Page 132 of Backslide
She toggles her head and, because she’s a better woman than I, she says, “I know, Nells. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” I say, shaking my head. “But that’s how it went. And I’m still trying to unravel where I went wrong.”
“I think maybe it was when you stopped telling me…everything.”
“Yeah,” I say, bringing a hand to my shoulder and kneading where it has started to feel sore again. “That definitely didn’t help.”
She turns to face me then, propping her knee on the bed between us. And the look on her face kind of breaks me further. Because instead of angry, she looks hurt. Now her big brown eyes are welling too.
“Nellie. Why didn’t you tell me? Do you not feel close enough to me anymore? Were you worried I would judge you?”
I have to think about that for a second, consider the truth versus the narrative I have told myself for so long, as I stare at the vaulted ceiling. “No,” I say, finally. “It was never that. I don’t feel less close to you—at least I don’t want to. And I don’t ever feel judged by you. I mean, I’m the judgmental one.”
We both shake our heads and mumble something similar simultaneously like, “Not counting Sab.”
We smile at each other.
“The thing is, Cara, you have so much on your plate. More than I can even understand. Two small kids and a husband and this giant job. Your time is so precious. I never want to bother you with my petty shit. You havesomuch going on in your life.”
“But that’s what you don’t understand,” she says, frustrated. “I havenothinggoing on in my life. I mean, yes. All those things—but also nothing. Every day is the same. I wake up, I get the kids to school or day care, I get myself to work, I sit on Zoom, I sit in conference rooms, I drink the same iced latte, occasionally with oat milk. I leave work, I get home, I make dinner.Again. Some members of my family maybe eat it. Mostly they whine for dessert. And then I basically pass out from fatigue and, before it feels like I’ve even really slept, I wake up and start again. I feel like the most boring person alive!”
How have I missed this? This struggle she is having. How have I been so self-involved that I didn’t notice my best friend was wrestling with her own growing pains?
I have been so obsessed with feeling left behind in some way, with thinking that I didn’t have a right to her time, that I forgot that moving forward is hard too.
“You’re not the most boring person alive,” I say. “I know that for a fact. Because that’s definitely Ben’s friend Percy from college. Iknow because I had to talk to him at cocktails the first night about his mortgage, and I fell asleep with my eyes open.”
She giggles, despite herself. “Poor Percy.”
“Poor Percy.” I put a hand to my heart.
“The point is, I need to hear your petty shit,” Cara says. “I live for your petty shit. And your less petty shit, too. Because it helps me feel likeme.” She sighs, places her hands slightly behind her, and leans back. “Nellie, it’s been a really hard stretch.” She drags a hand across her forehead. “I feel like I don’t even know who I am anymore. It’s like I’ve totally lost myself—and now I’m just a snack dispenser and a lady in waiting for two tiny lunatics—and one larger, lovable dumbass.”
Suddenly, I can see the exhaustion in her face like it was always there. Only I hadn’t been looking. Like one of those optical illusions. An autostereogram. Where the image emerges when you stop trying to focus. “Oh, CB.”
“I used to be fun! Right? Didn’t I used to be fun?”
“You’re still fun! The most fun!”
“Meh,” she says, frowning. “I feel like a fun killer. And I’ve been dragging Ben all over the city, to Japanese whisky bars and like Peruvian hand roll restaurants and God knows what else Instagram served me, trying to recapture something. I just wanted to feel… free or something again.” She smiles sadly. “I’m not even sure he wanted to do this party. But I pushed him into it. And, actually, I do think having a little time together without the kids helped.”
I study her face for a beat, the crease between her brows. “Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling this way?”
“Maybe one thing we have in common is that we don’t like other people to know when it feels like we’re failing.”
“I hear you,” I say, placing a hand on her forearm. “But you are literally never failing. If you’re failing, the rest of us are dead in the water. The human race might as well just lie down in defeat.”
She sighs. We both do. Then she says, “I’m sorry about Alfie.”
I tilt my head, narrow one eye. “Are you, though?”
“No.” She shakes her head, definitively. “I hated him. He actually really sucks.”
Then it’s my turn to shake my head. “I mean, you guys should have told me he was the worst so long ago!”
“What were we going to say? ‘Sorry to inform you, but the guy you’re planning on marrying is the wettest blanket since we potty-trained Olivia’?”
“Yes. Something like that would have done the trick.”
