Page 34 of Promise Me Sunshine

“The point wasn’t ugliness,” I try to explain. “The point was that when we were together, just the two of us, we didn’t spend any time worrying about being pretty. It was that being ugly was okay, no big deal.”

“Like a state-of-mind sort of thing.”

“I guess? It was more about just letting ourselves relax. It’s not that we were never interested in makeup or stylish clothes or whatever. It wasn’t about rejecting any of that. It was more that…well, I guess my friendship with her was this safe zone…a sphere of fugly that other people’s judgments just sort of bounced right off of.”

“Ah. I get it. She wasn’t just a pal. She was your comrade.”

And I just break.

A torrent of tears burn their way out of me. I’m bent over and gasping for air and every muscle I have is bearing down, trying to squeeze this pain clear of me so that I can live. Because I won’t survive if it stays. How could anyone endure this? How canIendure this?

Distantly, I’m aware of a group of people walking past us, probably staring at me. Miles takes a step to the side, shielding me from their view.

Comrade.“I never thought about it that way, but…” She was. It’s the perfect word to describe her. She was the one at my side. Had my back. No words necessary. I had one personon this earth who would have died for me, and I would have died for her if possible. But it wasn’t possible. There was nothing I could do.

“There was nothing I could do.” The words are broken, sliced, aching with fresh blood.

“You’re doing it right now,” Miles says quietly. “There’s never anything we can do to keep someone alive, Lenny. There’s no bargain you can make. It’s an illusion. A terrible illusion. The only thing you ever could have done is what you’re doing right now. Sending her off.”

I keep crying. For a long, terrible time. Eventually we’re walking again and then we’re arriving at the studio apartment.

“Thanks,” I manage, swollen eyes on the darkened sky. “Thanks for the nap and the food and the—” I gesture to…everything.

He nods and then, “You all right?”

“No. But…”

I have to be alone now and he seems to get it.

He follows me up the stoop stairs to the brownstone door, and when I drop the keys he scoops them up and unlocks the door for me. He turns my backpack strap right side out. I’m standing there watching him fix everything and tears are drop-drop-dropping off my nose. He’s standing there watching me cry and then he lifts the hem of his T-shirt and quickly wipes the tears off my nose. New ones replace the old ones and he does it again.

“Call me,” he says sternly.

I turn to leave and he puts one hand gently on my shoulder, pausing me.

“Lenny.”

“I promise,” I concede. “I’ll call.”

“Hold still!”

I’m laughing and wiggling out from under Lou’s eyeliner torture. But she’s obsessed and I am her crash test dummy. The new 5Night music video is dropping in half an hour and she wants to re-create Min’s eye makeup look from the promo pics so that we can enjoy the video release in style. She’s already wearing Eunho’s fake piercings in honor of our everlasting unrequited obsession with the group.

She’s finally finished and I admire her talent in the mirror. I look like the sex kitten version of myself. But also a little bit like an alien. It works for me. “Can you re-create this look for my next date?”

She’s touching up her lipstick. “Are you kidding me? I’ve been begging for that for years.”

She moves on to adjusting the short black wig she’s taken to wearing occasionally while her hair is still growing back in. She seems happy tonight.

I nervously pick up my phone. “Wanna…take a pic to show off our looks?”

For half a second, I see thenocross her face. She used to be the queen of the selfie, but this second bout with cancer has stolen another of her favorites. She never used to care about how she looks in pictures. But now everything is painful. And we haven’t taken one together in over a year.

But this time her chin lifts. “It’s their first comeback in a year and a half. We have to commemorate it.”

Yes! “Plus we look amazing.”

“Totally.”

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