Delly could hold her own if it was, though. She’d once punched a kid in middle school for calling her stupid, and when I picked her up from the principal’s office, the kid was weeping on the bench while Delly just stood there with a smirk on her lips and ice on her knuckles.
The fridge cooled my flushed face, but as my thoughts ping-ponged in all directions, one of them became clear: I’d been in here for way too long. Jolting, I searched for an excuse for my loitering.
Delly’s laugh sounded from the living room, and a moment later, Ireland’s joined it. FOMO hit hard, and I grabbed something at random and went to investigate.
“—then she told me that if I was going to dress like a harlot, she may as well pay me like one and stuffed Easter eggs her grandkids had brought her into my scrubs pocket.”
Delly was sitting in the armchair now, having moved from the couch for some reason, as she told her story to Ireland, who stood beside her. They hadn’t noticed me yet, so I leaned against the doorframe and just listened.
“It was Ms. Betty, wasn’t it?” Ireland asked.
Delly chuckled. “So, you’ve met her?”
Ireland nodded, her messy, pretty hair brushing the tops of her shoulders. “She came to my first dance class here, back in January.”
“Oh, come on, there has to be more to it than that. Don’t hold out on me,” Delly complained, sitting forward in her seat as she sniffed out a juicy story.
Ireland fiddled with the loose threads on her cut-offs,then sighed. “Well, like most things here, it’s one of those ‘laugh so you don’t cry’ situations, you know?”
Delly nodded seriously but then glanced my way and straightened. “Big bro! Why are you lurking?”
Ireland looked over her shoulder, pinning me with her vibrant blue gaze.
I lost my words, but my brain lost its mind as it instructed my hand to rise in the air in answer.
The hand that was grasping a squirt bottle of mustard, that was.
We all looked at one another for a few seconds, and then I slowly lowered my hand. “Snacks?”
Delly snorted but kept her mouth shut, offering me no way out.
Silence persisted, so I just nodded to myself as if they’d given me the answer I was after and retreated into the kitchen.
I briefly considered committing to the mustard act and getting a snack to go with it, but since I actually hated mustard, I just put it back in the fridge.
Instead I grabbed the water pitcher from the fridge and refilled my Live Oak branded canteen they gave us yesterday at orientation—hydration was normal, right?—and returned to the living room.
Delly had disappeared, and as I scanned the room, the faint sound of her shower turning on filtered from her room. Ireland was sitting cross-legged on the couch, her attention on her phone and a deep furrow between her brows.
She glanced up as I took another step into the room, offering me a tight, awkward smile before looking back down at her phone.
Instead of cutting my losses and going to my room, I set my canteen on the side table between the couch andarmchair and sat down. Out of habit, I leaned over to the couch and took one of the throw pillows and hugged it against me.
“I missed the end of the story?”
She clicked a button, darkening the screen. “There wasn’t much more to it.” Her eyes locked on mine, and she sighed. “Just something that was sad more than anything. But maybe less sad now, after time passed, so now it’s just…”
“Just what?” I asked, leaning toward her.
Ireland hummed. “A memory.”
Her thoughtful expression that followed, as if she was reliving it, turned almost… bereft. Burning pain filled my chest, and the knowledge that I didn’t know her well enough to fix it, or even to ease it, made it so much worse.
Slowly, I stood up and joined her on the couch, sitting on the far end so I didn’t crowd her.
Whatever deep hurt she was remembering probably couldn’t be fixed, but I could at least sit with her through it.
She masked her flash of surprise quickly, her lips turning up in a sad smile.
