We Were Never Here(55)

“We were like sisters.” Kristen sighed. “I miss her.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned her before.”

“Oh, I definitely have.”

“To me? Nuh-uh—I’d remember.”

“I for sure have. I remember telling you about my bestie and neighbor, like, multiple times over the years.”

“No way.” Had she? Had this mysterious Jamie simply slipped past my notice on earlier mentions? I’d always thought Kristen had had a lonely childhood, like me. It’d be one thing if they’d simply drifted apart, but…Lord, a dead best friend felt like something I’d know. “I saw some letters carved into a pine tree. Were those her initials, all hacked out?”

    Kristen’s voice frosted over: “Yeah, I did that a long time ago.”

“How come?”

She peered down at her drink, at the red moon trapped in her tumbler. “Let’s talk about something else. Like how glad I am to be out of Nana and Bill’s house, oh my God. I can’t wait to move in to my own apartment. The past is so in my face in Brookfield.”

There was something there, something beyond grief about her friend, but I didn’t want to poke too hard. “Yeah, everyone regresses when they go home,” I said.

“Nana asked if I’d be back in time to go to church with them on Sunday. Like they’re still trying to save my soul.” She took another crimson gulp. “I think the only time they really liked me was when I was, like, ten years old and Christianity was my entire identity.”

“You called yourself a Jesus freak, right?” I teased. We’d had those what-were-you-like-as-a-kid conversations, wondering in hushed awe what would’ve happened if we’d met just a few years earlier. I myself had embodied the nerd trifecta: marching band, chess club, debate team.

Something flickered in her eyes. “Oh yes. Proud Jesus freak right here.”

“Speaking of, didn’t you say all your childhood stuff is here in the cabin?”

“Yeah, good memory. They stuffed it in the unfinished part so they can turn my bedroom into a gym.” She gestured toward a door breaking up the green-plaid wallpaper, then grinned. “What, you want to see pictures of me in cross necklaces at church fundraisers and everything?”

“Kind of!”

She chuckled, but I felt it, a shift in the air pressure. “Oh, I don’t feel like digging back there.”

“C’mon, I want photographic proof that you were on the poms team.”

    “No. I don’t want to see that stuff.” Her words were sharp and the moment froze up, all awkward.

“So, you were saying,” I murmured. “Your grandparents still want you to go to church?”

“Totally. Praying the Holy Spirit will enter me yet. I’m kinda shocked they’re still holding out hope—hell, I’m almost thirty—but I guess if you believe what that conservative synod teaches, the logic holds up.” She shook her head, amazed anew. “When I went to school at King of Kings, in religion class I would pray—out loud, every single day, from kindergarten on—for my mom to become a Christian so she wouldn’t go to hell. I was terrified, and I suppose that’s how Nana and Bill feel about me now.”

“God, you poor thing. Why would they send you to that school with only one Christian parent?”

“Right? I didn’t realize how messed up it was until they were long dead.”

Oof. I rubbed her shoulder and she sipped her Negroni self-consciously.

“And then when they died, I could see my devotion for what it was. For all the talk of Jesus being my shepherd—it was the first time I realized I was a sheep.” She swallowed. “And it felt horrible. Like I’d been lied to every single day. But I guess it was ultimately freeing. Like: Now you have no power over me.”

She always talked about her parents at the cabin; being Up North made her sentimental, Lake Novak’s clear water a sluice for childhood memories. I knew her parents’ deaths had brought her fanatical youth-group days to an abrupt end. But this conversation felt…different. “I’m—I’m sorry you had to go through that, Kristen. I really am.”

She tilted her cocktail and the ice jingled. “Power is a funny thing. You know how they say that the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference? Like, we’re looking at the scale all wrong.” She tapped her nail against the glass. “I think it’s the same thing with fear. The opposite of fear isn’t safety. It’s power.”

    I peered at her. I wasn’t sure I agreed—I’d give anything right now for the assurance of safety when it came to our crimes. The promise that no one would arrest us, besmirch our good names, extradite us, or try us in the court of public opinion.

Well, and. Even if I could secure that kind of bubble wrap, it wouldn’t protect me from a lifetime of fear. Fear of verbal abuse, of emotional blackmail, of careless misogyny designed to make me feel small. All the acts of casual violence I attracted, expected, thanks to my designated gender.

“Can I have a hug?” I asked, suddenly sad for us both. She set down her glass and pulled me into her. She stroked my hair, the way she had in Chile, when asthma attacked me like a rabid dog.