Rules for Being a Girl - Candace Bushnell Page 0,66

fucking hate him too.”

Thirty-Four

The first couple of days of my suspension aren’t actually so terrible. I watch a bunch of low-budget rom-coms on Netflix. I take myself on a long, winding walk. I heft Gram’s old The Silver Palate Cookbook off the shelf in the kitchen and fumble my way through the recipe for orange-pecan loaf, leave it on the counter for my mom to bring to her and the nurses in the morning.

That’s when the boredom sets in.

I lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling for a while. I will myself not to check my phone. I’m contemplating cleaning out my closet—which is how you know I’m truly desperate—when I hear the doorbell chime downstairs.

“Marin, honey!” my mom calls a moment later, the faintest hitch of surprise just barely audible in her voice. “You’ve got company!”

I’m startled too: seriously, is there anybody in my entire life I haven’t somehow alienated lately? I shuffle out into the hallway and down the steps, making it as far as the landing before I stop on the matted carpet. Chloe is standing in the foyer in a silky top and a pair of open-toed booties, hands shoved into the back pockets of her dark skinny jeans. Her eyeliner is as perfectly applied as always, but for the first time in a long, long time her lips are pale.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, but then I notice the hunch of her narrow shoulders like she’s shielding herself from a blow, and some dormant best-friend instinct sputters creakily to life. “Are you okay?”

Chloe shrugs, squinting at the 3D sea-glass sculpture on the wall in the hallway instead of looking at me. “Can we talk?” she asks.

I glance from her to my mom, who’s slipping discreetly into her office, then back to Chloe again. “Sure.”

I pull a hoodie off the row of hooks next to the front door and we head outside to sit on the porch swing, the chain link groaning quietly as we rock back and forth. We’ve had almost every important conversation of our friendship out here: sixth grade, the two of us trying valiantly to decipher the primitive dick-and-balls cartoon Brandon Farrow had scribbled on the back cover of her notebook; freshman spring when she told me her sister was leaving college to do inpatient eating-disorder treatment; last year when I was deciding if I wanted to lose my virginity to Jacob. I used to think I could tell Chloe anything. But now I don’t know what to say.

In the end it turns out I don’t have to.

“Can I ask you a question?” she begins, picking at the polish on her freshly painted thumbnail. She still isn’t looking at me. “Why did you trash Bex’s car?”

I whirl around, shocked all over again. “That’s what you came here to yell at me about?” I demand. “His douchey car? Because if it is you can just—”

“Can you calm down?” Chloe interrupts, finally turning to look at me. Her eyes are hot as flame. “I’m not yelling at you. Do you hear me yelling at you? I’m just asking you why you did it.”

I shrug. “Why do you even care?”

Chloe huffs a breath out. “Marin,” she says, tilting her head back against the swing. “Come on.”

“You come on.” I’m being a baby—I know I’m being a baby—but I can’t help it. I don’t know how to not be hurt by what she did.

“Look.” Chloe peels a flake of polish off her pinky nail, flicking it onto the floor of the porch. “I know I haven’t been a very good friend to you lately—and I know that’s even an understatement, probably,” she says, holding a hand up when I let out a sound of protest. “And you don’t owe me any kind of explanation. But I’m listening, if you want to tell me.”

So: I tell her. I tell Chloe everything, from Bex’s first day back to my call with Kalina, to his grip on my arm that day in the stairwell. “He wanted to get back at me for telling, and he did,” I finish finally. “So I guess I just wanted to . . . get back at him too.” I reach one foot out and push off the porch railing harder than I mean to, and we go swinging forward quickly. “But the only person I actually ruined anything for was myself.”

The swing creaks back and forth, back and forth, and Chloe doesn’t say anything. When I glance in her