Bianca glances up at Xavier and, without uttering a word, he seems to understand.
“I’ll wait in the car,” he whispers, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Text me if you need anything.”
“Thanks,” she whispers back.
A few seconds later, the front door clicks shut, the sound echoing in the space around them, and Chloe finally breaks.
Bianca steps up behind her and wraps her arms around Chloe’s shaking shoulders, pulling her in tight. The sobs follow, harsh and guttural, from deep in her chest as she turns around and lets herself be held.
They stand like that for a while, Chloe letting the tears flow, Bianca making soft shushing noises and rocking her back and forth gently, the shoulder of her t-shirt growing damper by the second.
“Twelve hours,” Chloe says, as her breathing comes back under control. She sniffles, loud and snotty. “We fought twelve hours ago after adecadetogether and he just left.”
Bianca gives her one last squeeze before stepping back. “I know. It’s unbelievable.”
“No,” Chloe disagrees. “No, it’s not. It should have been obvious. You knew, right?”
“Knew what?”
“That he didn’t want to marry me.”
Bianca sighs and sits on the edge of Chloe’s bed. “I knew that he didn’t deserve you.”
Chloe plops down beside her and they stare at the half-empty closet.
“At least he left the bed.”
“You deserve a new bed. A new everything. A new couch at least, and a dining-room set.”
“Okay, moneybags,” Chloe teases, but something clicks in Bianca’s head.
“Actually,” she trails off. “That’s . . . sort of true.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we’re gonna go get you some new furniture, right now.”
She grabs Chloe’s hand, just like she did back at summer camp when they’d made a pact to be absolutely nowhere to be found during orienteering – also known as letting preteens wander around the woods by themselves with even odds whether they find their way back to camp with just a map and a compass – and instead spent the afternoon hidden in a disused storage closet in the arts and crafts cabin with a tube of Pringles, a package of Oreos and copies of Sarah Dessen’sJust Listen, the book they’d both brought to camp and bonded over the first night while they unpacked.
If Xavier’s surprised by how fast they come back down to the garage or that Chloe’s with her, he doesn’t say anything about it. He just starts up his Jeep and with a quirked eyebrow, asks, “Where to, boss?”
“IKEA,” Chloe says.
“West Elm,” Bianca says right on top of her.
“We are not going to West Elm. It’s too expensive.”
“We are going. I know you love all that modern stuff and I’m a trust-fund baby now. You can pay me back whenever, or not at all, I don’t even care. We’re going to get you a beautiful couch and a bed and you aren’t going to say a damn word about it.”
Bianca watches as Xavier and Chloe’s eyes meet in the rearview mirror.
“I find it’s best not to argue when she sounds like this,” he says, pulling out of the parking spot and heading out of the garage.
Chloe snorts. “Okay, fine, but Iampaying you back.”
“Whatever, we’ll talk about it later.”
West Elm, in all its modular shapes and mid-century-whatever glory, is the antithesis of Bianca’s style. She leans more eclectic with a bit of Mediterranean influence, but it is obviously like heaven for Chloe.
