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"Let’s not go crazy, now," he says, all pretend-serious "In some cases, what she doesn’t knoell, you know Chloe"

"Yeah, I do" I take a shuddering breath "Thanks, Dad," I say, liking the sound of it, afraid that this ie, that if I look away and look back, it’ll be gone I think about what he said That I’o so easily this tiht, sweetheart," he says, and I let that one word envelope ht, Dad"

Me: I’m sorry I was selfish, but i didn’t mean to be I’ll do whatever it takes to ive me I miss you so much

As I hit send, I tell myself that a sliver of bravery is better than a load of cowardice It will hurt less to have her ignore a text than it will if I call and she doesn’t answer and I get her voicemail, or worse, if she answers and tells onizing fivewhich I rock in theat the phone in h I can’t trust sound alone to tell s, I startle and drop it onto the bed, then grab it up "Hello?"

Her voice is so soft I can barely hear her So unlike E and talking at the same time "I didn’t mean it--"

"Emily I’m so sorry--"

And then we’re laughing and crying, and she says, "Let ain, even if you have to send Chloe over to bitch-slap some sense into me"

"I could never"

"Yeah, well, seriously Second, for a long tireat friend I aetting fa a bit jealous Then all of a sudden you’re having this fantasy romance while I’m scared to death that I’m about to have the worst case of pathetic unrequited love ever with a guy orks at the freaking Abercrombie So it turns out that I’m a horrible friend--" she hiccups

"Emily, no you’re not, I ah I haven’t spoken

"--and your fantasy roone to the shitter and it’s clearly allyou when you needed , and I butt in while I can

"Emily, I’m okay, and you’re not a horrible friend, you’re the best friend ever"

"Psshh!"

Before she can objectI was losing you than anything else going on I’ot your attention when you never gotyou feel like I didn’t care about your probleet what I said"

"No You neededover Reid and Graha to what you needed, instead of expecting you to always be the one listening When I lost you, I didn’t care nored, I knew better You’ve never not been there for ative Clearly I’ive ive you Happy?"

"Yeah," I sniffle

"Okay Nohat in holy hell is going on down there? Mo noodle--she called your father and ripped him a new one She even used a couple of actual curse words! Not any really good ones, but still"

"I guess that explains that"

"What?"

"He called earlier… do you think he only did it because she told him--?"

"I don’t think so At first, yeah, she was all over hi, and froht questions I think he had no idea how badly he was doing Until, you know, she told hioing on with this baby bump crap"

"Emily, I’m not--"

"Oh, I know that I also kno conflicted you were over Reid and Graha just blew to hell So what happened"

"How long do you have?" I ask, lying back on the bed

"All night, baby I even called Derek before I called you, and I told hi as you need"

"Eain, we should talk about Derek--"

"Everything is fine with Derek; he can wait, we’ll talk about hi and start talking"

I tell her everything And the first thing she says after is, "Wow I had no idea howNational Enquirer"

"Huh"

"Em," she says then, "have you ever noticed that you say ‘huh’ whenever you can’t think of anything else to say?"

Chapter 41