Page 109 of Confessions of the Funny Fat Friend

Go to work.

See Grandma at the hospital.

Go back to Mara’s.

Say hello.

Go to sleep.

Mara tried to be there for me, and Birdie even came over to watch movies one night, but I just couldn’t. Pretending everything was okay for Grandma took all my energy. I even missed Wednesday morning breakfast because I knew it would be just my friends and me and they’d ask the question: Why? Why did you let him go?

I’d gone over all my reasons in my head, every single day, trying to convince myself I’d done the right thing. If they argued, it would be too easy to do the selfish thing and take him back, ask him to stay somewhere he didn’t belong. But I couldn’t leave either. Not with my grandma here. Not with my savings goal still unmet.

I planned to spend the entire weekend in bed, save for a couple hospital visits, but Saturday evening, Mara and Birdie both came into my room.

“Get out of bed,” Mara said.

I squinted at the bright light. “Thanks for knocking.”

“It’s my house, and it’s for your own good!” she said. Which really made me wish I’d sucked it up and stayed at home.

Birdie sat on my bed. “I know you’re sad, honey, but can you let us have a chance at cheering you up?”

I sat up against the pillows, blinking. “I don’t want to feel better.”

Mara and Birdie exchanged a glance.

Birdie rubbed my shoulder, asking, “What do you mean?”

I took the extra pillow and held it in front of me. “I feel like I deserve to be in pain.”

Mara frowned. “That’s not true, honey.”

“It is!” I cried, frustrated. “You didn’t see him as he was walking away, but I did. I ruined everything for him—I cost him his job, pushed him away, because I’m not ready to leave my family, and I’m afraid he’d resent me if he stayed.”

Both of my friends wore matching looks of pity. I hated it, mostly because Iwaspitiful. I was a mess.

“And you know the worst part?” I asked them.

They waited for me to continue.

“In a sick way, I want to feel the pain, all of it, because it reminds me of him.”

Mara said, “He was your first, Hen. He’ll always be on your heart.”

“But what if he isn’t?” I asked. “What if I’m fifty and I forget what it feels like to be loved by him?”

Birdie pinched her lips together, thinking. “Can you write something? Maybe have a journal you can look back on?”

“Yeah,” Mara said. “Or a note on your phone?”

“Not permanent enough,” I said.

A small smile grew on Mara’s lips. “I have an idea.”

We left the house, me still in my sweats, and then she drove up to a strip mall, parking in front of a store with a sign that said TATTOO in bright red letters. There was a sign in the window too.Walk-ins welcome.

“A tattoo?” I said.

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