AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She leans in, and her hair falls over her shoulder. “They seem good, don’t they?” she whispers to me. “Like, really good… right?” Her eyes dart over toward Maggie and Trent.
I steal a look, too.
The two are bowed together in some sort of earnest discussion.
“Yeah, maybe.”
She swats me. “Come on! Give me some credit. Not just ‘maybe.’ This is totally working. And I found out from Maggie what’s going on between them. Want to know?”
“Olivia, it’s none of my business. If Trent wanted me to know, he’d have told me.”
“Sure it’s your business. You’re Trent’s best friend, and you hang out with Maggie all the time. Like it or not, we’re one big friend-family and we might as well know what’s going on with each other.”
Friend-family? What is that, the basis for some cheesy nineties sitcom? Then again, I guess we have become a family of sorts. I see these people more these days than my actual family. “Okay, fine. You’re probably going to tell me anyway.”
She’s bursting with this information.
I can tell by the sparkle in her eye and all her fidgeting that she’s too pleased with herself to keep it in.
“Ha. Yeah, I am. I mean, I have to tell someone… Okay, so it’s about Beryl. Maggie wants her at the wedding, Trent doesn’t.”
“Beryl… your mom?”
She nods. “Yeah, I mean, in the technical sense of the word only. She doesn’t qualify for much else.”
I feel my eyebrows tuck together. Trent hates talking about his mom. Olivia does, too. I’ve learned to steer clear of the subject.
She goes on. “See, Maggie’s sure he’ll regret it one day if he doesn’t invite her. She’s worried about him.”
“Yeah, but it’shismom, not hers. He can decide.”
“Maybe she has a point, though.” Olivia falls silent and she glances over my shoulder. A second later, Skye ambles into view.
She crouches down beside us. “And how is it going here, my friends?”
Me and Oliva answer at the same time.
“Er…Great,” she says.
“Uh… fine.”
Skye nods. “I know this is challenging. It’s one of the more frightening things we have to do, in relationships. Speaking honestly to one another requires a level of courage that many people never reach. How can I help?”
“We’re good,” Olivia insists.
Skye places her hand on Olivia’s shoulder. “Let’s lay down our defenses and work on some honesty. Why don’t you tell me what you’re discussing?”
Olivia nods at me. “Yeah, Cole… want to tell her?”
“We’re… er…”We’re scheming about how to get an actual couple back together.Hashing outtheirissues. Gossiping about things that really—now that I stop and think about it—are none of our bee’s-wax, even if we are one big happy friend-family.
“We’re talking about—uh—high school,” I stammer.
Don’t know where that came from.
But Skye seems to love the answer. She beams at me. “Good! So many of our wounds are buried in the past. Let’s shine some light there. What, specifically, happened in high school?”
I catch Olivia’s eye, tossing the ball to her.
