“Thank you.” I felt a sudden burst of affection for her.
“I’ll come too,” Raj said. “Just to make sure Alex keeps her word.”
Justin sighed. “Am I the bad guy now? Again?”
“No,” I said. “You’re right that we don’t need a big group. Three will do it. You guys are off the hook. We’ll let you know when it’s over.”
“The sooner the better,” Isabel said.
“We’ll make a plan tomorrow,” Alex said. “No sense in waiting.”
“Then our work here is done,” Justin said, getting up. He threw a few dollars on the table. “This should cover the soda and nachos.”
“Dick,” Alex muttered, as he walked away.
Isabel and Becca got up to follow him. “Wait,” I said. “Becca, can I talk to you for a minute?”
She looked over at Isabel. They were doing a kind of silent communication, like my parents had done, with raised eyebrows and little head shakes.
Whatever Isabel didn’t say helped me. “How about you give me a ride home?” Becca asked.
“Sure.”
“Justin will drive me, Isabel, and Alex,” Raj said, though Justin was already in the parking lot.
“No way,” Alex said.
“You’ll be fine,” Raj said. “We’ll sit in the back and you don’t have to talk.”
“So much drama,” Isabel said. “And me and Justin are the theater people. Come on.”
They all left the restaurant, and it was just me and Becca. “There are a lot of nachos left,” she said. “Let’s stay here for a bit.”
“Okay.” At first we both just stayed where we were, but it was kind of awkward trying to have a conversation with someone basically sitting diagonally from you. I was the one who’d asked her to stay and talk, so it only seemed fitting that I be the one to move. Baby steps and all that. I switched to Isabel’s chair, so we were sitting next to each other.
“I’m sorry,” we both said.
“Wait, what?” I asked.
“Isabel told me about what happened at Drew’s house. That you had another panic attack. I was so hard on you that night. I should have figured out something was going on besides you just wanting to go home. I should have been a better friend.”
“You’re kidding me, right? I’d been lying to you guys since the summer before we started high school, ever since I found my first zit. And I was on my third strike.”
“Your what?”
“I’d already screwed up twice before. You’d told me not to let you down again. Three strikes.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Her eyes glassed over with tears. “You were going through something, and I wasn’t there for you.”
“Because I wasn’t honest. And I was pretty miserable, too. I can’t have been much fun to be around.”
“It was never about whether you were fun.” She blinked a couple of times, and I knew she was still trying not to cry.
“But I worried that we didn’t have anything in common anymore. I couldn’t swim because of the whole skin thing, and it made me scared about being with guys.”
“Which is kind of all Isabel thinks about when we go out,” Becca said, with a little smirk. She didn’t look like she was going to cry anymore, which was good, because if she did I would have lost it.
“Which is a totally normal thing to think about,” I said. “I made everything hard. I’m working on being more trusting, though this whole Ms. Davenport situation is not helping.”
“I can’t even imagine.” She took a sip of soda.
“This is going to sound weird, but I’m glad you know everything now. I don’t have to hide anything anymore. I really am sorry.”
“Me too,” she said. “I love how both of us were totally convinced it was our fault, but we were both too stubborn to do anything to fix it. Actually, I hate that, but it reminds me of us, when we were us, you know?”
I smiled. “Yeah,” I said. “I do. Look, I know it’s probably too late, but do you think there’s a chance we could ever be friends again?” I felt nervous even asking, but it was worth a shot.
“You’re working on the trust thing,” she said. “I can work on the understanding thing. It won’t be easy, and it’s not going to be the same. But I’m willing to try if you are.”
We both got up from the table and hugged each other, and I felt the pain of missing her all over again, even though she was right there. We’d lost over a year, and we would never get it back.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “Those nachos were terrible.”
28.
The next day at lunch, Alex decided that we should have a movie night while we figured out how to lure Ms. Davenport into meeting with us. We agreed that she and I would be responsible for the snacks, and Raj could pick the movie. “PJs all around, this time,” she said. “Can’t have Kara showing up all fancy again.”