Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 140874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Plopping my bare ass on Neil’s leather desk chair, I entered his four digit password—six-nine-six-nine, because he was apparently twelve—and chewed my fingernail nervously as I opened Chrome.
My fingers hovered over the keys when I was prompted to enter my email address and password. Then I took a breath and typed in the information.
I couldn’t stop holding it when I saw “RE: I miss you” in bold black at the top of my emails. My hands shook as I guided the cursor to the subject line and clicked.
Holli and I had always been pretty spare in our communication to each other. We didn’t need a lot of words to get our points across to each other. So when I read, “K. Meet somewhere?” my heart swelled with hope. I leaned over the desk, my head in my hands, and cried as hard as I would have if someone had died. They were happy tears, though, and fearful ones; what if we couldn’t make up? What if it ended up being a disaster?
I wrote back:
I’ll be in the city on Thursday. Meet at Dinicio’s, 9pm?”
When I went back to bed, Neil had dozed off, but he rolled over to spoon me. I pulled his arm tighter around me and held onto it, my fingers playing idly in the coarse hair on his skin.
“Did you find the checkbook?” he mumbled sleepily.
“Yeah, I found it.” I paused, unsure if I should tell him now, or in the morning. What the hell? “Holli answered my email.”
Neil was fully awake now, shifting up on his elbow behind me. “What did she say? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” I knew my relieved tears had made my nose stuffy, I could hear it in my voice. He was probably taking that as a bad sign. “She wants to talk to me.”
“And how are you taking that?”
I shrugged. “Cautiously optimistic? What else can I be? I want my friend back, but I’m not blind to the difficulties we’re going to have to overcome.”
He said nothing for a long moment, and then, “I very much hope that those difficulties are easier to overcome than you anticipate.”
“Thanks.” I rolled over and peered at what I could see of his face in the blue light of the alarm clock, and reached up to kiss him.
He rubbed my back and lifted his head. “And if it doesn’t work, I am always here for you. I am always on your side.”
I blinked away my grateful tears and lay back on the pillow. I’d never doubted it…but it was nice to hear.
* * * *
By the time we left Dr. Ashley’s office, I was a wreck of nerves. My whole body was shaking.
“Will you be alright?” Neil asked gently. “You’re trembling all over.”
“Just nervous,” I squeaked out, and he didn’t press further.
When we pulled up outside of Dinicio’s, Neil took my hand and kissed it. “I’ll just be around the corner. I can be here at a moment’s notice.”
“Thank you.” I smoothed my skirt down. “How do I look?”
“Holli has seen you in your froggy pajamas. I’m fairly certain she’ll love you no matter what you’re wearing,” he said with a hint of sympathetic amusement. “But you look gorgeous as always.”
“Thanks.” I took a deep breath. “Okay. I’m going in.”
Through either design or serendipity, Holli sat in the same booth where we’d had our fight all those months ago. She didn’t look up when I came in, and she was cradling a regulation brown diner mug in her hands as she stared out the window.
I came up to the table, and she glanced up, then did a double take at the sight of me.
“Is this seat occupied?” My joke fell flat when she just nodded.
Holli had looked better. Her blonde hair had grown out, but it hung limp around her face, haunted by curls that had gone flat. Her eyelids were puffy in contrast with the dark circles beneath them. Maybe she’d been just as miserable over this meeting than I had.
“You look good.” She smoothed the front of her black t-shirt. “Sorry, I look terrible, I had an overnight shoot and you know how I can’t sleep during the day.”
“Yeah.” I did know that.
We just looked at each other. Neither of us wanted to address what had gotten us to this point.
But there was no avoiding it. That was the only reason we were here, and the only way we would move forward. So I said, “Look. I should have handled this whole thing better. It wasn’t fair of me to go directly to Neil without talking to you.”
“Then why did you do it?” It was an antagonistic demand, but her heart wasn’t in it. Maybe it was because she was physically tired, or maybe it was that she was as tired as I was of our falling out.