BooksBarbecue
Back When We Were Friends
Chapters (52)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. About the Author
  5. 31
  6. 14
  7. 31
  8. 14
  9. 31
  10. 14
  11. 31
  12. 14
  13. 31
  14. 15
  15. 31
  16. 16
  17. 32
  18. 16
  19. 32
  20. 17
  21. 32
  22. 17
  23. 32
  24. 17
  25. 32
  26. 17
  27. 32
  28. 18
  29. 32
  30. 18
  31. 32
  32. 18
  33. 32
  34. 18
  35. 32
  36. 18
  37. 32
  38. 18
  39. 32
  40. 18
  41. 32
  42. 18
  43. 32
  44. 18
  45. 32
  46. 32
  47. 33
  48. 33
  49. 33
  50. Acknowledgments
  51. Discussion Questions
  52. Booklist

“Hmm...” There was so much evidence to suggest otherwise. I figured I had until the end of first year to lose it before it became a bigger problem. Being eighteen and a virgin was pretty bad. I was sure most of the people I’d meet the next day wouldn’t be. If I kept quiet about it, I could just about pull it off. But, if I got to nineteen, twenty... Boys would expect me to be better at sex than I would be...bleeding all over their sheets and trying to ensure they entered me at the most perfect point of my virginity loss playlist I’d made for the occasion. “It’s just all so huge,” I said again, throwing my hands out to the blobs of orange. “Life, stop being so huge! Like there’s all these people out there who are strangers now, but, in time, will be really important people to me.”

I felt her stomach laugh next to me. “I can’t believe you’re this insightful and you’re not even high.”

“There was a point when we were strangers,” I pointed out. “Isn’t that mad to think about?”

“Hmm.” She trailed off and ground her cigarette into the dusty ground, wrapping her arms around her chest. A breeze lifted her hair, blowing it across her face, and she fought to push it back behind her ears, lost in thought. I waited...

“I never want us to become strangers,” she said finally.

I let out a laugh. “We won’t.”

“Do you promise?”

“Of course.”

“Say it. Say you promise?” She twisted toward me with an almost rageful earnestness.

I held up a Guides’ Promise sign and faked a laugh. “I promise we’ll never become strangers.”

“I promise too.”

Her smile split her face in half and she pulled me in for a final hug. Our last before I’d drive her back to the pub, because she wanted to get half a gram and party the night away.

If I’d known how much everything would go to shit, I would’ve hugged her for longer.

32

now.

I laid my head on my office desk and let the nausea dance up my gullet until my whole mouth tasted of bile.

“Stop this, stop this,” I whispered to the empty desks around me. “This is self-harm, Fern. Just fucking stop this.”

I took some deep breaths and sat upright in my fancy orthopedic chair. There, on my work monitor, was Ben and Tiffany’s engagement photo once again. A hiccup of sick. My heart tickling the inside of my throat. I wanted to cry. Scream. Both.