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“Jesus, Laura! Are you for real? You invented Beth as revenge? Because of some stupid thing I said about you when we were in junior high?”
I give a small, bitter laugh. “It was a bit more than a stupid thing, Bronwyn. And it was a really bad time for me. With my mother and all that…”
Her expression softens. “I know. I mean I know that now. I was just a kid, Laura, so were you. We were kids. I messed up, I started the rumor, yes, I own that, but they went off outside of my control.”
“Oh come on,” I scoff. “It was you, the whole time.”
“No, it wasn’t, Laura! I felt horrible about how bad things got, but it wasn’t me. It was probably made to look like it was me, but it wasn’t. I tried to talk to you about it once, about what we could do and you pushed me away, remember? You shouted at me never to speak to you again, remember? I still tried to stop them, believe it or not. I asked my mother to speak to the principal—”
“You did?”
“Yes, but she didn’t take it seriously. She didn’t care. I didn’t know what to do.” She smooths her hair. “It’s no excuse. I messed up. I know that, but you know, I had my own problems back then. My parents were never there, they always seem to want to spend time away from me.”
I nod. “I remember.”
“Nothing like what happened to you, of course. I’m just trying to explain I wasn’t as confident as I might have seemed back then.”
It feels surreal to be having this conversation in such a grown-up, measured tone. I feel a wave of shame that I’m still stuck in the past, still fourteen and sad and miserable while the world has moved on.
“I get it,” I say, trying really hard to get it. “I can see how confusing that must have been for you.”
She shrugs. “It was a long time ago. The world moves on.”
Except me, apparently. “How are they, by the way? Your parents?”
“My mother’s still kicking, my dad died.”
“Oh God. I’m so sorry. What happened?”
“He died in a car crash, years ago, long before you and I met up again.”
“Oh, I didn’t know.”
We sit quietly for a moment. “I still miss him, you know? It’s funny, isn’t it? At my age? We were close, my father and I, as you know.”
Were they? I have no memory of that. But then, I have very little memory of anything that happened in that year. “I don’t think it’s strange. I still miss my mother after all these years.” Except I don’t. It’s hard to miss someone who didn’t want you in the first place, although Charlie missed Bronwyn, so maybe that’s just me.
I’m considering going back to bed when she says, “I didn’t expect the rumors to take off like that. I didn’t realize the damage it did to you or that you were still hurting all those years later—”
“I’m not!”
“I’m truly sorry, Laura. I mean that.”
I nod, and suddenly I feel like crying. I rub a knuckle on my eye, as if to relieve an itch. “Yeah, well, as you said, we were kids.”
“But you’re right. Your mother had just died. You needed friends, not stupid bitches like me saying stupid things because I had a crush on some boy in eighth grade.”
I chuckle at her self-description but she is dead serious and I rub my eye again.
“They’re pretty formative years, I guess.”
She drops her cigarette on the ground, grinds it with her toe. I wince. “I’ll get you an ashtray,” I say, pushing myself off the bench.
“Don’t bother, I’ll clean it up later.” And I’m thinking, not likely, but okay. I lean back against the bench again.
“When I saw you again at the opening, I don’t know…I felt sad we’d fallen out all these years ago. I thought it would be nice to reconnect. That’s why I commissioned the painting.”
I blink. “You didn’t commission the painting. Jack did.”
