Page 17 of Moving Forward

“A dramatic end to a dramatic morning,” I smile.

“Ellie is a dramatic girl.”

“Thanks, Danny. I’m really glad Ellie has you.”

“You’ve got me too, you know,” Danny reminds me. “Just remember that when you move away.”

My jaw drops. “How did you know—?”

The door opens and Ellie runs in, tears streaming down her cheeks, her arms open wide. She flings herself down on the couch and wraps her arms around me. “I’m so, so sorry. God, I’m a bitch. I’m a royal bitch. I don’t know what came over me! I just . . . I went crazy.”

“It’s alright, El,” I sigh. “I understand. You were protecting me.”

“I was, but I should have done it differently. I should’ve warned you privately, not confronted you like I did. I’m just a terrible, rotten friend—like the worst. When I’m not forcing you to date, I’m murdering your friendships. I need to be in a record book or something.”

“Ellie, in the four years we’ve been friends, have we ever fought?” I ask.

“No.”

“Then it’s okay,” I tell her. “It’s really, really okay. You’ve put up with me for a while and now it’s my turn to put up with you. Got it?”

She wipes at her eyes and then hugs me hard. It would take a lot to end our friendship after all we’ve gone through. She would never, ever walk out on me, even though I basically slept for an entire semester after we lost Ethan, only leaving my dark bedroom to go to class. Because of the patience she’s shown me, I’ll never be able to repay her. We’re stuck with each other through the good and the bad. Our friendship is a cycle of give and take. It just happens to be my turn to give.

Danny laughs. “Thank God I don’t have to live in a soap opera anymore.”

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Two weeks pass by in the blink of an eye, barely a break to be found. We’re constantly checking on appointments with the caterers or preparing decorations for the reception, which will be held in the Millers’ backyard. It seems like every night there’s another party to attend, either for Ellie and Danny or for Erin and Conner or just because. The Millers are not idle people. And they’re probably the most social people I’ve ever met. At every party, they always have at least a hundred close friends in attendance, and they treat them all like best friends. It amazes me that they can remember everyone’s name, let alone the details of their lives.

Luckily there’s a small lull between parties so Debbie can work on a case and Tom can put a dent in the novel he’s been neglecting. Instead of relaxing, Ellie has taken it upon herself to fill our days. She didn’t listen when I tried to encourage a little R&R. Each time she would clap her hands, bounce in place, and exclaim that there was no time to relax.

Today we went shopping for bathing suits because we’re going on the family’s boat tomorrow. It’ll just be Ellie, Danny, me, a high school friend named Zoey, and Matt, who I still have yet to meet. Ellie hasn’t spoken a word about any more setups since the Cain debacle.

That’s still a touchy subject. I’ve been doing my best to forget about him, but it hasn’t been as easy as I would’ve hoped. In the whole two days I’ve known him, he somehow managed to give me the comfort and the safety I’ve been searching for since Ethan died. Now that he’s disappeared from my life, most of my hope has disappeared right with him. I miss that hope, and then I start missing him too. There’s been a few times I’ve had to talk myself down from going to see him.

“I look fat,” Erin whines, staring at her reflection in the mirror. We met her for lunch after we found our bathing suits (Ellie forced me to buy an extremely stringy and practically invisible bikini), then dropped by the shop to try on our dresses after alterations. “Please tell me it’s the baby and not me.”

“If I say it’s the baby, it’ll be scarred for life and always have a negative self-image,” Ellie points out. She smacks her sister’s butt. “And you don’t look fat.”

“Ouch,” Erin groans, rubbing her butt. “Now I’m fat and I’ll have a handprint on my butt. Conner will not be pleased.”

Once I’m zipped up, I step past them and onto a pedestal. “How’s it look?” I ask, nervously chewing on my thumbnail.

“Now she’s hot. Really, really hot. And so not fat,” Erin pouts ruefully.

Ellie reaches around and smacks my butt too. “But she does have a handprint like yours now.”

I cry out as I try to wiggle the pain away. “That hurt, Ellie. Your butt’s next,” I joke.

“Wow, Max is playing along. Alert the media,” Ellie laughs. “Seriously though, the dress looks awesome on you.” She turns to Erin and commands, “Go. You haven’t even put your dress on yet.”

I stare at myself in the mirrors surrounding me. I don’t feel awesome and I know for a fact I don’t look it either. I’m pale—unhealthily so—and while I’m still curvy, I’ve lost almost too much weight. Then there’s also the disaster that is my hair. I haven’t bothered to get it cut in months, and the only time anything more than a brush touches it is when Ellie gets a hold of me. The deep maroon dress makes me look like death has washed over me.

“Gosh, you might steal my spotlight,” Ellie grins. She steps up behind me and starts playing with my hair, pulling it up and letting it fall down again, frowning each time. “Thank God Danny thinks of you as a sister or else I might get left at the altar. How embarrassing.”

“We’ll be sure to invite you to our elopement to make it up to you,” I offer, giving her a small smile.

“What is with you?” she questions as she pokes me in the back. “You’re joking around today.”

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