Woke Up Like This(14)
And then it began. The staring contest with my phone. It’s like watching boiling water under the delusion that my eye lasers will speed up the process.
I’ve grown weary of the lack of response, and send an SOS in the group chat, which only heightens my anxiety. Whenever my phone buzzes with Calm down texts, I’m overcome with false hope that it’s Clay.
I’ve restarted my phone twice now, paranoid that it’s not receiving correspondence of any sort. I can only conclude that Clay thinks I’m a freak. (He’d be correct.)
My phone vibrates and my heart kicks into double time.
My Fair Leader: sry, gimme 5.
I grumble like a curmudgeon. Since ninth grade, Renner has made an annoying habit of stealing my phone and changing his contact name. Since the student council election, he’s gotten cockier with the names.
Sexy President
Commander & Chief
Your Worst Nightmare
The Right Honorable JTR
J. T.
In my opinion, Twit or Satan would be more fitting. I promptly switch his name back to the latter, with the purple devil emoji.
Footsteps in the hall jolt me out of my trance. Mom’s up.
“Rachael is draining me today,” she announces through a yawn. Rachael is a fictional psychopath who has a habit of poisoning her husbands. It’s part of Mom’s “process” to speak about her characters as if they’re real people.
“Sorry to hear. Maybe Rachael should see a therapist,” I croak.
“Oh, she’d love the attention, the narcissist.” Mom’s rooting around in her purse, juggling her phone, sunglasses, wallet, and keys in a way that triggers my anxiety. She finally tosses a pack of Band-Aids toward me. “Grabbed these last night at work. For your blisters.”
“Thanks,” I say, grateful.
She plunks onto the couch beside me, pulling my battered feet onto her lap to inspect. “Orthopedic shoes, my ass. Why don’t you just wear flats?”
“Kassie says flats are basic.”
Mom rolls her eyes. “Of course she does. Anyways, how was school? Don’t you have your big scholarship interview today?”
“That was yesterday.”
“How’d it go?”
My future just dove headfirst down the drain. Clay Diaz also thinks I’m a freak. I’m going to be dateless at prom. My best friend is moving far, far away in a matter of months. Life as I know it is changing. It’s cool. It’s fine. No big deal. Of course, I’m too drained to say all this out loud, so I settle for a grumpy, “I don’t have the strength to talk about it.”
“Well, I’m here when you’re ready,” she says, though the dark circles under her blue eyes tell me she doesn’t have the bandwidth for emotional labor.
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“Weren’t you supposed to celebrate the interview and end of exams with Kassie? She wasn’t over last night.” She pulls my legs on her lap, settling next to me on the couch.
“She was with Ollie. Where else?” I mumble.
I can read her look. She’s about to launch into the same speech she’s given me since ninth grade—about how I need to be honest with Kassie that it hurts my feelings when she ditches me. “You know that baby photo of you in those crocheted overalls?”
I crinkle my forehead, unsure what this has to do with Kassie. “The ones that make me look like I have a saggy butt?”
“Georgia made those as a gift for my baby shower,” she says, giving me an affectionate nudge in the ribs.
“Who’s Georgia?”
“Exactly. Georgia was my best friend. All through school. We were attached at the hip, like you and Kassie. Grandma used to say she was her second daughter because she basically lived at my house.”
“How come I’ve never heard of her?” Mom has a small circle of girlfriends she gets wine-drunk with at monthly book club, and none of them are named Georgia.
“Because we’re not friends anymore,” she says simply.
“What happened?” I frown, running down the list of grisly potential best friend betrayals.
She drums her fingers over my legs, eyes misty. “We grew apart. After college, she went backpacking around the world. I moved to Maplewood, married your dad, had you. We talked on the phone every single day for a while. Then it was once a week, once a month, and then we started dodging each other’s calls . . . only calling back because we felt obligated to, you know?”
“Obligated? But wasn’t she your best friend?”
“She was. There was no bad blood. No fight. No real reason why we stopped talking. I guess we just ended up living two completely different lives that no longer intersected.” Mom lets out a soft chuckle. “Actually, we’re not even friends on Facebook anymore.”
“No one uses Facebook anymore, Mom.” I eye her warily, shaking my head. I know where she’s going with this. “And that won’t happen to me and Kassie.” We’re supposed to be maid of honor at each other’s weddings and godmothers to our future children.
Mom sighs and gives me a weak smile. “I’m not saying you and Kassie won’t be best friends in twenty years. But friendships can change. Sometimes people drift apart. That’s just life. It doesn’t make it any less painful, though.”