She sighs hard, rolling over, her face nuzzling into her pillow.
“I don’t know,” I whisper, dropping a kiss to her forehead before I can tell myself all the reasons why I shouldn’t.
Chapter Nine
Mia
My best friend and roommate, Lana, is waiting at the table when I arrive for our coffee date. Despite living together, we rarely see each other at home. Instead, we try to do this once a week. Her hair is bright pink and apparently upsetting the elderly as an older man tuts at her. She wiggles her fingers, blowing her signature bubble gum before popping it with her tongue.
“Hey, sorry I’m late. I went for a longer run than normal.”
“How was it?” she asks, pushing a mocha and a muffin toward me.
“You’re perfect, you know that, right?”
She grins before looking away, her shoulders high as she wrings her fingers in front of her.
“I’m just going to come right out and say it.”
“Okay…”
Oh God, she knows.
She knows about the stalking. Alfie, the Catwoman appreciation outfit I put on. She knows about all of it. And she knows about my past with my hometown. She’s the only personoutside of Berry Brook that knows, and oh God, she’s going to judge me so much.
Really Mia?
Another male authority figure?
Can your reputation survive two life-explosions? Probably not, so keep it in your pants.
“I’m moving to Puerto Rico. I’ve been offered a placement there for six months, which will delay my graduation, but I really, really think I can do a lot of good by supporting the community there. They never really recovered after the hurricane. They were still compiling a list of missing people when COVID hit, and that went to shit. It’s been trauma after trauma and I really want to go and help but it means I need to move out and I know you can’t afford a place on your own so I’m offering to cover my share of the rent until you find someone else to fill it.”
I’m stunned…Lana is leaving me. I am the most self-absorbed person on the planet, thinking everything is about me. Also, she did not take a single breath in that entire ramble, and I’m low-key impressed.
“Are you mad?” she asks, cautiously pushing the muffin closer to me like she’s trying to distract a tiger with a steak when you’re the alternative meal option.
“God no, of course not,” I answer honestly. “I’m happy you’ve found something you want to go and do. I’ll just miss you, is all.”
Liar.
She’s my best friend. We haven’t been away from each other for longer than a few weeks in the last decade. What am I going to do without her? Screw the money, I’ll figure out my rent situation but being without her for that long seems disastrous. My chest aches and it’s like a part of me is severing. I know it’s extreme but Lana understands me in a way that no-one else does. We’ve been together so long, our entire adult lives. We’veresolved heartbreaks with ice cream and tequila, moving into new places together, the holidays, hell we even had a part time job at the same fast food place for a year when we were trying to scramble rent money together.
But she’s right. There was no way I could afford that place on my own. And Lana pays for more than half now, given that she has the bigger room. I’m not sure I’d be able to get someone to be that generous even if I did find someone. But I’ll worry about that later. For now, I need to focus on my friend.
“Tell me about the program,” I say, taking a sip of my coffee.
???
Lana heads to her family’s house for the afternoon as she usually does on a Sunday, and I sit for a while longer in the café, the cozy, threadworn armchair holding me like a warm hug. I pull out my phone to check some listings for rental options and decide to join some rental groups online whilst I’m at it. And if I can’t find a relatively normal roommate, I could afford to live in a not so nice part of the city. It would probably mean living further away from work, but I’m only going to be there for three more months anyway, so I try not to consider that when I scroll through the options.
“I overheard.” I peek up and see Crystal, the barista. She pushes an almond croissant my way, and I smile. “You doing okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’m happy for her.”
“I know you are. But you’re allowed to be sad too. You guys have been inseparable for what, ten years?”
I nod, the emotion of it all washing through me, and I feel my chin start to quiver.
