“It’s just me, Che,” I say, nudging her with my shoulder when I sit in the chair beside hers. “You don’t have to keep it a secret from me.”
“I haven’t spoken to Kelly,” she says. “Not since . . . that night. When you picked me up.”
I already know she’s telling the truth. Which means there’s something else she’s hiding.
“So . . . who are you texting that made you jump out of your skin at the sound of my voice?” I ask, and I already know the answer to that, too.
If Kelly is to be believed.
“You just startled me,” Cherish says. “I thought you were one of my parents.”
That doesn’t answer my question, but I can’t simply ask again. That would belabor it. Instead I start again, with an entry point she won’t foresee.
“I know I wasn’t really fond of Kelly,” I say, wearing contrition like a veil across my face. “I’m sorry if I ever made you think you have to choose. You don’t. If you like him . . . I’m sure there’s something about him I could like, too.”
That should please her. It should make her turn and look me in the eye, hope that I mean it, and that if I do, maybe there’s a way to salvage whatever broke between them. It should make her hope out loud that if I’m willing to keep her secret, too, then maybe it doesn’t have to be over. Maybe he didn’t do something as bad as it seemed.
But Cherish doesn’t even react.
“That’s how it works, right?” I go on, a giggle lending the transition some levity. “When your best friend likes someone? Doesn’t it always make you see the guy the way they do?”
She’s thinking, but I don’t give her long.
“Like me and Tariq.”
She’s a novice. She didn’t respond at all to the mention of a possible reconciliation with her own boyfriend, but Cherish can’t stop herself from straightening at the sound of Tariq’s name.
“What about him?”
“Well, you’re crushing on him, aren’t you?” I say it easily, with a little grin. “I know you are; it’s totally fine. You like him because I like him; it makes sense. It’s cute. You’re like a bratty little sister who can’t help imitating me.”
“What are you talking about?”
But she takes too long. Instead of it sounding like a plausible retort, like she’s responding to nonsense, the beats that pass before she says it confirm that she absolutely knows.
“You are so bad at this,” I tell her through a laugh, ignoring the sound of her counting in my head.
One two three four fiiiive.
“Bad at what?” She’s getting defensive.
Good.
“At lying.”
When she goes to move away, I grab her arm and yank her back, laughing and forcing her to relax in my arms. I pull her head onto my shoulder and clamp mine down against it to keep her there. If she resists, she’ll hurt herself but it won’t be my fault.
“Farrah, what is wrong with you? Get off!”
I release her abruptly and then recoil, my face contorted and confused. I move as though it’s her response that’s startling, as though her struggling was itself cause for concern.
“Cherish . . . what’s the matter?”
Her chest is heaving, and I can almost feel the heat radiating from her skin.
One two three four fiiiive, one two three four fiiiive.
“Why are you so mad?” I ask. “Shouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Farrah.” She makes every word sharp and separate. “Why can’t things ever just be normal with you? Why is something always the matter?”
She’s building up steam. I can almost see it—the wheel of her brain picking up speed when it thinks it’s on to something.
“One minute you’re my best friend, and there’s nobody in the world but us, and then”—she shakes her head, a heavy pressure building on her brow—“you snap. You come out of nowhere with something, like you always need to pick a fight.”
I let her words hang in the space between us, just long enough that she thinks they’ve made an impression.
One two three four fiiiive.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
“You’re bad at this,” I say at last, and then I go completely still.
I know what’s going to happen now, but Cherish can only see the move in front of her, never the one after the next. So when I’m unmoved by her attempt to derail me, she doesn’t know where else to go. When she breaks—the way I knew she would—a tear slips down the length of her face. It’s even more pathetic because she thought this was going to end any other way, and because she’s always so upset when she doesn’t mean to cry.
“I spent the day with Tariq when you were recovering,” she says, shaking her head and swiping angrily at the streak on her face. “Is that what you’re getting at? It wasn’t a big deal, Farrah, I’ve known him a lot longer than you.”
My eyebrow cocks.
“I mean we’ve been friends my entire life, literally longer than I can remember. We used to take baths together when my parents babysat him for the Campbells, when his mom got sick before she passed.”
There are too many details, too much irrelevant backstory meant to cloud my judgment with knee-jerk compassion. She’s talking too much, insisting I believe something rather than trying to relay the truth.
One two three four fiiiive.
What I’m not expecting is the way it hurts.
She’s not any good at it, but my Cherish is still trying to deceive me. And the timing can’t be coincidental.
Somewhere not far from us, in the house maybe, or elsewhere on the property, my mother is still here. The same day she said I can’t see any story but the one I’m writing, my best friend lies to me. And with time enough for me to run back to my parents’ arms.
Is that all this is? Cherish siding with my mother because she’s afraid of the way I get along with hers?
“Our parents used to pair us up all the time,” she’s saying. “You know he’s been my escort to every formal at the club. I’m just saying. You liking him isn’t the first time I noticed Tariq Campbell, Farrah.” Her eyes flick away and back. “And I don’t have a crush on him.”
“You’re supposed to say he’s like a brother to you,” I say after letting a long silence stretch uncomfortably between us.