Frenemies(48)

Unless, of course, Georgia was mad about the Henry thing, and if she was? Then maybe I was the one who couldn’t. I could see being upset. I’d lied, after all. I could stand to do some groveling for that. And in truth, I should have been up front about things as they happened instead of waiting to be caught. But it wasn’t as if Georgia had had us camping out at Henry’s door any time recently. As far as I knew, she’d been over her Henry crush going on five years now. Was she really going to end our friendship over a never-requited, never-consummated college-era crush?

I thought about Henry, too. Finally. And, at first, reluctantly.

I was humiliated for exactly twelve seconds and then I thought that actually, he could go to hell and take his “I don’t think so” with him. What an ass. The man stood in a hallway and basically presented me with a point-by-point analysis of the reasons why it was okay for him to be into me and then, when I could have actually used him, he bailed on me. If that wasn’t representative of my entire love life, I didn’t know what was. I couldn’t even call it a love life—it was just one pathetic relationship—or epic, fruitless crush, if I were to recall the embarrassments of my earlier twenties accurately—after another. I aspired to tragedy and heartbreak—my own relationships ended in whimpers and indifference.

Except for the only one I’d actually had recently, I reminded myself. I kept picturing that apologetic smile Nate had aimed my way at the caroling party. What did that mean? Was he apologizing to me or for Helen? Why had he called me so many times that night and then never again? Did he have any idea that it required nightly acts of near-Herculean will to keep from calling him again?

I didn’t know what to make of Henry, or what he thought was the pattern between us. I didn’t want to know. I was lost when it came to Amy Lee. In the woods over Georgia. The solution with Nate was simple: remind him how much he liked me and dislodge Helen’s claws from him. Mess cleaned up, just like that. Jilted girlfriends were only considered psychotic losers when the boyfriend had really moved on, after all. And really moved on did not include seven voice mail messages in one night.

The rest of them could all go straight to hell, I thought self-righteously. They were far too messy to deal with, and I didn’t know where to start. And in any case, I was more than fine without them.





chapter sixteen





The hyperactive holiday season in Boston, I discovered quickly, was not the greatest time of the year to be friendless.

My outrage faded to a slow burn as the days passed. After work every evening I’d wander around the city in much the same way I had years before, when I was eighteen and intoxicated by my sudden freedom. I’d fallen in love with Boston back then, and with Amy Lee and Georgia, all at the same time. The city was a monument to our friendship—there was hardly a corner in it we hadn’t imprinted with one memory or another. Nights we’d hung out in the Bukowski Tavern, for example, toasting dead authors with over a hundred different beers. Running wild on Lansdowne Street in our clubbing phase. Celebrating Patriots’ Day, or getting all kitted out in our Red Sox gear to root for the home team.

Helen was mixed up in there too, much as I’d prefer to deny it. The nights we spent trolling for cute boys when we were supposed to be studying. Shopping with Helen on Newbury Street and marveling at her seemingly limitless credit card.

First Boston had been our playground, then it was our campus, and soon after that it was our home. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like on my own.

Okay, that was a little overdramatic. I had other friends. It was just that they were weekend and occasional friends. If I wanted to spend more time with the other members of my larger social group, I was going to have to expend a whole lot more effort. I was going to have to make a lot of phone calls, start accepting each and every invitation I received—do the things you were forced to do when you wanted to expand your circle. I hadn’t had to do it in a very long time. The very idea of doing it filled me with a pervasive sense of ick. And, of course, even if I threw myself into it wholeheartedly, it would take ages to build up to the sort of friendships I had just (apparently) lost. You couldn’t transform a coffee-once-a-month friend into a call-me-every-day-maybe-three-times-a-day friend just like that. It took time. Caution. Patience. And in my circumstances, it would also require explanations about why, exactly, Amy Lee and Georgia were out of my life. I couldn’t face it.

And that was why, when I got home and allowed my nose to defrost, I called Nate.

I didn’t want to spend even one more moment sitting around, wondering what he was doing and why he wasn’t calling. None of those things seemed to matter any more. If he loved Helen, he wouldn’t keep having those moments with me, when he looked at me in ways she would hate. When he reminded me that he could count on me. If he loved her, he wouldn’t have called me seven times or turned up at my apartment that night.

There were all sorts of ways that someone could get trapped in a relationship that seemed like a good idea from the outside, but not so much from inside. Helen knew how to play games, so who knew what she’d used to entice him? And now he was stuck with her. He’d thrown me over so publicly and flagrantly—it had to be a matter of pride that his relationship with Helen last, right? It made sense. He was the one part of my incredibly messy life that could be cleared up with a simple, long overdue conversation.