“Good.” Her smile widens, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Friends are supposed to be honest with one another.” Where is she going with this? “So I think it’s important that I be honest with you.”
Her eyes meet mine, and she holds my gaze, almost like she’s trying to pass along some sort of silent communication.
“Okay?” I brace myself for whatever bomb she’s about to drop, but what she says next isn’t at all what I expected her to say.
“I don’t think like you,” she tells me. “After meeting with a therapist for close to a year, my parents were given a diagnosis.”
“Alright.” Where is she going with this? “Are you dangerous or something?” I mean it as a joke but she answers me seriously.
“No. Not really.”
That’s uh … reassuring. I don’t get the feeling that she’s trying to scare me off, so I’m going to take her at her word. For now, at least.
I’m a firm believer in letting people show you who they are, and thus far, Adriana has been nothing but nice to me and she defended me when she had no reason to. Whatever diagnosis she received as a kid, it doesn’t define her. She’s still good people.
“Like I said, I want us to be friends. Unfortunately, I have a shitty track record at being a good one. It doesn’t come naturally to me. But with you, I’d like to try. If you’re open to that.”
I feel sort of like I’m having a conversation with a female version of Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory, the way she talks to me so matter of fact and without any real emotion. It feels very similar to the character’s speech patterns and mannerisms in the show.
“I mean, yeah. I’m down.”
“Good.” She picks her burger back up. “That settles it, then.”
I guess it does.
“I might screw up,” she tells me. “Not intentionally, of course, but you know,” she waves a hand through the air, “the whole my brain not working like yours.” Her lips purse in frustration. “Sometimes I slip up. I’m hoping that if I do, you’ll give me a chance to fix it. That you won’t—” she briefly looks away, “cut me off.”
Oh. My stomach drops. Someone’s done that to her before. I can relate. It sucks when your friends turn their backs on you. Whether it’s your fault or not makes no difference. It still hurts.
“I won’t make you any promises,” I tell her. “We don’t know each other well and I guess it would depend on the slip up.” I shrug. Some things are forgivable. Others aren’t. “But if something happens, I can try to hear you out at the very least. That’s what friends do, right?”
Her expression relaxes, and she goes back to eating. “Thanks.”
“Of course.” I’d want the same thing. I wish Kim had been willing to hear me out after Austin lied to her. That she’d bothered to give me the benefit of the doubt instead of believing him when he said I wanted it. That I made it all up for attention because I was drunk and regretted my decisions. That because he didn’t want a relationship with me after the fact, I was crying foul to retaliate.
She believed him right off the bat. I never even had a chance.
“Can I ask a question?”
Adriana’s dark brown eyes flick to mine as she takes another bite. “You just did.”
I roll my eyes. “A real one.”
She shrugs and makesa goahead motion with her burger.
“What do you mean by you have a shitty track record at being a good friend?” I’ve had my share of shitty friends, and while I’d like for Adriana and I to be friends, I don’t want it to come back and bite me in the ass the way it did with Kim and Joelle.
I don’t want to let someone in, only for them to stab me in the back. I’m not sure I can handle that sort of thing again. Not in my current state. I’d like to think I’m stronger now than I was a few months ago, but I’m not sure that’s really true. I think I’m just finding better ways to cope. To survive.
Adriana takes her time chewing and swallowing her food before she answers. “In high school, I slept with my best friend’s boyfriend.”
Damn. That’s … rough. And definitely bad friend behavior.
“Why?”
“You want the real answer or what everyone else thinks?”
“The real one.” Obviously.
