“Yes,” Lucy said, huffy, as she picked up her purse from the ground, dropped her phone into it, and rummaged through it. She came up with a bag of Skittles, and ripped open the top, tossing a handful back like they were pills and not candy. She kept the bag in her hand as she closed her purse and slung it a little too vigorously over her shoulder. “I storm out of the house and he doesn’t even have the decency to follow me. Just stays where he is and calls. What a loser.” But as she said this last word, her bravado seemed to crumble a little, and she glanced down the driveway, biting her lip. “God,” she muttered, her voice shaky. “And I really liked him too. I thought we’d at least be together through June.” She looked at me, and my bike, and sighed. “I guess I’m walking. Thanks for coming, though, Taylor.” She gave me what I’m pretty sure was supposed to be a smile, then turned and headed up the road, weaving slightly.
I wheeled the bike around and caught up with her. As safe as Lake Phoenix was, I wasn’t about to let a tipsy Lucy wander home on her own. Not to mention the fact that she looked about ready to give up halfway there and take a nap next to a tree. “I’ll walk you home,” I said, as I got off the bike and walked alongside it.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, just as she stumbled over a rock on the side of the road, which sent her veering into my bike. She didn’t protest after that, and we fell into a rhythm, walking next to each other, the bike in between us. We continued on in silence, the only sounds coming from the cicadas around us and the gravel crunching under my tires.
“So,” I said after a second, glancing over at her, “do you want to talk about it?”
Lucy stopped at that and turned to me, and I stopped as well. “Talk,” she repeated. “To you.”
I could feel my face heating up, and shook my head and started wheeling my bike again to cover it. “Never mind,” I said. “Forget it.”
Lucy fell back into step with me, and as we walked on and the silence grew more uncomfortable. I found myself wishing that I had, in fact, brought my car. There were so many more things to distract you in cars. I wouldn’t have been feeling this awkward if I could have turned up the volume on the radio and pretended it wasn’t happening.
“Thanks for offering,” Lucy said finally, sounding half-genuine and half-sarcastic. “But it’s not like we’re friends anymore, Taylor.”
“I know,” I said. I looked down at the bike, concentrating on wheeling it in a perfectly straight line, trying to ignore the lump that was threatening to rise in my throat.
“And whose fault is that?” Lucy asked. Since I knew the answer to this, and suspected she did too, I didn’t say anything, just tightened my grip on the handlebars for a second before letting them go again. “You shouldn’t have just left like you did,” Lucy continued. “Without any explanations or anything. It was a really shitty thing to do.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” I asked a little sharply, surprising myself. I glanced over at her and saw that she looked taken aback by this as well. “Do you think I don’t feel bad about it?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Lucy said, sounding annoyed. “It’s not like you’ve, you know, apologized or anything.”
She was right. I had tried, but halfheartedly. Just like I’d done with Henry, and then blamed my lack of courage on circumstances that had swept those potential moments away. I took a breath and stopped walking my bike. I’d been given, and ignored, too many opportunities to change. So I decided to take one, there in the middle of the road, with the moonlight streaming down over us and casting our shadows on the ground. “Lucy,” I said, looking her right in the eye, “I’m really, really sorry.”
She looked at me for a long moment, then nodded. “Okay,” she said, starting to walk again, weaving a little in the road as she concentrated on shaking another handful of Skittles into her palm.
“Okay?” I asked, half-running alongside the bike to catch up with her. “That’s it?”
“What did you want me to say?” she asked, yawning and covering her mouth with her hand. “I accept your apology.”
“Thank you,” I said, a little stunned it had been that easy. But I realized, as we walked on, that we weren’t going to revert to being friends again. She may have accepted my much-too-late apology, but it wasn’t like she’d forgiven me.
“I’m sorry too,” she added after a moment. I turned to her, confused, and she shrugged. “I’ve been a total bitch to you at work.”
“Not totally,” I said, but I could hear that I didn’t exactly sound convincing. Lucy looked over at me, we both burst out laughing, and for just a moment, it was like we were twelve again. I nodded at the bag of Skittles. “You don’t eat them by color anymore?”
She blinked at me, then, remembering, smiled. “Nope,” she said. “Not for years now.” She peered at me in the darkness. “Why, do you?”
“No,” I lied, trying to sound nonchalant. “I was just… asking.” Lucy arched an eyebrow at me but didn’t say anything. I looked away, as though concentrating on the road, and realized we’d reached the top of the Dip. You either lived on one side of the lake or the other, and the Dip was pretty much the dividing line. This had been the spot we’d always parted ways when we had ridden somewhere together, usually with our extra-long, very complicated hand-claps. But Lucy continued on, heading down the hill, away from her house. “Where are you going?” I called.