Page 71 of A Thousand Little Goodbyes

“Yes.”

All of the air seemed to escape Chrissie at once. She leaned back against her chair, her adrenaline ebbing away only to leave an aching emptiness behind. With shaking hands, she dug her phone out of her purse and pulled up the website she’d bookmarked the night before. The time had come to start putting that list to good use. Not forScarlett to absolve herself of the guilt she was trying to unload before she died, and not because Chrissie was feeling particularly brave, but because it was time. It had been time for several years now.

Scarlett, never one to stay down for long, noticed what she was doing almost immediately.

“What are you doing? Is that an airline website?” Panic robbed Scarlett’s voice of its usual rich timbre. “You aren’t buying a ticket home, are you? You already said you’d stay with me. You promised!”

“And it’s a promise I intend to keep, just as I’ve kept all the others,” she said as she grabbed her credit card and started entering the information into the website. She didn’t tell Scarlett what she was doing. Her friend would learn for herself soon enough.

“But for once in your goddamned life, Scarlett—even now, at the very end—I need you to realize that not everything in the world is about you.”

Chapter Twenty-FourPortland, OR

2009

Childbirth was every bit as horrible as Scarlett knew it would be.

“Get it out, please. I don’t want to do this anymore. It hurts.”

No matter how many times Scarlett said the words, no one seemed to be in a hurry to comply. Her delivery nurse—notNurse Penny, alas, but a humorless block of a woman—and the bored-looking doctor who popped in every couple of hours just patted her on the knee and told her that she was doing great.

“But I’m not great. I’m not even good. Why won’t anyone help me?”

Chrissie waited until the contraction passed before wiping Scarlett’s forehead with the cool, jasmine-scented washcloth she’d somehow procured from the supply closet.

“It won’t be much longer now, Scarlett. You’ve been through worse.”

“I’m gonnakillGrimshaw.”

“Not if I beat you to it.”

“Then I’m gonna dance on his grave.”

“I’ll bring the playlist.”

“I’ll even pee on it.”

“Why stop there? We should light the whole graveyard on fire.”

Scarlett bit back a sudden sob—though whether it was a sob of physical or emotional pain, she couldn’t say. Thanks to the birthing plan Chrissie had been vigilantly upholding, the room was set the exact way Scarlett had wanted it to be. Bright lights, the TV blaring, no sign of a mirror anywhere. She’d decided early on that she would avoid everything that had been suggested in the stupid pregnancy books. She didn’t want to feel calm and one with nature. She didn’t want to bond with her baby by watching its enormous head push through a hole thatdefinitelywasn’t big enough for all this. The less of the magic miracle oxytocin her body produced, the sooner she could put this whole horrible chapter behind her.

“Would you really light Grimshaw’s grave on fire for me?” Scarlett asked. She barely had the energy to turn her head to look at her friend, but she was glad when she did. Chrissie’s was a face she’d never get tired of looking at. “Really, truly?”

“Really, truly.” Chrissie spoke in a tone that Scarlett knew she could trust. “I’ve got your back, Scarlett. For now and for always.”

Scarlett nodded gratefully. The doctors could pump her full of drugs and jasmine-scented manna could fall from the heavens, and none of it would be half as effective as her best friend pressing a kiss on her sweaty forehead and promising to wreak vengeance on her enemies.

“And you still want this?” Scarlett asked. She could feel her stomach starting to clench like the jaws of a rabid animal were tearing her apart from the inside, but she kept talking. Talking was the only thing she’d ever really been good at. “You’re sure you don’t mind? You aren’t going to think I’m a horrible person and stop talking to me forever when I move to Paris next month?”

The pain took over then, but Scarlett wasn’t done. Even though she and Chrissie had sat down with a lawyer already—the most grown-upthing she’d ever done and, with any luck, the most grown-up thing she’deverdo—a part of her was still terrified that their plans would fall through.

That Chrissie would take one look at the baby about to become her sole responsibility and run screaming for the hills. That the money already transferred to Chrissie’s account would prove insufficient to cover the first few years until Scarlett managed to find a well-paying job.

Or, most terrifying of all, that the doctors would put the baby in Scarlett’s arms and one tiny glimpse of her daughter would make her change her mind about this whole thing.

“I could never think you’re a horrible person, Scarlett.” Chrissie leaned close and pressed her cool, soft forehead to Scarlett’s sweaty one. “You’re the love of my life, and you always will be.”

Words became impossible as the contraction hit her in full. She breathed when Chrissie told her to. Screamed when breathing became too hard. By the time this one was over, she was so tired that all she could do was cling to her best friend’s hand and croak one final command.