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“Ariana?”
She turns over her shoulder and sees me approaching, but there’s no accompanying smile.
“Do you want some dessert? It’s really good.”
I hold out one of the cups for her, and she accepts it before placing it down beside her hand so she can prop her elbows back on the rail and glance out at the garden.
“Are you having a good time?” I ask.
“I’m not sure.”
I frown and put down my dessert, mimicking her posture and staring out at the grounds before us. We stand there, quietly surveying the sprawling landscape, and the tension in the air seems to grow thick with things unsaid.
“Is the sea right there?” she finally asks. “Beyond those cliffs?”
“Yes. Can’t you hear it?”
“No. The party’s too loud.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Why are you out here all on your own?”
Ariana doesn’t succumb to moments of introspection often, or at least she didn’t when we were teenagers. She was always in a rush to go somewhere, do something, cure the inevitable boredom of teendom. I’d bring up something serious—like what we were going to study in college—and she’d groan in agony. Who cares?! We’re young. Can’t we just worry about what we’re going to do this weekend?
It’s unsettling to stand beside her now, unsure of where her mind’s at.
“This isn’t really my scene.”
I smile. “Yeah. I’m not sure it’s mine either.”
“Don’t do that.”
I flinch at her hard tone. “What?”
“Don’t try to make yourself small just to comfort me. You do belong in there.”
“Well if I do, it’s only because I’ve made the effort to get to know people, to put myself in their world. I’m sure if you stayed here, you’d start to feel the same.”
She snorts under her breath and shakes her head, looking down.
“I’m not staying here.”
I frown. “Why not?”
She doesn’t answer right away, and I listen as she scuffs her high heel against the ground over and over again. I put my hand on her shoulder but she shirks away in disgust.
“Don’t.”
I let my arm drop to my side as the sharp pain of her rejection momentarily paralyzes me.
“I don’t deserve your comfort. Believe me. You know, Barrett hit on me tonight, and I encouraged him.” She continues scuffing her shoe. “You know why?”
I shake my head.
“It felt good to take something from you.”
There’s no malice there, her tone so dejected. I stay quiet and hope she’ll keep talking, wanting to hear what she has to say once and for all.
“It hasn’t always been easy to be your friend,” she continues, and I immediately want to cut her off.
My friend? MY friend?!
I was the best friend she ever had. I was the one who put my neck on the line for her time and time again.
“You were so fuckin’ smart and talented and better than the rest of us. I don’t think I had one boyfriend in high school who wasn’t more interested in you than me. They thought they were being so clever, too, always trying to hide it. Is Maren coming out with us? Hey, just wondering, is Maren seeing anyone?”
My first instinct is to refute her, but shutting down someone else’s feelings doesn’t make them go away.
“I don’t remember it that way,” I say instead.
She hums wistfully. “You were always too lost in your own world to pay much attention, trying to hatch a plan to get yourself out of the hellhole we’d found ourselves in. Had you opened your eyes and looked around, you would have seen that the world wanted you. They put up with me so they could get close to you, but you never let anyone get too close. I should have warned them they were wasting their time.”
“You never said anything…”
“Because what would have changed? You would have only felt bad for me, and the absolute last thing I need in life is another person’s pity.”
“Well, still…you must have resented me for it.”
“Obviously I still do. It’s why it felt so good when Barrett flirted with me. I wanted it to be real. I wanted him to want me more than he wanted you, but then I saw you with Nicholas and realized, yet again, I’m second best. The consolation prize.”
My heart breaks for her. “Ariana—”
“I just said I don’t want your pity, Maren, so if you’re about to launch into some apology about how you didn’t realize you were the pretty one or the sweet one or the one who never broke the rules, I don’t really want to hear it.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
She shakes her head and looks out toward the ocean. “I don’t even know anymore. I thought maybe now things would be different. I had good intentions coming here and I meant what I said about us being roommates again, but it’s probably for the best that we just stay away from each other.”
