begged, and—”
“Wait.” I close my eyes, shake my head. It can’t be.
It has to be.
“That’s what this is all about?” I open my eyes, lungs compressing. “This whole trip?”
Sabrina’s shoulders square, her chin rising.
I think of all the moments Sabrina shoved Wyn and me together. I think of all the times she weaseled out of even a few minutes alone with me. Even on the drive from the airport, she had the music blasting and windows down so that even if I’d wanted to tell her about Wyn, she could plausibly deny hearing it.
The anger floods me now. Anger like I’ve never felt. “This trip down memory lane? The bathroom with no fucking door? This was all—all some game to you?”
“A game?” she says. “Harriet, we were trying to help you. You and Wyn belong together.”
“How could you put us through all of this?” My vocal cords are shivering from anger.
Sabrina’s eyes flare, but her mouth jams shut.
“You made us bend over backward all week. You tortured us,” I say. “How could you all do this?”
“We didn’t know,” comes a quiet voice.
Cleo has followed us, the light from the Hound & Thistle limning her in red gold. “Didn’t know you and Wyn broke up,” she says. “Didn’t know this whole week was a sham.”
“It’s not a sham,” Sabrina says. “We were helping them.” “Helping us do what?” I say raggedly.
“Get back together!” she replies.
“If we wanted to be together,” I say, “we’d be together!”
“Oh, please,” she says. “You don’t know what you want, Harriet! You’re losing the love of your life because you’re too indecisive to just pick a wedding date and a venue.”
White-hot hurt blazes out from my chest. “We’re not together because we don’t want to be, Sabrina! Because we can’t make each other happy, no matter how badly we want to.”
“Really?” she says. “Because Parth saw what Wyn wrote, and it sure sounds like, once again, you sat there and let your life happen to you instead of fighting for what you want.”
“You don’t get to decide what’s best for everyone,” Cleo says. “It doesn’t matter how good you think your intentions were. You manipulated us. You knew how stressed out I was about this week, and you knew why Wyn wasn’t coming, and you forced us all into it anyway.”
“I did what I had to,” Sabrina says. “Just like I always do, because no one makes even the tiniest bit of effort anymore. If I waited on all of you, this friendship would already be over, and you know it. I send the first text. I make the phone calls. I leave the voicemails. I schedule the trips, and when you cancel on them, I pitch other dates, and when you can’t give me an immediate yes or no, guess what? I’m the one to check back in a couple days later.”
“We have other things going on in our lives,” Cleo says. “We can’t always drop everything to relive the glory days with you.”
Instantly, I can tell from Sabrina’s expression that Cleo’s hit a nerve, a deep one.
All my virulent anger breaks, a fog clearing enough to reveal a steep drop-off ahead. The anger’s still there, but the fear is heavier, rooting through me, yelling, Stop, stop, stop this, before it gets any worse. Stop this before someone leaves. Before you lose them.
“Let’s all cool off for a second,” I choke out.
Cleo’s eyes lock on to me. “I’m not angry,” she says evenly.
She means it. There’s no fire behind her gaze, only exhaustion, only disappointment. “I’m just not pretending anymore.”
The sidewalk seems to crack underneath me, the world splitting. If I don’t do something, the gap will yawn wider and wider until I can’t reach them. Until I’m all alone.
“Not pretending what?” Sabrina asks.
“That these are the glory days,” Cleo says. “That we’re as close as we used to be, when the truth is, it’s different. We’re different.”
“Cleo,” I say, quiet, pleading.
“Our lives are total opposites,” she goes on, “and our schedules are totally different, and we don’t like spending our free time the same way anymore, and Wyn’s out in Montana, and Harriet’s all but cut us out of her life, and you and Parth still want everything to be one big party, but it’s not! There’s real shit going on in our lives, and we never talk about any of it.”
“I haven’t cut you out of my life,” I say. “We kept something from you that was so painful I haven’t been able to make myself tell anyone about it. I can still hardly think about it—about him—without feeling like . . . like the world’s coming apart at the seams.”
Cleo’s eyes are dark and glossy. “We’re exactly who you’re supposed to come to when you feel like that, and instead you stop talking to us, and then when things are . . . are hard for us, what are we supposed to do?”
“Oh, come on, Cleo,” Sabrina says. “Don’t act like you’re any better. You’ve been dodging plans with me for months. As far as I can tell, I’m the only one trying to hold all this together, while everyone else would be totally fine never seeing one another.”
“We’ve seen one another all week,” Cleo says, “and you’re just now telling us this was all some kind of Machiavellian scheme, and Harriet’s just confessing she and Wyn aren’t even together, and we’ve had days, and it hasn’t even mattered. Because you’d rather sit in a theater for five hours, just because we used to, than adjust to the fact that maybe we’d all rather do something different! We’re not in the same place anymore. We’re growing up.”
Her voice wavers. “And in different directions. And there are things we can’t talk to one another about anymore, and maybe we’ve all been fighting
it, or pretending we don’t notice, when we should accept it. We’re not what we used to be for one another. And that’s fine.”
“It’s fine?” Sabrina repeats emptily.
“Things are changing. They already have. And I’ve never been this person who just goes along with things she doesn’t want to do, but you’ve made it so I have to. It all has to be on your terms.”
“No one’s forcing you to stay!” Sabrina says. “If you want to go, go!”
Cleo looks down at her feet, a tiny fern growing up between the cracks in the sidewalk there, right between her sandals. “Fine,” she says. “Kimmy and I will find a hotel for the night.”
Another cold laugh from Sabrina. “So, what, you’re going to consciously uncouple from our friendship?”
“I’m going to take some space,” Cleo says.
“This is ridiculous,” Sabrina replies. “You won’t find anywhere to stay on this entire coast.”
Cleo’s lips press tighter. “Then we’ll sleep in the guesthouse tonight.” “And then what?” Sabrina says.
“I don’t know yet,” Cleo said. “Maybe leave.”
I have no idea how to argue with her, or if I even want to. My head throbs. Everything is all wrong.
Finally, Sabrina says, “I’ll get the car.” She turns and stalks down the street. I look back the way we came. Even in silhouette, Kimmy, Wyn, and Parth look rigid. They heard everything.
In a way, I tell myself, it’s a relief, to have everything out in the open.
But the truth is, if I could take it all back, I would. I’d do anything to go back to that happy place, outside of time, where nothing from real life can touch us.
