CHLOE
Chloe
Anyone want to blow off sewing circle tomorrow and help a friend pack up all her worldly goods? (It’s me. I’m the friend.)
Hannah
You’re moving?? We’re not going to be neighbors anymore?
James
What happened? I thought you loved the bungalow and you were going to ask for a two-year lease this time.
Essie
Chloe Adams, I know you’re not telling us over text that you’re leaving Aspen Springs!
Janie
Where are you going?
Chloe
I’ll tell you everything tomorrow, I promise. This is an in-person kind of conversation.
“Oh, my god.”James stepped over the threshold and looked around my disheveled home with wide eyes. “You’re actually moving. I kind of thought you were teasing us, but no. You’re really doing it.”
I blew a lock of hair out of my eyes, dumped the armload of sheets and towels into the open box, and straightened. “I’m really doing it,” I confirmed.
“Tell me everything.”
Oh, shit.
I had asked James to come over twenty minutes before everyone else so that I could tell her alone. Essie, Hannah, Janie—they all had strong opinions about Steven, but James was the one I was really worried about. Radish was literally eating my brain cells. That was the only reasonable explanation for how I could have said yes to sharing a roof with the man who had gotten my best friend bucked into a fence before talking it over with her.
I had to tell her. A tiny, cowardly part of me briefly considered not telling anyone. The move was temporary, after all. Maybe I’d only have to live with Steven for a month, and then a perfectly priced, two-bedroom house would miraculously fall into my lap. But I knew that wasn’t going to happen. More than likely, I wouldn’t find anything until the summer.
Anyway, I believed that if you had to keep a secret from a friend, that meant either they weren’treallya good friend, oryou were doing shit you knew was wrong. James was a good friend. Moving in with her worst enemy? That made me a bad friend, I couldn’t deny that, no matter how good my reasons were. I just hoped it didn’t make me anex-friend.
I had to tell her. I knew that. It was just so dang hard.
“Bedroom,” I said. “I’ll tell you all about it while I clean out my closet.”
She followed me into the bedroom where I pulled my suitcase from the closet and tossed it onto the bed. “So, first of all, I’m moving because I have to.” I told her about Miriam’s daughter while I unzipped the suitcase and flipped it open.
James made a sympathetic sound. “That sucks. I feel bad for everyone involved, but especially you.” Her forehead pinched with obvious worry. “It’s not like Aspen Springs has an abundance of housing options. This is a ranching town. What are you going to do? Are you going to have to move to the city?”
“No, I…I found a place. Not in town, but close by.” I stared unseeingly at the contents of my underwear drawer. I needed to reserve a week’s worth of clothes to hold me until I was fully moved into Steven’s house—everything else was going in boxes—but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how much underwear that meant.
“Chloe,” James said softly, like she knew I was on the cusp of a minor meltdown. “How can I help? Put me to work.”
But I couldn’t let her lift a finger with the weight of my lies sitting on my chest. I shook my head. “Let me tell you first. Then…we’ll see what you want to do.”
James toed off her sneakers and sat on the bed cross-legged. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”
“I don’t know where to start.” I scooped up the entire drawer’s worth of socks and underwear and dropped everything into the suitcase. Better to be prepared.
“Start with now. Where are you moving?”
