“Seriously?”
“Of course we did. You were our friend and you were in the hospital. What happened was never a joke to us.”
I had to ask. I needed the answer to my first unsolved mystery. “Then why did you just disappear?”
Angie cocked her head and gave me a mom look. “We didn’t. At least not at first. Don’t you remember? We were there every day while you were recovering. In the hospital, then at your house.”
I did vaguely recall swarms of teen girls crying, then laughing in my hospital room and then my bedroom. But the swarms had gotten smaller and smaller until there were no visits.
“You know what? It’s not important. It happened a long time ago.”
“The fault is mine. Teenage me expected teenage you to bounce back. To go back to normal,” Angie admitted.
But normal hadn’t been in the cards for me. Not for years after.
“I kind of expected that too,” I admitted.
“Instead of the ‘normal’ I expected, you went into a dark place. Which now, after Austin, I understand. I didn’t then. Neither did the other girls. And because we didn’t understand, we let you push us away.”
Another memory surfaced. Angie and our friend Cindy lying on my bed, flipping through magazines, debating how much cleavage was too much for a school dance. Me sitting in the window with bandages on my chest knowing not only wouldn’t I be showing cleavage, I wouldn’t be going to the dance.
Instead, I’d be traveling to see a specialist.
Worse, no one had asked me to the dance in the first place.
“God, is that all you idiots care about?” I’d snapped at them. “Dates and boob tape? Do you know how vapid you sound?”
I winced at the long-buried memory.
I’d felt abandoned, but I hadn’t accepted responsibility for the role I’d played. I’d all but evicted my friends from my life.
“What happened with Austin?” I asked.
“Leukemia,” she said. “He was four. He’s seven now, still in maintenance chemo. But the kid is amazing, minus being an asshole to the twins. I had this aha moment during a playdate we forced Austin into. My husband and I were trying to deliver as much ‘normal’ as possible.”
“My parents went the opposite route,” I said wryly.
“I remember it. Your poor mom would stick her head in your bedroom door every fifteen minutes when we were there. I thought it was over-the-top smothering at the time. But now?” She blew out a breath. “I don’t know how she was able to restrain herself. I thought we were going to lose him. And for a few minutes, your mom really did lose you.”
“Well, I’m glad your son is doing better,” I said, feeling all kinds of awkward.
“With the help of his friends. He and his two best friends were outside throwing rocks into the creek. Something upset him and Austin had a pretty epic fit. Called them names. Told them he didn’t want to play with them anymore. And you know what they did?”
“Started throwing rocks at each other?”
Angie grinned and shook her head. Her eyes glistened. “Those little doofuses hugged him.” A tear slipped free and slid down her cheek. She wiped it away hastily. “They told him that it was okay that he was feeling bad and that they were going to be his friend no matter how bad he felt.”
I felt a stinging in my eyeballs. “Well, crap.”
“Ugh. I know, right? You wouldn’t think little boys would have more emotional maturity than teen girls, but they did.” Angie swiped away another tear. “Anyway, that was a turning point for Austin. He stopped fighting his treatments so hard. His temper tantrums got fewer and farther between. And he started enjoying ‘normal’ again. That’s when I realized how badly we’d messed up that turning point for you. We didn’t dig in. We didn’t accept the bad and we weren’t patient enough to wait for the good to come back. And for that, I’m so very sorry. What happened to you wasn’t fair and neither was how we handled it. But because of you, I was able to be a better mom to my son when he needed me the most.”
I couldn’t blink, because if I did, the hot tears would escape and wreak havoc on my kick-ass eyeliner.
“Wow,” I managed.
Angie dug a wad of tissues out of her mom purse. “Here,” she said, offering me half of it.
“Thanks.” I took it and dabbed at my eyes.
“Well, I didn’t expect to be doing this tonight,” she said with a sniffly laugh.
“Me neither.” I blew my nose and took a swig of wine.
A handsome ginger guy in a ball cap strode up. “Hey, babe, the boys conned me into—oh shit.” He looked at Angie, then to me, then back to Angie. “Is this an I-need-a-hug-and-alcohol-right-now moment or a funnel-cake-will-fix-it moment?”
Angie let out a soggy laugh. “Definitely funnel cake.”
“I’m on it,” he said, pointing at her with both hands. “I love you. You’re beautiful. And me and the boys are so lucky to have you.”
“Extra powdered sugar,” Angie called after him. She turned back to me. “That was my husband. He’s pretty great.”
“I guessed.”
“Can I give you a hug now? Or I guess, more accurately, can you give me a hug?” she asked.
I hesitated for the briefest of seconds and then decided. “Yeah.”
I opened my arms and she walked right into them. It was weird how not weird it felt to be hugging an old friend who I’d thought I’d lost. Dozens of memories of better times surfaced and I realized how deep I must have buried them.
“Hey, Lina! Get your ass over here. We need you in the photo booth,” Sloane shouted from the sidewalk. She was dressed as Robin Hood, and the long feather in her green felt cap was already broken.
“Hurry up before my fingers get frostbite,” Naomi called, wiggling a boozy milkshake at me. She was dressed as Pride and Prejudice’s Elizabeth Bennet in an empire-waist gown with some impressive cleavage.
“Or before we bring all the boys to the yard,” Sloane added.
On cue, Harvey the biker raced up to them and started dancing.
I laughed and released Angie. “I’d better go.”
“Yeah, me too. Who knows what the twins conned my husband into.”
“Twins? You poor thing,” I teased.
“The worst. Don’t ever do it,” she joked. “Anyway, we live forty-five minutes from here. Do you think I could give you my number and we could get together someplace that doesn’t allow children?”
“I’d like that.”
“It’s great to see you. I’m glad you found some real friends,” Angie said with that proud mom smile.
We traded numbers and went our separate ways.
I submitted to two rounds of posing in the photo booth and sampled Naomi’s milkshake. Sloane handed me a copy of the printout and we laughed at the antics captured.
Real friends. That’s what Angie had called them. Naomi and Sloane had accepted all of me, including my less-than-perfect parts.
Was I still holding everyone at arm’s length? And was it time to change?
“We should dance,” Sloane announced.
“I don’t know if I can dance. These gussets make it hard to breathe,” Naomi said, fiddling with the ribbing under her boobs.