Page 31 of A Thousand Little Goodbyes

“Oh?” Chrissie’s mother asked with a raised brow. Her gaze barely flicked over Scarlett. “Not bad news, I hope?”

Scarlett held her breath and waited to see how Chrissie would respond.

“The worst. Her Hodgkin’s is back.”

Scarlett wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised by this sentence: her or Chrissie’s mother. The woman’s face went white before turning beet red, and she actually looked at Scarlett long enough tosee that she was a living, breathing girl and not just an inconvenience in the quiet despair of her post-Malcolm life.

“Oh.” The word came out like a shot, but it didn’t feel like one. “Oh, dear. That’s a shame.”

On any other day, Scarlett would have been unable to contain her giggles at such a lackluster response. Today, she could only stare at Chrissie.

Chrissie, who was standing with perfectly erect posture as she faced her mother down. Chrissie, who was telling a bald-faced lie for what had to be the first time in her twelve years of life.

“Scarlett wants to know if I can come over after school to tutor her. She doesn’t want to fall behind in her classes, but I told her I had to make sure it was okay with you and Dad first.”

Chrissie’s mother frowned. “I suppose that would be all right.”

“I’ll still do my chores and my own homework, of course. And I’ll take the bus home if it gets too dark to ride my bike.” Chrissie’s sideways gaze slid toward Scarlett’s. “Or I can just stay the night. Scarlett’s grandma already said she can take me to school on those mornings.”

“I see,” Chrissie’s mom said slowly, but Scarlett doubted it. That woman didn’t see anything that was unpleasant or uncomfortable. It was like she’d had so much of it heaped on her at once that she’d decided it was easier to ignore reality from now on. “You’re sure she doesn’t mind, Scarlett?”

Scarlett jumped to attention. “No, ma’am,” she said. Then, with all the panache she’d been lacking with Chrissie, she let her eyes fill with those big crocodile tears. “Thank you. I just know having Chrissie around will make all the difference in my recovery. She was such a help last time, and I barely knew her then.”

Scarlett wasn’t sorry when Chrissie’s mom’s face turned whiter. She wasn’t even sorry when she turned abruptly away and went back into the house.

She was, however,desperatelysorry when she looked at Chrissie again. In that moment, Chrissie looked exactly like her mom. Flat-eyed and cold, her emotions being squeezed smaller and smaller until they practically disappeared. It was more than Scarlett could bear—Scarlett, who’d been abandoned by her mother and survived cancer, who’d watched so many kids die that she literally couldn’t even remember all their names.

I did that to her. I’m the one who made her disappear inside herself.

“Chrissie, I’m sorry!” Scarlett flung her arms around her friend, so frantic now that she was starting to feel sick for real. “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t have cancer again. I’m totally fine. I just needed an excuse for you to come over every day, and this seemed like the easiest way to get what I wanted.”

Chrissie held up a finger in warning, her head tilted toward the door as she listened to her mother’s footsteps clicking slowly away. Only when they stopped did she drop her finger.

“Please don’t be mad,” Scarlett begged, still clinging to Chrissie’s neck like they were both about to sink underneath theTitanic. “I won’t lie about my cancer ever again. Pinkie promise.”

Chrissie carefully untangled herself from Scarlett’s grip. All that piano playing made her arms seriously strong, but Scarlett was starting to suspect that Grandma was right, and Chrissie’s strength came from somewhere else entirely.

“Please,” Scarlett said again. This time, the hot tears rushing to her eyes were real. “I take it back. I take it all back.”

“It’s too late for that,” Chrissie said coldly. “I’m coming over to your house every day, and we’re doing homework.Allyour homework.”

A new feeling started to spring up inside Scarlett—not fear, but something else. Something scarier. The promise coming out of Chrissie’s mouth was everything she’d wanted out of this plan, but nothing else about her best friend was.

“What do you mean?” she asked nervously.

“I mean you win. You got your way. You always do.”

Scarlett’s first instinct—to shout for joy—was quickly tamped down when Chrissie took a deep breath and spoke again, her mouth as hard and flat as the rest of her.

“But if youeverlie to me about this again, I won’t forgive you. Not even if your cancer comes back for good.”

“But I—”

“I mean it, Scarlett.” Chrissie sounded so much like a grown-up—one of the good ones, the ones who held the world together for everyone else—that Scarlett felt like she was looking at a stranger. “I’ll always love you, but that doesn’t mean I have to always like you. And right now, I don’t like you very much at all.”

Chapter ElevenCrook County, WY

Present Day