Page 51 of Goodbye Days

She whirls around on her heel—dancerlike—and stalks back toward me. Her eyes are grayer, more tempestuous than the sky outside, against her bloodless face. “What do you want?” Her voice sounds like a knife against a whetstone.

I’m actually grateful when she cuts me off before I can say I have no idea.

“That was quite the bit of theater yesterday,” she says.

“That was real.”

“Now instead of everyone talking about what you did, you managed to change the conversation to your little episode. How convenient.”

“It wasn’t convenient for me.”

“What, am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“You’re so generous. Thanks.”

“Adair, look.” Don’t say, “We used to be friends.” Anything but that. “We used to be friends.”

She folds her arms across her chest and laughs, clipped and acrid, blinking fast and eyeing me with an incredulous expression. “Really? That’s why you stopped me in the hall? To remind me that we used to be on friendly terms?”

“Could we maybe talk about this another time? Like go have coffee or something?” I keep my voice low.

“No.”

“Adair.”

“I’m serious. You didn’t have any shame in currying everyone’s sympathy yesterday. Now you’re embarrassed to have it out in the hallway?”

“It’s not that.”

“Of course it is. And you should have thought of that before you stopped me. So. What was going through your head, if anything?”

“I just thought—” My face burns.

“Go on.”

“I—”

“Huh? Thought what? What did you think?”

“I—thought we could, you know, support each other.” I’m fully aware of how stupid and small I sound. Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone start to enter the hallway and then hastily reconsider. I’m remembering why I was so afraid of people fearing Adair.

Adair’s voice turns cloyingly sweet and innocent. She bats her eyes. “Aw. Are you lonely, Carver? Is your life hard now? Does it suck to be alive?”

“I’m—”

She raises her finger. “See, here’s the thing: I have plenty of friends. But I only had one brother. If you were so worried about being friendless, maybe you should’ve had more friends than could fit in one car and maybe you should’ve been more careful about texting them when they were driving in said car.”

“Yeah. You’re probably right,” I murmur. Her words are flaying me.

“But you’re not all alone, are you? You and Jesmyn are becoming friendly, I see.”

“Who else do I have? Not you, obviously.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“I’m not trying to move in on Jesmyn, if that’s what you’re implying.”