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Lily’s living a dream she didn’t even know she wanted. Happiness crept up on her slowly, the way the shadows stretched across the lawn in the afternoon.
When she told me about the move, I was still coming down from the indescribable high of making love with Alex for the first time. My thoughts were consumed by him. They still are, but I’m doing my best to function, which isn’t easy. We’ve had to go back to pretending to just be friends until we tell Lily. He hides love notes in my bedroom, and we find ways to accidentally touch when we’re moving about the house. Late at night, when we’re sure Lily is asleep, he sneaks into my room to give me a long, soft kiss. Then, he’ll sit on the edge of my bed and play with my hair, twirling locks around his fingers, lightly touching my scalp. Woozy goose bumps will scatter over my skin, and I’ll drift off to sleep. He’d be gone when I woke, and I hated it.
I’m ecstatic for Lily, but also riddled with guilt. I hate keeping secrets. But as we get closer and closer to her move date, I feel something else… an irrational sense of loss deep in my heart. Even though I know I’ll still see her and Brian all the time, I wish I had more time with them here, in this house, with all of us together.
In the midst of all these feelings, the voice started to whisper in my mind.
You’re losing your little girl.
Lily is growing up, building her future, and you’re…not. You don’t have anything. You’re just drifting like a ghost.
Swallowing back the lump in my throat, I try to focus on the real things around me like I learned in therapy. Lily moving around her cozy kitchen in the basement, filling a large cardboard box with her kitchenware. Alex sprawled on the living room floor playing with Brian, attempting to keep him occupied while Lily and I pack her things. I catch him leaning over to retrieve a toy that’s out of Brian’s reach, and the sight of his arm muscles flexing brings back memories of those arms wrapped around me. I wish he was hugging me right now, chasing the voice and the melancholy away—
“Penny?”
Flushing, I turn to Lily. She’s meticulously wrapping glasses in bubble wrap. The corners of her eyes squint as she shoots me a glance. “Are you okay? You look a million miles away.”
I smile. “I was just wondering… doesn’t Marcus have drinking glasses at his house?” It’s a silly question, but I just need to hear my own voice.
“He only has three. I totally need to debachelorize his place. I have a set of eight.” She hands me a vase. “Can you wrap this for me?”
My hand shakes slightly as I take it from her. The handmade ceramic vase with the amber-ombré design used to sit on the upstairs kitchen windowsill, filled with wildflowers from the yard. Without having to turn it over, I know the initials BF are engraved on the bottom.
“You’re taking this?” I hope she doesn’t notice the tremor in my voice.
She nods. “Isn’t it pretty? I think I’ll put it in Marcus’s dining room.”
Alex’s playful voice comes from the living room. “It’s your dining room, too. You’re going to be married and living together now. So there’s no his this and yours that.”
Lily laughs and rolls her eyes. “Our dining room. Is that better?”
Alex looks satisfied. “Much.” He throws me an amused smile.
I carefully wrap the vase in a layer of torn brown paper bag, then reach for the bubble wrap.
But I can’t get my hands to wrap it any further.
Clearing my throat, I say. “Lily… this vase is really old. Why don’t we get you a new one? Something that matches your new dining room aesthetic.”
Her eyebrow shoots up. “Aesthetic? Have you been watching HGTV?”
I smile. “Maybe.”
“I like that vase. It doesn’t tip over. I think I’ll put some fake twigs and silk flowers in it.”
For some reason, that makes tears pool behind my eyes. I clutch the vase to my chest. “I think the vase should stay here. Maybe you should stay here, too. This is all happening so fast…”
Lily tilts her head sympathetically and comes over to hug me. “Penny… I promise this isn’t going to affect our friendship. I’ll still be coming over here. And I’ll come visit you when you find an apartment, and you can come to my house any time you want. There’s a guest bedroom, so you can sleep over.”
Embarrassment and despair roll through me in alternate waves. “I know.” I wipe at my eyes and smile. “I’m just being overly emotional.”
“It’s okay. I feel that way, too. I’m scared, nervous, and excited.”
Alex appears beside us. “You and Marcus can live here,” he suggests, and I can tell he’s only half joking. “We can avoid all this emotional drama.”
