“And he lives next door?”
I nodded.
She took a breath. “Go.”
“What?”
“Go, Georgia. Go be honest with him.”
“Mom, I don’t have time for this. You just got out of...”
She gripped my shoulders, looking deadly as she caught my gaze. “I am not your responsibility, Georgia. You’re mine. As your mother, I’m telling you, make amends with someone who means that much to you.”
“Means that much to me?”
“That apartment has sat empty for six months. Go. We’ll talk about the decor of your bakery when you get back. Let me into your apartment, I’ll wait for you until you come back.” She held out her hand, the arch in her eyebrow signaling the definite end of our conversation.
I handed her the key and headed for the back door, stopping to turn around when I reached it. “What do I say?”
My mom looked almost embarrassed as she spoke the words, “The truth.”
Truth. A single word, whose antonyms underscored my entire life, was the only thing that could save my friendship with Regan.
Was it a friendship?
Truthfully—there’s that word again—besides Lissa, who was a strict “work friend,” Regan was the closest thing to a friend I’d had since CJ. So far, “things we knew about each other” sculpted the parameters of that friendship and, well, I was scoring a zero there.
Yes, he was my friend. And, I wanted to be his.
So, with a nod to my mom, I left the building and sat in my car for five minutes before starting the engine and heading to find him. Though, I had an idea where he’d be.
Twenty minutes later I was navigating the sandy neighborhoods of North Cove, in search of the Hippie Dream-house. Thankfully, the night CJ brought me back here, I had been sober enough to remember the general direction, but it was dark that night and I was tired, so that complicated things.
I recognized Regan’s car as soon as I saw it, and I sighed in relief as I pulled in behind it. Getting out of the car, I saw Ember in her seemingly usual spot in the sand just beyond their deck, only this time she wasn’t in a headstand.
I approached quietly, not sure what the etiquette was to interrupting someone’s ohm, though I was pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to at all. When I got within six, or so, feet of her, I stopped, looking around and playing with my hands like I was eight years old and waiting to be picked for a dodgeball team.
“Hi Georgia,” she said in a seductively smooth exhale, while moving from one position I had no name for to another.
“Hi. Um...” Discussion between Ember and I had been tense at best, disastrous at worst, and I didn’t know how to ask where one of her friends was so I could apologize for offending them.
“Regan went for a walk down the beach. I had no idea why he was here, and in such a pissy mood, but,” she exhaled slowly and flowed into another position, this time facing me, “I guess I have more answers now than I did a few minutes ago.”
I put my hands behind my back, then again in front of me. I never did know what to do with my hands. By my side, then.
“Yeah,” I stammered, less affected by her grace than by my own lack of such.
“Come here for a second, do some with me,” she said as if some were an obvious subject.
“Do what? Yoga?”
She nodded, her eyes closed as she seemingly breathed herself into another pose.
“No thanks.” I shrugged, prying my hands into the pockets of my too-tight shorts. “I’m not all skinny like you are. I’d hurt myself.”
Ember stood straight, breaking her flow, and looked at me. “It’s not about being skinny, Georgia. It’s about getting out of here,” she pointed to her head, “and getting into here,” she patted her bared belly button.”
“Thanks, but I’ve clearly been here enough.” I pointed to the softer skin around the bottom of my shirt.
She rolled her eyes, approached me and took my hand. “Good lord, come with me.”
I had to give her credit. Not only did she not stand there in her slender glory and try to tell me she wasn’t skinny, which is the single most annoying thing about some skinny girls, she also didn’t try to lie to my face and say in a chipper kill-me-now voice, oh Georgia, you’re skinny, too. Annoying skinny-girl habit number two.
Based on those two things alone, I allowed Ember to drag me to her sacred spot in the cool sand.
“Loosen up. Just shake everything out and hang like this.” Ember folded forward and let her upper body hang as if draped over her own waist. “Make sure you keep your neck loose.”
Uh, okay.
“Come on,” she urged when I stood there for a few seconds longer than it should have taken me.
I did as instructed. “Just ... hang here?”