Page 129 of Party Favors

There were other things I had to work out first.

“Well, Meemaw and I are here if you want to talk some more,” she said. “I’m going to go start dinner.”

She got up and came over and kissed me on the forehead. “I love you, baby girl. And we will always be here for you, anytime you need us.”

“Love you, Mom.”

She left my room and I lay in my bed, staring up at the ceiling. I was glad I’d told my mom how I really felt and how I wanted things to change. I knew things were going to improve between us.

Because I had talked it out with her.

Just like I needed to talk things out with Max.

Now that I’d finally been able to have that conversation with my mom, it was one thing I could cross off the list I’d been crafting since I’d arrived home.

My phone rang and I looked at the caller ID. It was Vella.

Which was weird because Vella never called me. If we ever talked on the phone, it was because I had called her.

She always just texted. In fact, she had texted me every day since I’d come back to Alabama just to check in on me. Strange coming from her, but it was nice.

It made me worried that something serious was going on. I answered. “Vella, are you okay? Why are you calling me?”

“So, what Max did was bad, but it wasn’t he-murdered-somebody or cheated-on-you bad.”

“You know those two things are really different, right?”

“Well, sometimes one necessitates the other,” she replied. “But yes. I was just trying to say that there are really horrible violations of trust and what Max did was essentially a harmless lie. He wasn’t trying to hurt you. He did mislead you, which sucks, and he knows he shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why are you standing up for him?”

“A couple of reasons. The first is that he’s come over every day at seven o’clock at night to see if you’re back yet, and the other day I felt bad, so I invited him in. We got to talking and everything just spilled out of him. I don’t think he has anyone else to talk to about this situation. Sunny is not speaking to him right now.”

That made me feel sad. I hadn’t wanted to come between Max and Sunny. I knew how much they meant to each other.

“The second reason,” she went on, “is because while my heart has slightly softened toward Max, I still hate everybody and I’m mad at him for hurting you. But you love him and you’re my best friend, so I wantyou to have everything you deserve that will make you happy. Even if what you want is a stupid person.”

“I’m so glad we’re friends.” I was also glad she wasn’t here to see my eyes getting all misty. I also thought about how much closer I’d felt to Vella since she’d shared all of herself with me, and given that I was in love with Max, I knew that I owed him that same chance.

“Yeah, yeah. When are you coming back?”

“Tomorrow,” I said. I’d already booked my ticket.

“Good. Will your accent be back to normal then? Because you’re a lot like this.”

“At least I didn’t ‘y’all come back now, ya hear’ you.”

“Stop,” she said.

“I could say ‘bless your heart’ and tell you I’m fixin’ to come home soon, so stop pitchin’ a fit, because I’m happy as all get-out to be headed back up north!”

“I’m going now,” she said, and hung up the phone.

Despite what all of my loved ones seemed to think, I hadn’t been curled up in my bed stuck in an endless misery loop.

No, I had done what I was best at. I’d planned.

I’d made backup plans for my backup plans, preparing myself for every contingency and problem. I was deciding what I wanted because the event I was planning was my actual life. I would make those calls, and I would live with the consequences of those decisions.

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