Part 10 (2/2)

”Laney is my best friend now. Or, we are best friends now, I guess.” Wait, what? ”It's just that I needed to have someone around once you weren't there anymore and she's being really cool. You know how it is.”

I really don't. I can barely figure out what it was she just told me.

Nadine has a new best friend now.

After all these years... I'm not Nadine's best friend anymore.

I moved away, and she found someone new. The pit in my stomach grows to the size of a black hole. I don't know what to think or do. But Nadine seems to be waiting for me to say something and the silence is becoming suffocating.

I don't want her to see how much she hurt me. Is hurting me. Because it's now all too clear she doesn't care all that much about my feelings. I've been replaced in a matter of months by some girl Nadine had only met two weeks before I moved. Laney had been the new girl in the neighborhood. One of many. But for some reason even before I'd gone away, Nadine made a point of hanging out with her. Like she was trying to replace me before I left. I saw it happening then, and I tried not to think about it since.

Was this inevitable? Or could I have changed things if I'd just seen this coming?

I'm not Nadine's best friend. She found someone she likes better.

What I want to do is tell Nadine that it feels like I've just been dumped. But that's what I would say to my best friend-someone who I could rely on to have my back when it feels like the world is against me. Instead, I try and hide how much this hurts. ”I guess we knew this would happen,” I say. I consider telling her I had a new best friend too. But as much as I need to bury the sting of this, I also don't want her to be able to justify away what she's doing right now. Because I don't have someone new. Nothing even close. I met new people, but I've always thought of her as my best friend.

Is she still my best friend if I'm not hers? It's not like there's anyone else I'd list instead.

I try so hard to keep my tears at bay. At this point, crying is only going to make things uncomfortable. Or maybe that's exactly what I should do. Maybe if she sees how upset I am she'll change her mind. But I know as soon as the thought crosses my mind that it's a bad idea. It's an impossible idea.

We both wait almost indefinitely for the other person to say something else. No one speaks. Eventually Nadine turns over in bed, pointing herself away from me. She's making it clear that there's nothing I can say that will change this.

Nadine has a new best friend I wipe my damp cheeks on Reese's pillow and try to sleep. Instead, I spend at least an hour replaying the conversation we just had and trying to figure out what the h.e.l.l happened.

Chapter 16.

I couldn't have gotten much sleep last night, but I don't wake up for good until Reece shows up and storms around the bedroom as she gets dressed.

”Sorry,” I groan. ”We took over your room.” Right. We ended up leaving the attic for a little one-on-one time. I got hard-core friend dumped last night. Okay, not dumped in the literal sense. But broken up with. We are no longer best friends.

I didn't realize how much being Nadine's best friend had been part of my ident.i.ty. I'd seen my sisters go through several best friends for as long as I can remember. They'd announce new ones, rank their friends from best to worst, and meet new people faster than I could eat lunch. But my best friend had always been Nadine. And she'd come all this way to tell me that everything had changed.

G.o.d, had she only come out here because she didn't want to dump me through a text? Why was it necessary to even tell me this at all? Okay, I would have been p.i.s.sed if she hadn't told me, if I found out some other way too. This would have crushed me no matter how it played out.

Nadine is still asleep, or at least pretending to be. She has always been a ridiculously deep sleeper because her mom is constantly banging around the house doing renovations. But I can't be sure whether she can hear everything going on around her right now. I signal to Reece to be quiet before disappearing through the bathroom to my own room. Unsurprisingly, Rhiannon and Marybeth are already up and gone. Which begs the question of what time it is. And where is my phone?

Mornings are really not my thing.

I give up on accomplis.h.i.+ng anything more than changing in to jeans and a s.h.i.+rt and make my way downstairs. Some years, my dad would put together a big post-Thanksgiving breakfast. This time it looks like he's simply stacked a variety of cereal in the middle of the table, put out nine bowls and has gone back to bed. It's kind of sweet he thought to do anything at all.

We all owe both our parents so many thank you's once this weekend is over.

Reilly and Lily are still sitting at the table eating breakfast and a couple of the bowls are already in the sink. I fill up the one closest to me with Rice Krispies, eat as fast as I can and took off, not saying more than a few words to anybody. I don't want to deal with anyone right now. But there's still nowhere I can go to get a little privacy. Going on a walk might've been an option if it wasn't already around freezing outside.

I plant myself in front of the TV and turn on some cartoons, hoping everyone will get the message that I'm not awake yet and not willing to deal with people.

I only move when Nadine comes downstairs to eat. And okay, it was kind of lame of me not to wait for her or woken her up, knowing she wouldn't be comfortable coming downstairs on her own. But instead of heading to the kitchen to keep Nadine company-I still don't know what to say to her-I move around the house at a frantic pace, cleaning up anything left behind from last night's dinner. Because, as much as everyone wants to take the morning to finish digesting, we are still having people over tonight and it'll be the first chance anyone here has to see the house.

Too weird.

Any other day I'd be annoyed that absolutely no one moved to help me, but we hadn't made that much of a mess last night. The less people working to tidy up, the longer it would take me. The longer I could avoid talking to Nadine.

So much for hiding how much she hurt me. But it's not like she has tried to talk to me yet either. She probably thinks I'm avoiding her. Which I am. But I still need more time to process.

The hours pa.s.s and I eventually crack, talking to Nadine, but only when there are other people in the room. I don't want to be petty, and I can tell I'm making things weird for everyone, but I'm also not ready to talk about what happened.

This wasn't how this weekend was supposed to go.

T-minus-three hours left until everyone else should arrive, and my parents force us into a board game day. It's something we did almost weekly in Richmond, but haven't gotten back into since moving to Fairview. The joy of kicking Rhiannon's b.u.t.t at Ticket to Ride is almost enough to take my mind off everything else.

When Nadine and I end up at the same table to play Scrabble, we somehow manage to talk like nothing has changed. And I guess, for her, nothing has. She's known about this for a while now. How long has she been thinking of ways to let me in on the news?

I'm basically an idiot. But, I force the thought away. If I dwell on this enough, I'll start crying again. And I need her to think I'm okay. It doesn't need to be true, but she needs to think it is anyway.

For a second, I search the seven letters in front of me to find some pa.s.sive-aggressive way to get my frustration out. But the best word I can come up with is fork, and that hardly seems appropriate. Though, if I play it right, it may get me at least a few points.

”Nadine, I can't wait for you to meet Rosie. I think you guys will get along.” I keep my voice light, and Nadine watches me like I've gone completely insane. But my dad and Reilly both nod long, looking excited and having no idea what's going on between my ex-best friend and I.

And now I'm imagining how I will tell my sisters that Nadine has declared me not good enough to be her best friend.

Nope, nope, nope. This is not what we're doing today. I only managed to get one of my new friends to come over tonight, and that's what I need to focus on. Because my friends in Fairview are the people I need to learn to count on.

I chatter on about my new friends here for a bit longer, before realizing Nadine can probably see right through all of this. When it comes down to it, she still knows me better than anyone I'm not related to. She'll get exactly what I'm doing, and that I can't stop obsessing about all of this in my head.

But it's not my job to make this okay for her! Frustration keeps. .h.i.tting me in fresh waves, and all I want to do is rant to her, to anyone. To get all of this off my chest!

Couldn't she at least wait until her last night here before dumping this on me? She had to know how crazy this would make me. Otherwise, she wouldn't have felt the need to tell me anything at all.

It's only when the doorbell rings that I finally force myself to push all of this aside, at least for now.

A bunch of people I don't recognize arrive first. I a.s.sume they're friends with Reece, but a moment later the black girl I'd seen talking to Reilly that day after the volleyball game, follows in behind everyone else, talking with Jen.

Wait, Jen's here?

I rush towards the door, eager to greet my first guest, even if it's one I wasn't expecting. I never heard anything from Jen or Frank after they'd first told me they weren't sure whether or not they'd be able to come tonight. I a.s.sumed that was their way of politely blowing me off. But here she is.

”Hey, you're here?” Okay, not the way most people would welcome friends to their house.

”There is literally nothing going on in my house, so my mom couldn't come up with a good reason to keep me there. And besides, the holiday was yesterday. Today everyone was just sitting around and digesting, or listening to my aunt's Black Friday horror stories.”

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