She stopped tearing through the pile of stuff surrounding her legs and looked up at me. “Once I got over the idea of rearranging my entire future, rearranging yours-” at that, she tossed me a smirk, “I knew it was what I had to do. I knew it was what I wanted to do. Making the decision to actually go, however, was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my whole life.”
I knotted up the garbage bag and started on another one. “I know it was. I do. It’s just that I wish-”
“It’s just that you wish everything would never change. You wish someone could tie up your life with a neat little bow and have it presented to you all tidy and prepared so you’d never have to think about getting your hands dirty trying to figure anything out on your own.”
Does this chick know me or what?
I couldn’t even debunk her claims. As bad as it sucked, she’d hit the nail right on the head.
Then she said something that surprised me. “You’re tougher than you think, you know. As awful as I felt about having to tell you I was bailing on New York, I knew-even if you didn’t-that you were going to be okay. I wouldn’t have been able to do this if it weren’t for your... strength.”
I’d never thought of myself as a strong person; it seemed I constantly let myself get knocked down at every turn. But maybe it was true that strength just came from getting back up again, each and every time.
I said, “Yeah, well, knowing that doesn’t make any of this any easier.”
“Tell me about it. I mean, first you flipped out and then my parents weren’t too thrilled, but they eventually got over it. The Redys, however, are just completely freaking out.”
She stopped just then and looked at me, realizing that’s not at all what I meant. She opened her mouth-probably intending to give me a big lecture on why change was a good thing, how life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans, blah, blah, blah-but nothing came out.
Finally, she just simply offered, “He really loves me, Layla. No guy has ever really... loved me before.”
I knew what she was getting at. She’d had numerous boyfriends over the years, some great, some not so great. But most of the guys she’d dated always treated her like some kind of trophy. Like she was some beautiful, brainless party girl, their prize to show off to the world. No one had ever bothered to scratch beyond the surface. Until Pickford.
“What’s not to love?” I asked, unable to stop the sheer corniness dripping from my brain. “Oh! You just reminded me of something!”
I went out into the hall and retrieved the picture of the two of us from graduation. I’d gone to K-Mart and bought a swirly, pewter frame to put it in, and had stuck a mini, silver bow on the corner. I handed it over, almost shyly suggesting, “I know it’s stupid, but I thought it was a really good picture of both of us. You know how we can never get one where we both look human... either I’m making some weird face or you’ve got your eyes closed or-”
“Layla, shut up. It’s perfect.”
I saw her smile as she looked at the two girls smiling back at her. “I’ll find a spot of honor in our new home for it.”
Her mention of her new home was enough to remind us of our impending reality. She was actually going to do it. She was going to move three thousand miles away with some boy who’d stolen her heart. Some boy who was going to take it, along with the rest of her, far, far away from me.
“He’d better be good to you,” I warned, not having any clue what I could possibly be expected to do if he wasn’t.
“He will be. He is,” she said back.
The waterworks started then, the two of us crying like a couple of idiots, bawling like there was no tomorrow. We hugged and sobbed into each other for a solid minute, neither one of us wanting to be the first to let go.
“I’m going to miss you so much.”
“Not as much as me.”
“Will you come out to see us? Maybe over the winter like you said?”
I wanted to say yes, I really did. But I was too afraid of making any empty promises. After all, I didn’t know what the next few months were going to bring. We broke our embrace, dried our eyes and I said, “I’ll try. I swear. But come home every chance you get, okay? I can be back here within an hour of your call.”
“Okay.”
“Promise?”
“Pinky swear.”
“Well, jeez. Now I know you really mean it.”
That made us laugh a little, and I figured I’d better let her get back to her packing. By that point, our crying jag had almost become more of a celebration of the next chapter of our lives, rather than pure grief over having to say goodbye.
It was a weird set of mixed emotions I was feeling-happy and scared and excited and sad-as I actually walked out of her room and back down the street. Sure, she wouldn’t be three houses down or even living in the same city where I could go see her any time I wanted, but I knew we’d still talk. A lot. Like every spare moment we got.
There was no doubt in my mind that Lisa and I would always be a part of each other’s lives forever, so at least I took that small comfort away with me. It’s not as though we had really said goodbye. It was more like see-you-later.