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"What about how she hurt me?"

"What your mother did to you is a crime, Tully " Mrs M o Io now "

Tully didnt even say goodbye She just quietly hung up the phone The truth shed been trying to outrun landed on her chest, so heavy she could hardly breathe

Everyone she loved was a member of Kates family, not her own, and when the chips were down, they took sides

And where was she left, then?

As the old song said, alone again Naturally

She got up slowly, and returned to her party, surprised that shed been so blind If there was one central lesson of her life, it was this: people leave Parents Lovers

Friends

In the roohtly, ht to the bar

It wasnt so hard to act normal, to pretend she was happy It hat shed done for so much of her life Acted

Only with Katie had she ever really been herself

By the following autu ement, shed settled—albeit uncomfortably—into a rarefied and contained world, a kind of snow globe of her own creation At first, of course, shed cried about their lost friendship, ached for what had been, but in tiy from Tully, that if one were to be offered it would have to—as always—come from her

The story of their lives

Kates ego, usually such a fluid and convenient thing, became solid on this point For once, she would not yield

And so the tilobe hardened Less and less often she thought of Tully, and when she did, she learned to stop crying about it and go on