“I’m good.” I wave Amanda off. I don’t want to be reminded.
Compassion and sympathy quickly take over Amanda’s once sarcastic attitude, warning me that what she’s going to say next is something I’m not going to like. Leaning forward, she clasps my knee and shakes her head. “No, Hollyn, you’re not good.”
“Let’s not do this,” I say, sitting up and dusting off my shirt that’s accumulated enough crumbs for a small colony of mice to have a Thanksgiving feast. “I’m not in the mood.”
“You’re never in the mood,” Amanda tosses back, her sympathy quickly evaporating into annoyance.
“You don’t catch me on good days.”
“Can you stop being sarcastic and actually talk about this?” I’ve seen Amanda frustrated with me before, but not like this.
“Uh, this is getting a little awkward for me,” Matt says, rocking on his heels. “I think I might grab the tabasco sauce and test my limits in the kitchen.” He goes to reach for it when Amanda snaps at him.
“Do not touch the sauce. This conversation involves you, too.”
“How does this conversation you relentlessly try to have with me involve Matt? It’s the same old thing, Amanda. You’re going to tell me that it’s been over a year and a half since my husband died, that I need to stop sulking, and move on with my life, that I need to go back to nursing school and finish my degree so I can stop waiting tables down at Chuck’s Italian Eatery. I’ve heard it before and I’m not interested.”
Every few weeks, Amanda tries to have a heart to heart with me about my life and how I can’t keep putting it on hold, how I need to learn to live again. Well, the three bags of chips, Cheez Doodles, and pretzels beg to differ. I’m living quite well, thank you.
Standing, Amanda adjusts her coat, looking more fidgety and angry than ever. And . . . are those tears forming in her eyes? I lean a little closer to get a better look just as she yanks a petite box out of her pocket.
Shielding my body for a second, thinking some freaky, demented clown is going to pop out, I look up to see her tapping her foot and motioning me to open it.
“What is that?” I ask, very unsure what is happening right now.
“Open it.”
“Is this where you poison me with some airborne virus to finally end my misery?”
Rolling her eyes, she motions the box toward me again. “Open it.”
With trepidation, I snag the little box from her grip and marvel in the quality. Fine craftsmanship right there, and the hinges, they don’t squeak as I open—
What the hell?
I look up at Amanda who is smiling brightly and then back down at the box that holds a very large, very expensive-looking, and very crystal-clear diamond ring.
“Err, are you proposing to me?” An odd moment in my life but, the size of the ring has me itching just to say yes.
“No, that’s my ring.”
“What—” I look up at Matt who is beaming with pride and then back to Amanda who is the picture-perfect example for giddiness. “You’re engaged?” This is freaking news to me.
She nods and claps her hands together. “We are.”
Scanning the ring once again, thinking about stealing it and fleeing to Mexico, I say, “Why aren’t you wearing it? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Wear the ring when you’re engaged?”
Sighing, her giddiness level drops, and she replies, “Because, I don’t wear it around you.”
“Wait.” I stand up now, one of my pant legs hiked up to my knee, one of Eric’s firefighter shirts pooling around my waist, and the tube of my socks hanging on the ends of my feet. “You’re telling me you’ve been engaged longer than just tonight?”
Cringing slightly but then masking her face with another smile, she slowly nods. “For four months.”
“Four months?” I shout. “You’ve been engaged for four months and you haven’t told me? Why the hell wouldn’t you tell me?”
“Because look at you, Hollyn.” Amanda motions to my appearance. “You barely make it to work and when you’re not working, you’re buried in Eric’s shirts watching videos of your wedding, or listening to the messages you used to send each other on your Voxer app. I didn’t think it was right to spring this news on you.”
Nodding psychotically, anger starting to boil deep within, I hold the ring out as I speak. “So you chose to wait four months to tell your best friend that you’re engaged and are now springing it on me on New Year’s Eve, the couples’ holiday?”
“Couples’ holiday would be Valentine’s Day actually,” Matt points out with his finger held in the sky.
“Shut it, Matt,” I snap. Getting the picture, he picks up the tabasco sauce and goes into the kitchen. I hope he burns the hell out of his tongue.
“Hollyn, I don’t want to fight.” Coming up to me, she takes the ring box out of my hand and places the ring on her finger. The damn thing sparkles up at me, winking in the dull light of my living area. “I came over here to give you this.” Reaching into her pocket again, I wonder if she’s going to pop out a positive pregnancy test as well, but instead she hands me a pamphlet.
“What’s this?”
The first sentence I see on the front of the softly toned tri-fold paper says, “Need a change in your life?” I inwardly roll my eyes. Self-help, not the first time she’s gone this route. The church group she tried to get me to go to a few months ago was a real treat with their horrible selection of tea and median age of sixty.
“It’s a program run here in Denver called Dear Life.”
Tossing the pamphlet on the coffee table, I fold my arms over my chest defensively. “Let me guess, it’s a group where we go to talk about our feelings.”
“No,” she shakes her head, “it’s a program that helps you learn to live again.” She pauses and gathers her thoughts. “Hollyn, I love you so much, and it kills me to see you wasting your life like this. Eric would be—”
“Do not tell me what Eric would have thought about the way I’m living right now. Do not bring him up in this conversation,” I say, venom spitting with every word falling from my mouth. There is only so much I can take.
“So we can never mention him? I can never say Eric’s name? I can never talk about the good times we had? He was a part of my life too, Hollyn. He was my friend and I lost him as well. I can’t keep re-living his death every time I come to visit you. And you can’t either. It’s not healthy.”
“I suggest you leave,” I offer, sitting back down on the couch, letting it swallow me into its worn-out cushions.
“Don’t do this, Hollyn. Don’t put distance between us because I’m trying to help you.”