Page 92 of Fun at Parties
I cover my face with my hands. “Your nineteenth-birthday party.”
“Quinn!” she admonishes, and steers me out the door and into the backyard, guiding me to the patio table. She sets the cracked pot and the succulent down in front of us. “Start at the beginning.”
So I do, wringing my hands the whole time but also feeling a cord unwrap itself from around my chest with each confession.
“I can’t believe you took us seriously when we told you not to hook up with any of the guys.” She pokes her head into a tiny garden shed. “I probably said that because Giana had an unrequited crush on Logan and I didn’t want to listen to her drunk-crying over him again.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “You and I had just become friends. It could’ve changed the dynamic, and I couldn’t risk that. You have no idea how lonely I was when I got to college. It was actually a really hard time for me.”
She carries a stack of planters to the table, her forehead wrinkled. Bailey knows all about Jolee, of course, but I’ve always talked about the facts, not about the way it made me feel. Which is why it comes as a surprise when she gently says, “I know that.” My mouth must fall open, because she pats my knee before going on. “You really thought I didn’t? Reading you has always been easy for me. Our brains are on the same wavelength, I guess. Back then, you kind of…radiated sadness.”
My shoulders stiffen, and my voice turns indignant. “I have never radiated sadness in mylife.”
She laughs. “Okay, slight exaggeration. Slight. Becauseyou kind of did, at least to me, even though on the outside you were happy-go-lucky. Singing in the shower, dragging me outside on sunny days to study in the grass. Befriending the lady at the dining hall omelet station. Jumping at the chance to help plan my birthday party in my hometown when you barely knew me.”
“Was it annoying?” She sits next to me, and we sort through the pots to find one that looks like the right size. “That I was one way on the surface but seemed…different underneath?”
“No. Because the way you were on the surface was still you. That part was real too. You were truly and sincerely both.”
I tip my head against her shoulder and close my eyes against the wave of gratitude that comes over me. I have someone in my life who sees me, sometimes even better than I see myself. “I accused Nate of only liking me when I’m sad. Of not understanding the part of me that enjoys waking up at the crack of dawn to cheerlead people through a spin class.”
“Do you really think that’s true?”
“I don’t know.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “It’s harder from a distance, you know. Getting a read on you. It’s easier for me to tell how you’re feeling in person.”
I gather my courage. “You probably got tired of trying to figure out what was really going on. I owe you an apology, Bail. Not just for being an emotional shit show, but for not pulling my weight. I could’ve made time to visit. I could’ve been the one who picked up the phonesometimes. But I was in denial about how much I was struggling. It was hard to think about everything I walked away from here, the good and the bad. And whether it seems like it or not, itishard for me to hide things from you. The only two people I have trouble bullshitting are you and—well.”
Each of my regrets pricks at my chest at once, like pushpins on a map stretching from the West Coast to the East. The apartment building in Philadelphia where I abandoned my best friend. All the places in L.A. where I lied to her. The CycleLove studio, where I lied to myself. A bright red pin in the southeast, the place where I let fear break my heart and Nate’s.
“I’m sorry I let you down,” I continue, rubbing my stinging throat. “I understand why you started to distance yourself.”
“I felt like you were moving on, and it was time for me to let that happen.”
I shake my head vehemently. “No. That’s why I had to come out here and make this party perfect, because I want to do better. I’m at, like, a seventy percent costume rate, by the way. All I have to do is stay the course and keep following up with people in a mildly annoying way, and I’ll hit ninety, at least. I promise.”
She laughs in surprise. “Quinn. I don’t care about the costumes, or the big dramatic gesture of you coming to my party. I love you, and all I want is for us to talk regularly and be real with each other when we do. If you can try to do that, we’re good.”
“I will,” I say. “You’re my favorite person, and I promiseI’ll do better. I’ll even watchThe Traitorsso you have someone to talk about it with.”
“Favorite person? What about the guy you just boned across the country?” She chooses a planter that looks about the right size.
“Half the country.” I gently extract the succulent from the cracked pot, and she guides it into the new one. “And he’s my other favorite person. I can have two, you know.”
“As long as I’m always your ‘favorite person,’ and he’s always your ‘otherfavorite person.’ ”
I smile, but then I remember that I lost Nate, and the corners of my mouth wobble. “I’m sad,” I whisper. “And scared. That I gave up something irreplaceable, and I’m going to regret it.”
She wraps an arm around me. “Do you have to give him up? I know CycleLove is a big job, and I’m proud of you for getting there and how hard you’ve worked. But is it worth it?”
“I’m so afraid.” I swallow thickly. “Overhauling my whole life because I miss my favorite people would be ridiculous. I’m a grown woman. I can’t give up my career for a man, and no offense, but people don’t move cross-country just to live closer to their friends.”
“Whynot?”
Why not, indeed. I thought about it a lot on the drive up here. People choose where to live based on work, or family, or the appeal of the location itself. Why does it feel weird to choose based on friendship?
“CycleLove gives me financial stability,” I say. “I justwant to get to a point where it stops feeling like everything I have could disappear at any moment.”
