“You’re making it harder than you have to. Just stop jumping to the worst conclusions. When you make a mistake, just say sorry. You’re human,” she said.
“Don’t insult me. You make me sound so average.” I smiled for the first time since I picked Harper up from school yesterday.
My best friend had a way of calming me down.
She laughed and moved to her feet before wrapping her arms around me. “There she is. I love you, bestie.”
“Love you more.”
There was a knock on the door, and I padded over to open it.
“Ditch day!” Blakely said as she walked in with a box of doughnuts and two grocery bags full of treats. “Let’s watch chick flicks and eat all the junk food.”
These two were my ride or dies.
They knew when I was down, and they always showed up.
“Are we really all not working today?” I asked, unpacking the grocery bags and laughing as I unloaded the giant bag of Skittles, licorice, orange slices, chocolate bars, and three different kinds of chips.
“Damn straight. I told Blakely to put a sign on the door that we’re closed.” Montana pulled the last thing out of the bag and made a face. “All this crap and then you tossed in string cheese?”
“Hey, I figured we’d need some protein, right? Keep the balance.”
“Makes sense to me,” I said.
“Charlie stopped by the office during the two minutes I was there to put a sign on the door,” Blakely said, arching a brow as she looked at me. “He looked pretty concerned when I told him you weren’t coming in.”
I glanced down at my phone and saw the text from him. I’d messaged him again at 5:00 a.m., knowing he wasn’t up yet, but I’d been worried. I’d asked him to be sure to let me know how Harper was feeling in the morning.
Charles: She slept through the night and said she feels good. She wants to go to school and show off her cast. But we both miss you. Come home, Firefly.
Was he really not angry at me about this?
I deserved to be pushed away after what I’d done.
“What did you tell him?” I asked, my thumb tracing over the screen where I’d read his message.
“I told him that we were having a girls’ day. That I’d bought a ton of junk food, and we were going to just hang at your place and watch movies. He nodded and gave me this look like someone ran over his puppy before he left.”
“I figured he’d wake up this morning and realize I’d convinced him to trust me when he shouldn’t have, and he’d ignore me for the rest of my life. I don’t know. Maybe I thought that because I don’t forgive myself yet.”
“Forgive you? There’s nothing to forgive. Now, those little hellion kids are a different story.” Montana chuckled. “But Charlie loves you, you big, clueless doofus.”
“I love when Monny gets mad and calls you names,” Blakely said with a laugh.
“Okay, let’s watch a movie so I can forget about my troubles for a little while.”
We spent the next six hours watching Bourne movies with Matt Damon, because watching sappy love stories was going to make me more emotional than I already was.
“I can’t watch any more action scenes. I’m so on edge.” Blakely stood up and stretched.
“Same. And I’ve eaten so much junk food, my stomach is bloated,” Montana said.
“Well, I’m ready to get up. I need to text Charlie to check on Harper. She should be home from school soon.” I started cleaning up all the bags of food and carrying them to the kitchen.
“I love you, Vi.” Montana wrapped her arms around me and hugged me so tight it was hard to breathe.
Blakely did the same, and I thanked them both for having a ditch day with me.
