As soon as the words were out, something broke in her, all her defenses crashing in one instant, leaving her with the devastation of having been abandoned by the one person she’d always believed loved her. Her body crumpled as if struck.
She pressed her palms to her eyes, waiting to hear dumb platitudes. But when she looked up, she saw that not only Hannah but Renee and Maya were crying.
“No!” Blue said, all of her anger returning in a rush. “You do not get to cry, Renee. Do you hear me? You got away. You went to the neighbors—safe and sound! And you never once apologized. You never once even bothered to ask what happened to me after you left me there!”
Renee sobbed harder. “I know!”
Blue scoffed. “You know.”
“I was too scared to ask. I knew you must hate me. I swear I was just trying to get help. And I did. That should count for something, right? That I got to a phone? That the police came. That that sicko is in jail now? But I know I left you. I can only imagine how that felt. And I have to live with—”
Blue laughed short and hard like a scrape. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. Poor Renee. What you have to live with. Tell us. Go ahead. What do you have to live with, Renee?”
“That I’m a coward! That I couldn’t be there when you needed me. I know I should have said something. I know I pretended like it didn’t happen. I just didn’t know how else to live with the guilt.”
“You left me.”
“It was stupid and selfish and messed up. I get it. I let you down in a way I can never be forgiven for. I failed you. Totally and completely. And I hate myself for that. And I have to live with that.”
“Good. I hope it keeps you up at night,” Blue said. She felt hijacked by hate, everything ugly around her, in her. And yet she kept amplifying it, justifying her hatred in her mind in the hopes that it might finally find release. Because here she was, thirty years old and incapable of the kind of soft, vulnerable love that didn’t nip in fear, incapable of being loved in her own soft places, of being in a relationship with a man, of loving herself. And as far as she was concerned, it was Renee’s fault just as much as that scumbag’s who ground her into the dirt. If Renee hadn’t left her, Blue wouldn’t be so broken. If she’d just said she was sorry afterward, allowed Blue to confide in her the horror, Blue wouldn’t have felt so abandoned, her ugliness confirmed.
“It’s always the same with you, Renee, even now as I confess something I’ve been holding inside for twelve years—you have to make this about you. Even now you’re only thinking about yourself.” Blue didn’t even know if this was true but she didn’t care, didn’t give an ounce of concern about anything but unburdening herself.
Renee’s tears stopped instantly as if she’d been slapped to her senses. Her voice took on a wobbly sort of anger, daring herself to allow it.
“Really? I only think of myself? Ever? What about everything I ever did for you before that moment? Why can’t you remember anything but that?”
“Because for me there is no other moment!” Blue screamed. The air seemed to ripple with the force of it. They both stood there in the wake of it, in the shock of all that rage. Then Blue slumped with the exertion. She had hoped to feel better, finally free of it all. Instead she was just empty and dried out. Alone. Ashamed. She turned away from Renee’s gaze.
Maya stepped between them. “Okay, listen, you two,” she said. She addressed Renee first. “I get why you ran. It was an impossible predicament. But it was weak and uncool that you never talked to Blue about it.”
“Thanks, I’m aware,” Renee said.
Maya turned to Blue. “And it’s weak that you have defined a person—your best friend—by one moment, because it’s easier to hate than to accept someone’s different ways of coping and to be powerless to change them. We all fail each other. We fail ourselves.”
“Great, so you all agree that I’m weak,” Renee said. “Good to know.”
“At least you’re just weak. I’m weak and ugly,” Blue said.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Maya said, throwing her hands up.
“Wait,” Renee said to Blue. “You know it’s not true—what he said. You know you’re not ugly, right?”
Blue looked at her, then past her, past the streetlights, the restaurant lights, the summer moon. She hated that she believed it. She knew it meant that that scumbag had won. But no matter what she told herself, no matter how much she didn’t care what some psychopathic dirtbag thought of her, she couldn’t escape the greasy psychic film he’d left on her, the way it made her feel turned inside, like rotten fruit. The way it leaked out and drove people away. “Sometimes I wish he had killed me.”
“Blue!”
“I don’t even know why he didn’t.”
“Maybe he heard the sirens,” Hannah said.
Blue looked up, surprised. She’d actually never considered that before. But that kind of made sense. The sirens are what stopped him from...well...everything. The sirens that were there because Renee had run to a neighbor’s and they’d called 911. She felt something shift, a piece of missing information altering the narrative. It changed things. Not a lot. But a little. Still. “If it wasn’t true, what he said, I wouldn’t be alone.”
She sat down on the curb, the weight of that thought too heavy to bear. “It isn’t fair,” she said to Renee. “You have it all and I’m still back there. Alone and scared. I lost my best friend. I lost everything. And now, on top of that, I ruined my one chance with Jack.”
It was too much. Too much.
Renee sat down beside her. “Listen to me. Look at me. I need you to hear this. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry I hurt you. It’s the last thing I ever wanted to do. I have missed you every single day for the last twelve years. And hey, if it makes you feel any better, my life’s actually not that great either. If you want to know the truth, I didn’t get pregnant on purpose. And as for my ‘perfect relationship,’ I think Darrin is cheating on me.” She swallowed. “I haven’t been able to admit that out loud until now.”
“Wait, what?” Maya said.
Renee laughed, an almost hysterical yelp. “Yep. With the neighbor! I found texts. And my first husband cheated on me too. Two days after our wedding. And I still stayed. He was the one who left me. And you know what? Deep down I think I deserve it. Or at the very least expect it. Because...who could love me? I mean, I don’t even know who ‘me’ is. Like, what are they even loving in the first place? And whatever, so what. I’m not asking you to feel sorry for me. I’m just saying...”