Part 21 (2/2)
”You can do it,” Sam a.s.sured her. ”You need to get some help, though, like from the counseling service at Yale.”
Emma pushed her bangs out of her face and tried to smile. ”It seems terrible, doesn't it, that it takes some tragedy to make us face our prob- lems?”
”It's just not fair,” Sam said pa.s.sionately. ”But at least we've got a shot at it. Kevin doesn't.”
”Let's not waste it!” Carrie said fervently.
Emma looked at her friends. ”I've been an idiot. I was so afraid you'd judge me.”
”I've been an idiot, too,” Carrie said. ”I wanted to tell you both so much, but I was afraid.”
”Good thing for you two that I'm the model of mental health,” Sam said. She waited a moment.
”G.o.d, am I full of it. Even now, I'm so used to lying that I can hardly tell the truth.”
”About what?” Emma asked with surprise.
”About my job, or my lack of job,” Sam blurted out. ”I got fired.”
”You what?” Carrie asked.
”Fired,” Sam repeated. ”As in no job. As in unemployed. The ch.o.r.eographer said I was too original.”
”So why didn't you just tell us?” Emma asked with surprise.
”Oh, sure,” Sam said, getting up from the couch. ”You two in college, everything just hunky- dory, and me, the dropout, I can't even hold down a job.”
”Well, everything isn't hunky-dory,” Carrie said. ”And we would have understood.”
”Maybe,” Sam allowed grudgingly.
”And maybe we've been underestimating one another,” Emma said quietly. She went to the window and looked out toward the road, the road where everything had changed.
No one said a word for a moment.
”I'm a better person than this,” Emma finally whispered softly.
”You're a wonderful person,” Sam agreed.
Emma turned to her, her eyes bright with tears. ”So are you. And you!” she said, turning to Carrie.
Carrie hugged the pillow to herself. ”We can't bring him back, and I don't know what it all means,” she said, her eyes s.h.i.+ning. ”I do know this: that the only thing we can do to make Kevin's death meaningful, is to try to live the very best lives we can.”
”But it won't change a thing!” Sam cried an- grily. ”He'll still be dead. And we'll still feel like we screwed up for having let him drive after we knew he'd been drinking.”
”Sam's right,” Emma agreed.
”Maybe there's a bigger plan, and we just can't see it,” Carrie whispered.
”I'd like to believe that,” Emma said softly.
”I'd like to believe in something,” Sam said in a choked voice, tears rolling down her cheeks.
”Well, we'll have to start with ourselves, and work up from there,” Carrie said. ”And just think, in only two months we'll all be here together again. And then we can look out for each other.”
”And no more secrets,” Emma added.
Carrie and Sam nodded. The three girls stared out over the bay, watching the sun disappear below the horizon.
<script>