Page 77 of The Apparent Trap

I roll my eyes. But I do take a sip big enough to get a creamy dose of chocolate, along with a brain freeze. Georgia plops down on my couch and says nothing, just waiting me out until I start talking.

I stand in the entryway, not sure how to even begin this conversation. But I guess I need to rip the Band-Aid off. “So Lee is Carmen’s dad.”

I guess I timed that horribly, because Georgia spits out frozen hot chocolate all over my carpet.

“Georgia!”

She jumps up and grabs paper towels from the kitchen. “Okay, I’m sorry, but that was an insane thing to tell someone while they’re drinking a beverage!” She crouches on the floor, cleaning up. “What did you think was going to happen when you share something so unbelievable?”

I grab carpet spray and get down to help her. And then I launch into the entire story: Carmen telling me about Lee. Him walking in on her and my dad the same day I did. The plan and all its terrible attempts. Thanksgiving. And Sweden. It’s hard to talk about Sweden.

I end the story by telling her about today. We both look over at the pizza getting cold on my counter.

“That’s . . . a lot,” she finally says with an exhale when I’m done. I nod, all my words finally out.

Georgia gets up and goes to the fridge to grab a seltzer, buying time while she’s processing everything I’ve just dumped on her. When she sits back down, I’m not expecting to see her looking so serious.

“I really failed you,” she says finally, and I furrow my brows in surprise.

“What?”

“I didn’t know you, when you lost your mom. But I think I know you better than anyone now. I see how close you and your dad are, I see how little you date—”

“Okay, as the person often building LEGOs with me on a Saturday night, I really don’t think—”

She holds up her hand. “It’s not a criticism.” She laughs that laugh that transfixes millions every morning, but this time, like so many, it’s just for me. “I’m equally screwed up in my own ways.”

“Hey, that’s my best friend you’re talking about,” I say with a smile.

“Takes one to know one,” she chuckles. But then her expression gets serious again. “I am sorry, Ez. I never saw how much I was enabling that.”

Her words prickle. “You’re not enabling anything. This situation is impossible and nothing to do with—”

“People get into early cycles with grief, and it’s hard to get out of them.”

I scoff. “That’s what you took from that entire story? That wasn’t the point. I’m not in a cycle.”

“You are, though,” she says, barreling over my objection the way she would while interviewing an obstinate politician. “Or rather, you were, and no one noticed enough to break you out of it. I should have.” She pauses. “You and your dad had just calcified into something, and everyone in your life accepted that it was normal.”

“I’m not abnormal.” I’m a broken record of protest.

She reaches out a hand and squeezes mine, the best friend seeping through the precise journalist. “Of course not. There’s nothing more normal than getting stuck. But it’s broken now anyway. Carmen crashed through and broke it. Even with that, you’re still stuck.”

“My dad’s the person who got stuck,” I reflexively divert. “I lost my mom, but I can move forward. He lost the love of his life. It’s not my place to act like something that happened to me as a teenager is some ‘woe is me’ episode that over a decade later still affects my dating life. Yes, I’ll always miss my mom, of course. But I should be focusing on him. I should be trying to get him back out there.”

Georgia shakes her head again, frustrated, like I’m not listening. “Okay, this deflection has to stop. No one gets more shares of grief. You’re in a cake-eating contest where the prize is simply more cake. There’s no winner or time limit on grieving,” she says, the forcefulness in her voice strong enough to finally stop me in my tracks enough to really listen. “I don’t think we’ve ever talked about this, because it’s not something anyone else hasn’t experienced, but I lost my grandma when I was about the same age you lost your mom. And she’s not my mom, I know that, but she lived with us, and she was my best friend.” She pauses. “My best friend before you,” she adds, with a sad smile. “I miss her every day. I want to tell her everything. And it’s almost worse when I achieve anything, because it’s like there’s a hole in any celebration—whenever I get to have extreme joy, I also have to have the extreme absence. And I don’t talk about it because it’s not unusual. Losing your grandparents is about as normal a life experience as anyone can have. But the tragedy is the granularity of us. I don’t get to talk to her anymore. I’ll never get to again. And it doesn’t matter how much time passes or how ordinary that kind of loss is. It affects me every day.”

“I’m glad you told me that,” I say, honestly, her words breaking through. “I’m really sorry I never got to meet her.”

Her eyes are watery, but her grin is shining. “You would’ve loved her,” she says. “She had a honking laugh like yours.”

“Hey.”

“It’s one of the reasons I liked you the first time I met you!”

That makes my heart softer. “It’s crazy we’re both sad girls hiding behind productivity, and we’ve known each other this long without ever talking about it.”

She laughs. “But this is the reason I told you all that. That part’s gotta change.”