car with a total stranger and drove across a state border.” Her words pierce my chest.
It feels like there’s an iceberg between us, even though we’re both on fire. How is that possible? What is happening to our friendship?
I’m trying hard not to cry. “I can’t believe you’re acting like this right now. What the crap, Chloe?”
“I care about you.”
“You’re guilt-tripping me.”
“I just want you to be safe.”
“You want to yell at me.”
“I’m not yelling!” Chloe shouts at full volume, and then she takes a breath. “You don’t see the signs, but I do. I’ve been your best friend for years. Ignoring me? Being impulsive? Throwing all your attention into one new interest? These are signs.”
“Signs of what?” I ask testily.
“The high before the crash.”
Out of all the words she’s spoken, these are the ones that hurt the most.
Because I thought Chloe knew me better than this. I thought she trusted me more than this.
But here she is, trying to psychoanalyze me. She thinks she knows what I’m feeling better than I do because of what happened in November.
Just because I needed a little extra help once doesn’t mean I’ll need help forever.
And why do people keep assuming I need their help rather than asking if I even want it?
“I’m done talking about this,” I say, the flames heavy in my voice.
Flames she’s too afraid to touch.
“Okay,” she says softly, her own fire withdrawing. “Can you at least try not to be mad at me? Friends are supposed to tell each other the truth.”
I dig my fingernails into my palm. “The truth is, you’re making me feel bad about the first thing that’s made me happy in a really long time.”
“I don’t want you to feel bad.”
“You just want me to be safe,” I say dryly.
“I know you’re being sarcastic, but it’s true.”
I shake my head. “I have to go.”
“Okay,” she says.
I tap the screen, and the second her name disappears, something changes. By the time I reach my trailer, most of the heat has left my face.
I want to be angry at her. Because she’s wrong, and I don’t deserve the way she’s treating me. Like I’ve done something wrong. Like what I’m doing is wrong.
But in the quiet, when I can’t hear the hurt in her voice, my anger feels like a kindling burdened by rain, too damp to catch fire.
Burdened by the things Chloe said—the parts that might even be true.
Because I do forget about her when I’m busy. Not on purpose, but it happens. I get so caught up in the frenzy of whatever I’m focused on that texting my best friend just takes a back seat.
The worst thing about people being a little bit right is that sometimes when you tug that one tiny thread, what starts to unravel looks a whole lot like more truths.
But right now, there’s too much going on. I don’t have the emotional resilience to unpack whatever it is Chloe is trying to tell me.
Some truths are better left tangled and distorted.
Because if I can’t see them clearly, I can pretend that none of them really exist at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Vivien’s shriek sends an ache through my ears. When I spin around, I see her and Dexi in the doorway, clouded in smoke.
I wave the dishcloth at the air frantically, trying to push some of the clouds from the room. “I’m sorry—it was an accident.”
“What is that smell?” Dexi presses the back of her hand to her mouth and coughs, waving her other hand in the air and running to the back of the trailer to throw open the rest of the windows.
Vivien peers into the kitchen sink, where a tray of burnt food sits abandoned, too ambiguously charred for her to make out. “Is it dead?” she asks with widened eyes and a goofy smile on her face.
I’m still waving smoke through the open doorway. “I was trying to make you guys brownies.” Embarrassment washes over me.
Dexi appears with a towel and tries to coax the smoke toward the windows. “Are you sure? Because it kind of looks like you were trying to burn the trailer down.”
Vivien glances nervously at the microwave. “Did you remember to turn it off grill mode?”
“What the heck is grill mode?” I ask like I’m in pain.
Dexi shakes her head. Vivien stifles a giggle.
“Come on,” Vivien says. “We’ll leave the door open and wait for the smoke to clear.”
The three of us plant ourselves in the grass out front. Every single person who walks past