Page 36 of You Will Never Be Me

“No, it’s not fine. I was a huge bitch and you deserved better. So I’m sorry.”

Aspen puts her hand on mine and squeezes it. “Thank you.”

I sigh with relief. There. I’ve apologized, and we can both move on.

“So—” we both say at the same time, then laugh. “You first,” I say.

“Okay.” Aspen tucks her shiny hair behind one ear. “What’s been going on with you? Mer, you’ve grown so huge! Online, Imean. Not like, in person. In person you’re as skinny as ever,” she says with a wink.

“Um, yeah, I guess I have been growing online.”

“Dude, fuck ‘growing,’ you blew the hell up!” Aspen cries. “I mean, you have what, three million followers on TikTok now? That is amazing growth. Seriously, I’m so proud of you!” She puts an arm around my shoulders and squeezes. “I always knew you were going to be a huge star.”

There is no condescension in her voice. Not a single patronizing note. I look at Aspen and wonder how the hell I could’ve read her so wrong all those months ago? All I see now is sincere happiness shining through her eyes as she goes on and on about how well deserved my success is. And the purity of her joy is like a knife stabbing right into my chest. Because of course, I don’t deserve any of it. The only reason I became so successful in the past couple of months is because of Elea’s iPad. I should tell Aspen the truth. But the thought of it crushes me, pressing down on all sides until I’m compressed into one single hard lump.

“Oh, you know,” I say, waving vaguely. “I got lucky. Got a couple of good collabs and…yeah.”

“About freaking time,” Aspen says. “You deserve it.”

I drain my glass and refill it; then, when the guilt overwhelms me, I excuse myself to run to the kitchen to fetch us more snacks. When I come back, Aspen is finishing her own glass of champagne.

“So what about you? What have you been up to? How are the girls?”

Aspen’s smile wanes. I lift the bottle to refill her glass and realize with a start that it’s finished.

“Wow, we went through that fast,” Aspen says.

I narrow my eyes at her. “I know it’s early, but do you wanna—”

“Prosecco?” she says.

We shriek with laughter. Oh my god, it feels so good to have my best friend back. I jump up and go to the kitchen, and Aspen trails behind me, filling me in on the details of her life.

“Noemie’s the same old sweetheart,” she says, and I smile at the thought of my quiet, sweet goddaughter. “Yesterday, she saw that I was having a really tough day, and she wrote me this card.” She takes out her phone and shows me a picture of a card written in childish cursive. It says, “Mommy plees don’t be sad you are the best mommy in the werld.”

“Aww!” I say. “Noemieee, god, what a sweetie.” I take out the prosecco from the fridge and pour some into two clean glasses. We make our way back to the living room. “What about my little firecracker Elea?”

Aspen rolls her eyes and takes a large gulp of prosecco. “You know what she’s like. Six going on sixteen. Oh my god, I can’t even imagine what she’ll be like as a rebellious teen.” She makes a face.

I laugh. “Come on, of the two of them, Elea’s the one who takes after you, you know.”

She gives a rueful smile. “I know. And Sabbie misses Luca.”

“Aww, Luca misses Sabbie too.”

Aspen releases a defeated sigh. “And Ben…”

Despite the pleasant fuzz from all the alcohol, the mention of Ben makes my stomach clench. Did he mention me to Aspen? The thought sends a cold trail of fear crawling up my neck. No, don’t be so freaking stupid, of course he didn’t. If he did, she wouldn’t be here, sharing a bottle of prosecco with me. I force myself to release my breath.

“Ben’s been so distant,” Aspen says. “And my accounts aren’t growing fast enough. I’ve been missing meetings and stuff…it’s all been pretty shit, actually. Oh, and remember those troll comments I started getting a few months back? They’ve grown even worse now.”

My guts are writhing and twisting. I want to throw up. Somehow, I manage to bite my tongue and keep myself from saying anything.

Aspen laughs, and it’s a horrible, wobbly sound. “I don’t understand what’s been going on. Why I’ve been so scattered, how I managed to miss all those meetings—it’s been horrible.” Her gaze locks on mine and my heart stops because I can tell, in this awful moment, that she’s going to tell me she knows what I’ve done.

Instead, Aspen says, “Honestly, Mer? I’ve been a mess without you,” and of all the things she could’ve said, this is the one that breaks me. Because the only reason why she’s been a mess is me.

Tell her!everything inside me screams. And still, I don’t. I say, “Me too.” And I smile at her.

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