Three days ago, I called her, sobbing and packing all my belongings at the apartment. I’d been inconsolable and unwilling to let her talk me down and take a breath, so she’d done what any best friend would do.
She stayed on the phone with me as she grabbed her keys, got in her car, and came over. With no further questions asked, she hugged me, made me hydrate, and helped me pack the rest. Then she brought me to her parents’ house, where she’d be spending the rest of the summer.
They lived outside Mosaic Falls, but close enough that her parents still worked in the city. I’d never met them because whenever Tessa and I hung out in high school, she’d come to my house.
Her father worked in finance, and her mother was a journalist. “That means they’re rarely home, and when they are, they drink!”
When my eyes widened at her explanation, she clarified. “They’re not bad drunks, though. Mom’s a riot and Dad occasionally cracks a smile. You’ll like them. They’re good parents, just…not like yours.”
She shrugged before taking off down a hallway, and I followed after her, smiling for the first time since we’d left campus.
While my parents had been concerned over my sudden need to evacuate the apartment, Mom spoke to me privately for a minute before whispering to my dad and getting him to agree.
Whatever she’d picked up on over the years or heard in my voice on the call, she’d taken it seriously. They agreed to let me spend the summer there, as long as I promised to call or text them once a day, and she said she’d speak to my dad about next year before letting me know what they thought.
Relieved they hadn’t dismissed the idea outright, I agreed to their terms.
Then I spent three days waiting for their verdict while quietly sinking into a hole over the reality of either option playing out.
Now, as I sat on Tessa’s back patio, I had to face multiple truths: I hated the idea of not living with Adam and Blake. I needed space to heal after the abuse from Finn. I needed to break the pattern I’d been living in, where every act of care or affection from Blake revived my hope of being chosen by himfully.
And she’d been right about the sunlight.
As it warmed my face, a smile tipped up the corners of my mouth for the first time in days. Tessa noticed, nudging me gently and raising her eyebrows.
“What?” I blinked at her, feigning ignorance.
She pursed her lips. “Come on. You can say it.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Addie…”
I laughed. “Okay, fine. You were right.” I stuck my tongue out at her. “Are you happy?”
“You’re smiling, so…yes.”
I reached toward her chair and grabbed her hand. “I’m going to be okay, Tessa.”
“I know.” She sniffed, her mouth twisting into a frown. “I just hate that this happened. Hate that I’m the reason you met him!”
“Hey! None of that. Yes, you were how I got introduced to him, but you didn’t force me to date him. You certainly didn’t force me to ignore the red flags. And you and I both know you tried to reason with me overwhyI was escalating things with him so quickly.”
She forced a smile. “Yeah, but—” Tears filled her eyes, lodging emotion in my throat as she swiped aggressively at her face. “Addie, he hit you.”
My hand jerked up reflexively to touch my cheek.
“Shit. I’m sorry!” Flustered, she dragged her hands through her red curls. “God, I suck at this. Why didn’t Judy Blume prepare me to help you with this? I feel so cheated.”
I laughed loudly that time, caught off guard by her question but unable to argue with it. Judy Blume really hadn’t prepared us for this.
My laughter brought visible relief to Tessa, and when it didn’t stop, she started laughing too. We dissolved into hysterical giggles, gasping for breath, until she asked, “What are we laughing at?”
But my response of “I have no idea” only made the laughter worse.
With tears in our eyes, we clutched each other’s arms and released months’ worth of pent up emotion in one sitting. When my laughter morphed into sudden tears, Tessa continued to hold on to me, letting me cry it out in her arms until I had no tears left.
“I think I needed that,” I admitted once it was over. “That’s the hardest part in all of this, I think. Nothing prepared me for it. Any of it. And I don’t know what the right thing to do is.”
