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21
Shelby
Iknocked on the door to Lyndi and Layla’s bungalow, holding my faux-Moscato up like a trophy. It had been just over seven weeks since Valentine’s Day, and I’d been looking forward to our traditional first-Friday-of-the-month girls’ night all week.
In March, the girls had come to my studio, promising Paul (with huge eye rolls) that they wouldn’t stay long and that they’d clean up after themselves. They’d called him my guard dog and asked if he was sure he could leave me for long enough to grab a beer with Will, to which he’d responded that he wasn’t sure, and they’d practically shoved him out the door. But even though they’d teased him for it, they’d swooned over it once he left.
“The fun has arrived,” Layla yelled when she opened her front door and let me in.
She pulled me into her arms and gave me a huge hug, and then Aria and Lyndi did the same before we moved into the living room and sat on the sectional. It wasn’t like I didn’t see them all the time, but it was a great feeling to resume our girls’ nights at their place like before. A chick flick was already cued up on the TV, there were snacks on the table, and Aria snagged me a glass for my fake wine. The normalcy of it all was so surreal. If I let myself, I wondered if I’d be able to forget the whole thing had even happened. Okay, probably not. But still.
“So, where’s Paul tonight?” Layla asked, sipping her beer.
“With Will,” I replied. “I’m pretty sure they’re playing video games at their place. Nothing exciting.”
“Oh, no hot dates for Casanova tonight?” Aria asked with an eye roll.
I chuckled. “Guess not.” A thought stirred within me, and I looked up at her with a furrowed brow. “Wait a minute.”
“What?” Aria asked.
Pointing at her, I dug through the hazy memories of that night, grasping at fragments of the conversation we’d had in the bathroom. “On Valentine’s Day, you were upset right before I passed out. It was about a guy.”
Layla and Lyndi exchanged surprised faces before turning back to Aria, who shook her head. “What? Oh, I’m sure it was nothing. I don’t even remember, so it must have been less than nothing.”
“Uh, no,” I insisted. “You never cry, and I distinctly remember tears. You’re seriously telling me you don’t remember?”
Again, the sisters on the other couch exchanged a look. Lyndi took a sip of her sparkling seltzer with her brows up and pinky out. “I am so here for this.”
“There’s really nothing to behere for,you guys. Just a simple case of girl likes boy, boy has his head up his butt. In fact, let’s usepast tense, because I’m over it.” Aria grabbed a pillow and pulled it onto her lap, hugging it. “What else is new? Anything?”
I wanted to press her further because it was all much too vague for the level of sharing that we normally did. There had to be more to the story. But maybe it was a sign that I should let it go. Whatever this was about, it was clearly eating her up. Hopefully she’d either get some closure or change her mind about talking about it, but we didn’t need to force her into it.
“Let’s see,” I said, tapping the tiny generator on my chest that was connected to the leads in my heart, “thanks to Thumper, here, I haven’t had a nightmare in weeks.”
My friends all hailed Thumper, which was the nickname I’d given my device, and Lyndi raised her glass. “Cheers to that. No wonder you look so well-rested. I assumed it was because you’re so cheesily and stupidly in love.”
“Well, it could be that, too,” Layla said as we all leaned in to touch glasses. Sure, Paul might have had something to do with my overall amazingness, but I suspected my new absence of nightmares was the biggest reason for it. It was actually an unexpected side effect of having the implant put in. I’d been plagued with nightmares ever since I’d first been diagnosed.
Sometimes they were memories gone wrong. Like, I’d be teaching ballet and pass out in front of my students, but instead of it being a fainting spell, I’d die right there on the classroom floor. Horrible. I wouldn’t be able to sleep for hours after those ones. Other times, it would be a vague feeling of knowing that I’d passed away in my sleep. I’d wake up making sure I hadn’t and then be afraid to close my eyes again. Either way, I could distract myself all day long and not think about sudden cardiac arrest in my conscious brain, but my subconscious brain had free rein at night. And it sucked.
However, now that the implant acted like a safety net against SCA, I’d found myself finally able to sleep soundly for the first time since I was fifteen. The benefits that had on my overall health in the last seven weeks had been astounding. I had more energy, I was happier, I felt lighter, I could eat more. I had no idea going into my recovery that I would come back after all of that feeling better than before. Yet here I was, finally thriving when before it felt like I’d simply been surviving.
My phone buzzed on the table in front of me, and I leaned forward, smiling when I saw it was a text from Jaycee thanking me for our chat yesterday. “Aw.”
“What?” Layla asked.
“It’s Jaycee. We had dinner yesterday—it was a good day for her and she wanted to get out. We had this whole talk about what it was like to live with a chronic illness and coping strategies and all kinds of stuff. She seemed really positive for the first time in a while.”
Lyndi’s face turned down into a sympathetic frown. “It’s so good she has you.”
“Yeah, it feels kind of like a big sister thing at this point. I love being there for her. She’s got a long road ahead of her with her JRA, but she’ll be okay.”
Jaycee had come over a lot while I was laid up. We watched cheesy TV, ordered in our food, and I even helped her with some schoolwork. It was almost like I was able to fill a role for her like Paul had filled for me, but without the ending Paul and I had to our story. Thinking about Jaycee definitely brought up feelings about people coming into your life for a reason.
My phone buzzed again and I expected it to be from her, but then I tilted my head in confusion when I saw the notification on the screen. “Wait, what?”
Aria leaned forward, too. “What is it?”
