I listen to him inhale loudly before he tells me he loves me too and disconnects the call. I hate that he’s hurting, and I’m not there. I sit on the end of my mom’s bed and stare down at my screen, willing him to call back, but he doesn’t.
I walk into my room in time to see Brie flash me her thong-clad ass as she’s shimmying into an old pair of vintage Levi cut-offs. I feel like I’ve entered some weird alternate universe.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, hey…I was bored. You know, you have some seriously cool pieces of clothing. These are awesome,” she says, jumping up and down while hiking them over her butt and fastening them.
I laugh nervously because this is just too weird.
“Do you usually go to people’s houses and try on their clothes when they’re out of the room?”
“Yeah,” she deadpans.
“Ha, okay, that shuts me up then. They were my mom’s; they’re my favorite,” I tell her motioning to the shorts.
“You’re mom’s got awesome taste.”
“Yeah, she does I suppose. She’s originally from Texas. She knows how to rock a pair of cut-offs and cowboy boots.” I smile then dig through the bottom of my closet before I pull out a pair of old tan boots.
“Please tell me that they’re an eight and that you’ll let me steal these too,” she squeals snatching the boots from me.
“Actually they’re an eight and a half, but sure, you can borrow them if you want.”
“Really? Eek! I’m totally going to pull a Daisy Duke on Jackson’s ass. He’s not gonna know what’s hit him,” she smirks and I laugh.
“Wait, are you wearing my clothes to try and get lucky with Jackson? Oh my gosh, ew! In fact, no. Do. Not. Answer. That!”
I shudder, and she swats at my arm.
“So, who was on the phone? You looked all moody and intense when I walked in. Wasn’t interrupting anything important, was I?”
“It was Ethan, and it kind of was important, yeah.”
She arches her brow no doubt waiting for me to confide in her, but it’s never going to happen, and she seems to realize this as I return her wide-eyed stare.
“Ugh, You really need to learn to gossip more,” she says, dropping my shorts and stepping out of them. I have no idea where to look. It seems that Brie is completely body confident and has no issue prancing around in her underwear in front of people.
I busy myself leafing through one of Em’s journals sitting in the box at the foot of my bed, while Brie changes back into her own clothes. I’m conscious of her jabbering away but I’ve completely tuned her out as I stare down at the purple handwriting. I didn’t think I’d ever see it again. The last things I read that Em had written were the letter and bucket list. I haven’t looked at them since the night before the accident. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to complete that list for her. In some ways it’s the cause of so many bad things, yet I can't help but be thankful that she wrote it. Ultimately it’s what led me to Ethan. Sure, I would have still been paired with him for his math tutoring, but if it wasn’t for the need to cross off Emily’s requests, I probably never would have gone to the party at TJ’s with him, which was the starting point to the chain of events that led to us being together.
I read the first couple of lines on the page I opened to in her journal and then slam it shut quickly. I feel like I’m intruding on something that nobody was ever meant to see. They are her thoughts, dreams, worries and aspirations. She wrote them in complete abandonment, without any intention of them seeing the light of day. I place the journal back in the box, not quite ready to read it and I feel a little more downhearted as I do. I miss Em, and there’s nothing I can do to take away the ache I feel when I think of her. I make a mental note to take some Gerberas to her grave and tell her how much I wish she were here right now.
“Who pissed on your cereal?” Brie asks, looking at me like maybe I’ve grown two heads.
“That’s an awful saying. You sound like TJ, and that is definitely not a good thing.”
“Low blow, Blair. I do not sound anything like TJ, but seriously, you look like you’re about to cry…if you don’t want to lend me the clothes, it’s fine.”
“No, it’s not that. I couldn’t care less about the clothes. I just miss Em; I went to see her parents today, and I’m in a bit of a funk, and then the phone call you walked in on with Ethan. He’s having a rough time at the moment and his dad is in a really bad way, I guess I’m just letting everything get on top of me, and I feel completely useless, which I hate.”
“You know what you need, right? You need a girls’ night. Let’s call Casey and we’ll go to the movies and catch a rom-com, then go out for ice-cream, the real stuff though, none of this low fat, frozen yogurt bullshit. I’m talking Cherry Garcia, whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Whadaya say? You in?”
“You had me at Cherry Garcia…call Casey.”