“Is it my turn now?” I asked. When Nia nodded, I pressed on. “I’m sorry too. I completely neglected you. You shouldn’t have to ask for me to see you. I should have done that on my own.” I curled my fingers together. “I’m proud of you. But that’s not enough, right? I should have been present for you, and I wasn’t. And so I’ll try to do that, yeah? Just . . . please don’t shut me out again.”
The smile that Nia gave me was sheepish; her eyes turned down to her lap, pillow clutched to her stomach like a shield. It was so different from the Nia she usually presented to the world. When I first met Nia, I’d been struck by her confidence. She had found me sitting alone in our middle school cafeteria and slammed her tray next to mine.
“Hey, nerd,” she’d said, as though we’d been friends for years. “Nice Inuyasha keychain.”
With time, I’d come to recognize her confidence for what it was: a front. But it was a solid one, a brave face she could slip on as easily as a favorite shirt. She wore it most of the time, even for me. I was so used to it that I could easily forget that underneath it, Nia was just as afraid of the world as I was. Maybe that’s why we needed each other so desperately.
Right now, Nia had stripped that front away, but I knew it would be back. It always came back. It was my job, as her best friend, to see through it. And, over the last few months, I had failed at that job. I’d known that Nia was struggling to define her direction in life, but I’d sidelined that, reassured by her jokes and easy smiles that she was okay. I would have to do better in the future.
I reached for her hand and squeezed.
“I missed you,” I confessed. “Can we never fight again?”
“Only if I never wait to tell you that I’m moving out until I’m practically out the door,” Nia offered with a shrug.
I shook my head, chuckling to myself.
“Yeah, well, I was too far up my ass to realize that you even wanted to.” I blew over my tea. “So. How’s living with Shae? By the way, I’m allowed to make a lesbian U-Haul joke about y’all, right? Because come on.”
Nia laughed.
“That part was all business, okay? Shae doesn’t charge me rent. Plus, they live right across the street from the bakery, and now that my hours are going to be about as bad as yours, I didn’t want to commute.”
“Doesn’t charge you rent, huh?” I said. That made sense; Nia didn’t seem in much of a rush to find a subletter. “What a sweet deal.”
“It is,” Nia admitted. She smirked to herself. “You know what’s funny about all of this?” When I swallowed expectantly, she continued. “I’m here right now because of Shae.”
“Because of Shae?” I repeated.
Nia nodded.
“I don’t know if Ricky’s told you this,” Nia said. “But the two of them have been thick as thieves since high school. It’s actually nauseating; Shae always be on that phone texting him.”
I hadn’t noticed, though when I thought about it, Ricky did frequently put down his tablet pen to smirk at his laptop and type. Did that mean that all this time, he’d been cheating at our study game and sneaking in conversations with his bestie? All while tittering at me for being easily distractible? I filed that factoid away for future ribbing and nodded for Nia to keep going.
“But a few years back, when Ricky and She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named got together, Ricky went ghost on Shae,” Nia continued.
“I don’t know this story,” I said softly. I remembered how I’d felt watching Nia pack up her kitchen utensils, and hearing some of that pain reflected in Shae’s voice—I thought you said she was cool with it—
“Well, he didn’t want to,” Nia said. “But you know how the guy is. Most of his friends are women. Camila didn’t like that and gave him an ultimatum. Them versus her. Didn’t even matter to her that Shae isn’t a woman; they got lumped right in.” Nia tilted her head to one side, considering. “It sounds fucked that he would even consider it, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, my fists curling in my lap. If a man I’d just met suggested I get rid of Markus, I would kick him to the curb so quick he’d get whiplash.
“Thing is, those two get each other. So Shae understands why he went along with it. They even let him drift for a while, but both of them were miserable the whole time. Eventually, though, Shae got fed up. Practically banged down Ricky’s door.” Nia chuckled, as if the memory were her own. “They talked, Ricky told his girl to back off, and the rest is history.”