The Friends We Keep

“You’re an awesome person,” Gabby told her. “We love you. You’re a great mom, your classes are popular. It’s not you.”


Nicole didn’t look convinced. “It’s more than I’m afraid people will guess it’s me and think that’s what I’m really like. It’s that... Eric’s view of me is so different than my view of myself. It’s scary, in a way. Plus, I thought...” She sighed. “I know we’re divorced, but I didn’t think we were enemies.”

“Maybe he got carried away,” Hayley said. “Listening to the voices in his head. We all tell stories. Like me with Morgan. Saying my parents loved her more. Lately I’ve been wondering if that’s true. She said something a while ago. About me being chosen. All this time I’ve thought she was the special one because she was theirs. What if it wasn’t that way at all? What if all this time, she’s been jealous of me?”

“Why wouldn’t she be?” Gabby asked. “You’re the one everyone likes.”

Hayley thought about the last few months and how Morgan had acted. “My sister is kind of a bitch.”

Nicole laughed. “You’re just now getting that?”

“Seriously,” Gabby added. “We all have T-shirts for the ‘I hate Morgan’ club. You want one?”

“Maybe.” Hayley shook her head. “No. I take that back. I don’t hate her. I think she’s difficult and selfish and she takes advantage of people. All my life I saw her getting attention. I believed our parents loved her more because she always got her way. But lately I’ve been thinking. Maybe it’s different than that. Maybe they acted the way they did out of self-defense.”

“To keep her from burning down the house?” Gabby asked.

“Something like that.”

“I always thought it was so interesting,” Nicole said. “How you two are different. I know you’re adopted, but it’s more than that. Talk about different personalities. You’re kind and gentle. A real giving spirit. Morgan sucks all the air out of a room. Everything has to be about her.”

Hayley nodded. “She certainly screamed louder than me. Than anyone, really. So they listened because they had to. Morgan swears I was the favorite. I wonder if I simply looked at the situation from my perspective for so long that I forgot there was a bigger picture. Maybe it’s like that with Eric. You’re caught up in your point of view.”

“What would be a different one?” Nicole asked.

Their server returned. Hayley opened her menu, then surrendered to the inevitable. “A cookies and cream milk shake,” she said. “And the guacamole burger.”

“Wow,” Gabby breathed. “I am so impressed. I’ll have a vanilla milk shake and the bacon burger.”

“Chocolate mint for me,” Nicole told their waitress. “The guacamole burger with sweet potato fries.”

“Wild woman,” Gabby teased.

“You know it.”

Hayley waited until their server left before continuing. “Eric abandoned his wife and child. I can accept your marriage ending. It happens. But he has no excuse for what he did to Tyler. I think deep down he knows he was a jerk, but most people can’t live with that, so they tell themselves another story. Whatever you saw on the screen isn’t you, Nicole. It’s what he tells himself to justify what he did. We all have our own personal truth, but I don’t think it has much relationship with reality.”

They both looked startled.

“Wow,” Nicole said slowly. “That sounds really wise. I never thought of Eric having to make things right with himself. But he does, doesn’t he?”

“He’s the one who quit his job without discussing it with you,” Gabby reminded her. “He’s the one who withdrew from the marriage. You tried to make things work and he wanted out. Now he basically ignores his son. Everyone gets part of the blame in the failure of a marriage. You did things wrong, I’m sure. But most of it falls on him. He has to reconcile that. Maybe the character in the movie is part of that.”

Nicole relaxed a little. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I just felt so humiliated. Like everyone was pointing and staring.”

“What did Jairus say?” Gabby asked.

“He didn’t think it was me.”

“Then no one else will. People are amazingly self-centered and dense.”

Nicole looked at her. “Speaking about anyone in particular?”

“Candace.”

It took Hayley a second to place the name. “Andrew’s ex?”

“That’s the one. While we’re on the subject of parents who deserve to be bitch-slapped, Candace has decided she doesn’t want to see Makayla anymore.” Gabby brought them up to date on what was happening with her family.

Hayley thought about all she’d been through to have a baby. She genuinely couldn’t understand people who were blessed with a child and then ignored them. It made no sense. She would have given anything to have that relationship. She’d nearly died because of it.

“Makayla must be crushed,” she said.