BFF Breakup (16 page)

“What's an OMG girl?” I asked.

“Susanna, Natalie, and Julia? Haven't you ever noticed how they always say, ‘Oh my god!' Like, in every sentence.”

Lily said, “They don't say it every sentence.”

“Most of them,” Corrine said.

“That's true,” Lily conceded. “Most of them.”

“Admit it's a little annoying,” Corrine teased, nudging Lily with her elbow.

A smile crept across her face. “Okay, a little bit.”

“Ha! I knew it,” Corrine said. “And you know it's bad when Lily agrees.”

I smiled, watching them. I liked how gently Corrine teased Lily, how I never once wondered if there was a vicious undertone to anything she said to her.

“Well, listen,” Corrine said. “I'm sorry you had a big fight with Madeline, and if you decide to make up with her that's cool. It's up to you. But honestly, the way those OMG girls act, it's like they're a lost cause. Only someone like Lily could save them.”

Was she right? Was Madeline a lost cause? How could my best friend change so quickly? I looked at the pizza grease resting on my paper plate and wondered if things could really change so quickly and, if so, could they ever change back? And would I want them to?

At home that night, I told myself I had to accept the truth that my friendship with Madeline had run its course. We were really over. If she felt a shred of guilt for hanging me out to dry and for what she said, she would have said something by now. It's not like she hasn't had plenty of chances.

So that's it,
I thought.
I no longer have a best friend.
I knew it before but only as an idea I was trying on, like sunglasses I knew were too big but I wanted to see how they looked anyway. It was time to accept the facts, though. As horrible as it was, I had to let go of hoping some miraculous event would bring us back together, erase what happened, and leave both of us with no guilt or feelings of resentment toward each other.

As I drifted off to sleep, I wondered what she was doing, and if she missed me at all.

F
RIDAY NIGHT I COULDN'T SLEEP. SUSANNA WAS
spending the weekend at her grandmother's, and Natalie and Julia had tickets to some concert. Josh was going to the football game but before he left, he stuck his head in my room.

“Hey, loser,” he said. “Staying home to wash your hair?”

“Get out!” I screamed, throwing a pillow at him as he laughed.

Worse, even my dad had plans. His best friend,
this guy Adam he went to college with, wanted to “get him out of the house,” as if leaving this wretched place was the right thing for all adults to do. I got a knot in my stomach just looking at Adam. His mustache-less beard didn't help.

“Your old dad needs to relax for the night, forget about everything. Don't you think he deserves that?” he'd asked me with a shine in his eyes. I wondered if he'd been wanting to hang out with my dad for a long time but couldn't because of my mom or something. I knew Adam had gotten divorced last year. Dad had helped him move out of his house. He was probably just waiting for someone else to split up so he could go to bars and get rowdy, or whatever it is that divorced dads do.

Ugh. So gross.

I had to admit, though, Dad looked pretty relaxed as he and Adam had a beer and chomped mixed nuts while they watched the end of some baseball game. He was all showered and shaved and had his shirt tucked in. If I didn't know better, I might have thought he was going out on a date.

Double gross.

“You sure you'll be alright here by yourself?” he asked as they got their coats to leave. I realized then that he was
wearing cologne. I couldn't remember the last time he'd worn cologne.

“I'll be fine,” I told him.

“Give Brooke a call, have her come over and keep you company.” He pecked me on the top of my head. “Be good, keep the doors locked, and call me if you need anything.”

“I will,” I said, and the stinging realization that he hadn't noticed that Brooke hadn't been around for weeks hit me.

Adam clapped my dad on the back and said, “Come on, old guy!” and out they went.

Standing in the foyer of our house, I felt the immense silence of the empty space. I told myself it's not that big of a deal to stay home on an occasional Friday night. I didn't have to go out every single weekend, after all.

I made myself some pasta and watched TV. I took a long bubble bath, the water so hot that my skin turned red, and I stayed in as long as I could, sweat beading on my forehead at first, then the water turning cool as I started to chill. In my room I goofed around online, watched some more TV, and flipped through a magazine.

I couldn't stop thinking about Brooke. When I was around my friends it was easy to ignore her and what happened, but when I was home alone with nothing to
do, it became impossible to not think about her. I was still angry at her,
my best friend,
for treating my new friends the way she had. I would never have done that to her—if she'd made new friends, that is. I started to wonder why she'd clung to me so tightly, practically refusing to make new friends. Like we were
together
or something.

I missed her, though. Even though it was kind of annoying, like Susanna said, I did sort of miss her smart-alecky ways. I even missed the dumb creek. I wondered if her dad had built that rope swing yet. I hadn't been out there since our fight. It felt more like Brooke's territory than mine, even though that's where we met and where we became best friends. I had no reason to go and besides, I had nice shoes now that I didn't want to ruin.

I told myself this whole fight thing was so stupid. How did it all start really? Brooke had been a jerk to my friends and I had snapped back at her. Brooke had completely ignored me and what I'd been going through with my parents so I said something mean to her, which I'm sure she knew I didn't really mean anyway. So we were both at fault.

I started thinking about how I was growing up pretty fast, having to deal with my parents' divorce and Mom moving out. Susanna said that when she looks back on herself before her parents' split, she was embarrassed at
how naïve she was, and how she had to learn to deal with things on her own. “You have to depend on yourself, you know? Because if your parents aren't looking out for you, you have to do it yourself.”

So I figured I'd take the situation with Brooke into my own hands and patch things up. Maybe we had been drifting apart since school started, but we were still best friends. One fight couldn't change that.

I decided to send her an e-mail, like a peace offering. I didn't want her to think I was groveling, like begging for her forgiveness or something, but I did want us back as friends. And I guess part of me wanted her to know that I was pretty upset about the way she'd treated and ignored me, but that I was willing to let it go if she could.

I sat in front of my computer and wrote this:

Look. I'm sorry about that stuff I said and for not standing up for you that day. Maybe I should have but I'd been so upset about lots of things lately and the way you were basically ignoring me just hadn't helped. So, if you want to be my friend again, that's cool.

I read it over once, making sure it had the right tone and said what I wanted without sounding like I was
kissing up to her. I apologized, which was mature of me, and I also told her why I'd been acting the way I had, while subtlety letting her know that she hadn't been there for me. I had nicely set up the e-mail for her to respond back to me with something like, “Yes, I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. You're right. Let's move on.” Or something. My message to her practically wrote her own response.

I hit
SEND
and felt exhausted. Even
not
talking to Brooke had become such a chore. At school I had to constantly think about where she was so that I could purposely not look her way. Not to mention, working out the locker schedule so that it wouldn't be like I was avoiding her, even though I was. It was time to end all that nonsense and just get back to being friends, even if I was being forced to grow up more quickly than her.

Even though it wasn't even nine o'clock yet, I crawled into bed and got under my thick down comforter. I wondered when she'd get the message. Maybe she was seeing it right now? I doubt she had plans for the night, either. I'd seen her sitting with a couple of different people at lunch, but nothing solid. She was probably just as eager to hang out with me again as I was with her.

M
Y HANDS SHOOK AS I READ HER MESSAGE
Sunday morning, my breath coming in shallow gasps. As a million thoughts raced through my mind, one was loud and clear: She's worse than I thought.

So she's
letting
me be her friend again. Wow. I should bow down to the friend gods and thank them for allowing me to still be in the presence of someone like her. I get to be Madeline's friend again! Hooray for me!

Honestly, I was stumped. She really had no clue
what had happened. I wondered what the story was in her head, the reason why we weren't talking. I stared at her e-mail and tried to get inside her thoughts. What would Madeline tell herself? That it was all my fault because . . . I was too dumb to see how totally awesome her friends were? That it was my fault because . . . I'm a bad friend since my parents are still together and I couldn't possibly understand what she's going through? And which
stuff
was she sorry about? The things she said about my mom or the part where she basically called me a loser?

I hit
REPLY
and wrote back.

Thank you so much for forgiving me and allowing me to be your friend again. What would I do without an amazing person like you in my life? No one is as wonderful and caring and understanding as you. I will forever be in your debt for giving me this second chance to be your friend. LYLAS! BFF!

—Madeline's Best Friend

I stared at the monitor, my cheeks hot and my jaw clenched. Sitting at the kitchen computer, I no longer saw the Madeline that raced in front of me on her four-wheeler, her hair whipping behind as she turned to
make sure I was following closely, a huge smiled stretching across her face. I didn't think of the Madeline who danced with me at the end-of-the-year dance and promised me we'd always be friends, no doubt about it. All I could think of now was this person who was so selfish that she actually thought she could anoint me her friend again, just like that.
Hey, it's cool. I allow you to enter my world again.

I'd been so desperate to get a single word from her these last couple of weeks. Even a look, a brief glance, would have been something. The way she totally ignored me left me feeling stunned and crushed, thinking she couldn't even stand the sight of me. Had I done something so horrible that warranted never even setting eyes on me again? Really?

Then I finally got a peep from her and it's this? Maybe I'd been missing her for the last couple of weeks, but staring at the e-mail, I started to realize it was the old Madeline I missed, the one who was a true friend all through elementary school. Not this one who emerged the day we walked through the doors of West Junior High. I missed the Madeline who invented the slap, tap, and bump, and who understood me with just one word.

I deleted my message and wrote a new one.

*Maybe* you should have stood up for me? Well, uh, I guess I should say thanks for apologizing . . . ?
That was AWFUL of you, choosing your new friends over your best friend. And this whole thing of me ignoring you? How could I have been ignoring you if I saw you and spoke to you every day—except on the weekends when you were hanging out with your new friends? I'm sorry for not liking your new friends. They're not my style and that's fine. To each her own. You left some things out in your grand apology, though. Not one single word about my mom? Really? And what about the things you said about me? I'm sure it was oh-so-difficult for you to write me, but why bother when you're not even going to be honest? Way to leave out the worst thing you did and pretend it didn't happen. But it did happen, and I haven't forgotten.