Page 8 of What’s Left of Us

“Maybe she’s nine,” I said, even though I thought Nat was right. “Then she could be both of our best friend.”

“That would be perfect.”

We didn’t move from the window. I pressed my face to the glass, breath fogging against it, and waited. And waited and waited and waited, until finally⁠—

“Ugh! It’s a boy.” I slumped down on my bed, which Nat and I had dragged beneath the window sill. We’d need to move it back into place before Dad got home.

“There might be another one,” Nat assured me. She grabbed my hand and tugged me back to the window. “Let’s keep watching.”

So we did. The two kids disappeared into the house as the parents made trips from the moving truck to their new home. I stared hard at the front of the truck, desperate for a third child—a girl, my age, obviously—to materialize from the back seat.

Nat sat with me in solidarity, until eventually, she whispered, “I don’t think there are any more kids.”

Even the parents hadn’t been out in a while. Nat’s stomach grumbled noisily, and I suspected that meant I was about to lose my only ally.

“The three of us will be best friends,” she promised. She squeezed my hand before pulling me into a hug. Like the baby I was, I started to cry, and that’s how Mom found us a few minutes later.

“Lunch is ready,” she’d announced.

“It’s a boy!” I wailed in response. Mom’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and when Nat scampered past her for the promised lunch, she warily stepped into our bedroom. Before she had the chance to ask, I rambled on. “I wanted a friend and I got a boy!”

Mom let out an amused chuckle, and that only made me cry harder. Of course she didn’t understand. She never understood anything.

“You can be friends with a boy.” She sat beside me on the bed, jostling me into her side. She wrapped an arm around me and kissed the crown of my head.

“No, I can’t.” I wiped my running nose on my sleeve. My mouth tasted like salt I’d been crying so hard and my stomach was starting to hurt. “Nat got a girl, and they’re going to be best friends, and they’re n-not going to want to be friends with me.”

“Nat will always be your friend.” Mom hugged me tighter. “Your best friend.”

“Promise?”

“Of course.” She brushed my hair off my damp cheeks. “Nat will be your friend, and I’m sure the neighbor girl will be your friend too. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up liking the boy after all.”

“Boys break things.” I sniveled, but my breath was coming easier.

Her body tensed against mine. She didn’t respond for several minutes, until she finally whispered. “Not all of them.”

“Promise?”

This time, when Mom didn’t immediately respond, I knew she wasn’t going to.

“Nat said we’d be friends,” I said, just to fill the silence. “All us girls.”

“See?” Mom tucked my hair behind my ears before rising to her feet. “Everything will be fine, Violet. Now help me move this bed back where it belongs.”

Nat was a liar, and I obviously could never trust Mom again.

“So cool.” Our new neighbor studied Nat’s bucket list. I didn’t fully get why it was called a bucket list when it was actually just things Nat wanted to do this year.

Phoebe Blake obviously got it. She was a year older than Nat and four years older than me. That meant she was a sixth grader, which was a big deal. Even Nat was still in elementary school.

Phoebe read over the list and grinned at my sister.

“Which one will you do first?”

I stood between them, but I wasn’t part of the conversation. In the ten minutes we’d been out here, talking at the stone divider between our yards, Phoebe had barely looked at me. Apparently, I was too little, too lame, to be included.

Phoebe’s parents were on their front steps, attempting to assemble a porch swing. The boy hadn’t made an appearance yet, and though I wouldn’t admit it, I was relieved when he finally showed up.