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“I’ve talked to you once in the past week.”
“Fine. Half the time,” I reply.
“You’re back at Lancaster?” Hallie asks.
“Mm-hmm,” I respond, taking a sip of soup.
“Did you unpack?” She sounds exactly like a mom, and for once, it doesn’t bother me. She cares, and maybe that’s something I should learn to cherish, not make fun of.
But I keep that thought to myself as I snort and answer, “Of course not.”
“Headed out to party instead?” she teases.
I glance down at my sad meal and damp tank top. “Hardly anyone is back yet, Hallie.” I don’t mention the fact that I was, in fact, invited to one. And turned the invitation down.
“You could always come back home for a few days,” she suggests. “I haven’t seen you in months!”
“I’ll be back for the wedding,” I answer. “I’ve got an intense training schedule right now. It’s best I stay here and use Lancaster’s facility.”
Hallie sighs, and I know exactly what she’s thinking. “All right. Well, I’ll let you go. I’m sure you must be tired. It’s the middle of the night in Germany, right?”
“Right,” I confirm.
“Are you all right?” Hallie asks. “You sound weird.”
“I’m fine. Just…tired.”
“Okay. Bye, sis,” Hallie says, and the phone clicks.
“Bye,” I whisper.
She’s first to hang up, for once.
As soon as she does, I finish my simple dinner. Then sink deeper into the cushions and resume staring at the living room wall until I feel myself start to drift off toward unconsciousness.
Cressida, Anne, and Emma all return to Lancaster on Saturday. Cressida arrives first, and I haul my butt off the couch to greet her, abandoning the mystery book I was reading. That’s all I’ve done for the past six days: work out and lie on the couch.
Well, that and get wasted with the boys’ soccer team last night.
“Saylor!” she squeals, wrapping me up in a hug.
“Cress!” I squeeze her back.
She pulls back to study my face. “I swear, you get prettier every year. It’s so unfair.”
“Says the pageant queen,” I reply, rolling my eyes.
Cressida is from the South, like me. Unlike me, she participated in some of its more archaic traditions. She claims it was at her mother and grandmother’s insistence, but Cressida is both strong-willed and loves the spotlight, so I suspect it wasn’t completely involuntary.
She gives me a regal wave that ends with only her middle finger still raised. I laugh and then flop back down on the cushions that have started to mold to the shape of my body.
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” Cressida comments, glancing around the messy living room.
“Yeah, I’ll clean it up,” I assure her.
“Sad I missed the party,” she says, kicking a stray beer can the boys left behind. “Looked like a rager.”
“Looked like?”
