She went for the second because Burt Reynolds looked good. When it was over, she bought candy and a Coke, and watched the other movie, too. It was cool inside. It was dark. Even so, it took two drinks at a local bistro before she was ready to try again with Sara. She was being so unfair! Tyra was trying to make her life a better thing.

Almost no drugs …

Less drinking, kind of …

She’d even considered calling the cops about the parked cars she’d hit. How many was it? Five? Six? Hell, she could have hit fifty. She could have killed someone.

Shit …

She dropped money on the bar.

Sara was right to be angry.

Telling herself that she was ready at last, Tyra aimed for the condo, but ended up walking four or five times around her own block, unready to go inside. It was dusk when she finally stopped and looked up at the light in Sara’s window. The shade was drawn, but she was there.

“Okay,” she said. “One more try.”

She kept her nerve all the way to Sara’s door. “Sara? Sweetheart? I know you’re in there.”

“Go away, Tyra.”

She knocked harder for a full minute. Eventually, she beat on the door. “For God’s sake, Sara, I’m trying to apologize. Open the door. Come on…” She stopped pounding, and spread her fingers on the wood. “Why won’t you talk to me?”

Not everyone would understand her need, but Sara was the gauge by which Tyra measured all the ways she’d screwed up in life: the bad boyfriends, the failed jobs. A silent treatment like this had only happened once before, when Tyra went beyond doing drugs, and tried to make a living selling them. She remembered the arguments, the screaming.

Your parents are rich. Ask them for the money!

But how could Tyra explain the debts? The kinds of people she owed? Her father owned his own business; he was a deacon of the church. Bad enough she’d dropped out of college …

“Do I need to beg, Sara? Is that what you want? I’ll beg. I swear I will.”

“You wouldn’t beg me if your life depended on it. You’re too proud and stubborn and spoiled.”

Tyra covered her mouth, choking down an unexpected sob as the dead bolt turned, and a crack appeared with Sara’s face behind it.

“You could have killed someone, you know.”

“I do know that, sweetheart. I promise I do.”

Sara opened the door all the way. She wore pajamas, an old robe. “Are you sober now?”

“Of course I am. I mean, two glasses of wine…” Tyra held her thumb and finger an inch apart. She wanted a smile, a hint of a smile. A smile meant forgiveness. Forgiveness meant she wouldn’t lose her only friend.

“I’ve seen you do some stupid shit, Tyra…”

“I know you have.”