How to Be Brave(55)

Also, that she was lucky. Very, very lucky. That it’s a good thing I called when I did. That’s what they said to me. It’s a good thing.

My dad leaves at eight to open the restaurant. I don’t know why he doesn’t just close again today. What’s another day?

Before he goes, he pulls me into the corner of the hallway.

“Your mother would have been very disappointed about this, you know. Drugs? Overdose? Friends with this kind of person? I do not want to imagine what else. I do not even know what she would say to you—”

“Dad, I—”

But he doesn’t let me talk. Instead, he interrupts me with a low whisper. “I don’t know who you are, Georgia. I don’t know what this is about.”

And with that, he turns and walks away, leaving me there, alone.

I sit with Evelyn’s mom for a few hours, but there’s no change, no news. Finally, she convinces me to head home when there’s nothing else to say or do or hear.

I nod off on the bus, holding my bag tight to my body. When I get home, Liss is standing there, waiting for me.

*

She doesn’t know what’s happened yet. She’s on the steps, staring at the clouds.

“Find any turnips?” I say.

She sees me and smiles. “Not today,” she says. “A few jellyfish and snails, but no vegetables.”

God, I’ve missed her.

I burst into tears.

She puts her arms around me. “What’s going on? We’re okay, you and me now, you know that, right?”

“Really? Just like that?”

“Sure … why not?”

I pull away from her.

Why not?

There are so many reasons for why it can’t just be okay, just like that. “I don’t know.” We sit on the steps at the front of my building. “Here.” I show her the text and I tell her everything and I’m a mess I’m a mess I’m a mess. The world is upside down again.

“We shouldn’t have just dropped her like that,” I say. You shouldn’t have dropped me like that.

Liss hands me back my phone. “We hardly knew her,” she says, and I’m stunned by her callousness. And then she says, “We were using her, Georgia. Both of us. We were using her to get high. I’m not saying it was right. I’m just saying that’s what we were doing.”

I realize Liss isn’t being cold; she’s being honest.

And that’s why I respect her. Because she says things honestly. Even when she’s angry, she speaks the truth.

I can’t blame Liss for dropping Evelyn, for dropping me.

She reacted honestly to things.

Which is something I rarely do.

Because I hate feeling that way.

I hate the truth of what I’m feeling, which is absolute anger and disgust at all the things I can’t control.

Sometimes you need positive thoughts, sometimes you need the truth.

And the truth is, I’m angry.

I’m angry at Evelyn for doing what she did.

I’m angry at Liss for dropping me like she did.

I’m angry at my dad for living in his bubble of grief, for ignoring me for months and then suddenly guilt-tripping me when I needed his support.

I’m angry at my mom for telling me to make that stupid list. I can’t do everything. I can’t be brave. And how dare she expect me to, when she couldn’t even do it herself. And how dare she not take care of herself so she could tell me what not to do. Why I shouldn’t be doing things like smoking up and kissing my best friend’s boyfriend and failing at school and failing at life. She was supposed to be here to tell me not to do things, not to do everything.

And I’m scared, so very scared, of becoming just like her, sick and stagnant and afraid.

And then I’m angry at myself for feeling that way, for blaming her. I mean, I don’t know. Could she help it? Could she have been different from who she was? Wasn’t she brave in her own way? Facing all the horrible pain, in her kidneys, in her muscles, in her heart, in her life?

There was so much pain.

I don’t know.

What I do know is this: I don’t have to have it all figured out.

But I can speak the truth, as I see it. It’s one of the bravest things I could do.

So I take a deep, deep breath.

And then this is what I say: “Look. You shouldn’t have dropped me like that. I’m supposed to be your best friend. And I get it, I hurt you. I did a stupid f*cking thing. But you did a stupid thing, too. You disappeared. You went to Belize and came back with new best friends—Avery and Chloe, of all people. It’s like I didn’t exist or something anymore to you. And now you want to be able to hug me and say we’re okay and I’m just supposed to accept it?

“How are we supposed to go back to how things were? How are we supposed to pretend that I didn’t kiss your boyfriend even though I didn’t know what the hell I was doing? How are you going to trust me? And how am I ever going to trust you? How will I know that you won’t just drop me again?”

Liss gets quiet.

Really, really quiet.

We sit for a while with Liss being quiet, thinking about what I said, not saying anything back.

Maybe she’s going to blow up at me. Maybe she’ll get up and walk away. Maybe this will be the end. Maybe she will drop me permanently and that will be that. Then she looks at me, her eyes red and wet. “You’re right,” she says finally. “You shouldn’t have kissed my boyfriend, even though he’s the biggest * in the world and even though you were f*cked up and even though it wasn’t really your fault. And I should have talked to you first.”