Page 8 of Best Laid Plans
Elle took a few beats, making sure that she was, in fact, okay. Nothing felt broken, even if her left wrist was a little sore from where she’d come down on it. And she knew that she’d have to take a pair of tweezers to her gravel-filled hands later to make sure that the smaller pieces didn’t stay embedded.
Mostly, she was embarrassed, her exertion covering up the flush on her cheeks as she put her hand over her eyes and looked up toward the sun.
A blonde ponytail came into view, with eyebrows a few shades darker furrowed in concern. Holy shit. She should have known that coming home was going to be a blast from the past, but the hits–literally and figuratively–just kept coming.
“Becca?” A strange rush of nostalgia and homesickness flooded through her body at saying Becca’s name again.
Becca Watts had been her best friend throughout her childhood, and they’d always had plans to move to Boston together, after they had both finished college.
Life hadn’t worked out like they’d planned though, Becca’s detour coming far sooner than either of them had expected.
In high school, Becca had worked at The Rock Harbor Inn. Elle realized, in this moment, it’s also where she was currently sprawled out. After she’d gotten her first car, she’d pick Becca up most nights after Becca’s cleaning shift at the inn, though she’d never got quite as up close and personal with the parking lot.
“Elle.” Becca’s voice was soft and warm and made that strange ache in Elle’s chest split open again.
After pulling herself up, which took more effort than Elle wanted to admit, she brushed her palms together to wipe off the stray gravel.
“It’s good to see you, Becca,” Elle said, meaning it in a way she hadn’t been expecting. “How are you doing?”
“Well, besides possibly just hitting someone with my car, things are going good,” she said, her dimpled smile still the same one she’d had since their youth.
“What are you…”
“I’m the General Manager now,” Becca said, pointing back to the inn. “Zoe and I live on-site. I was just heading out to drop her at my parents for the day.”
It was then that Elle noticed the car seat in the second row of seats, a curious, dark-haired child peering out the window.
“Wow.” The air rushed out of Elle’s lungs. “She’s gotten so big.”
“She just turned five a couple of months ago.” Becca beamed with the kind of love in her eyes that Elle didn’t know if she’d ever felt for anything.
“In July.” Elle knew Zoe’s birthday. It had only been in the last few years, once their communication had tapered off to the point that it couldn’t qualify as communication anymore, that she’d stopped sending birthday cards.
Sometimes, the worst part when looking back at friendships that had drifted apart was accepting that there was no moment. No line in the sand when everything had changed. No big blowout or meltdown to signal the end.
Becca had gotten pregnant before their senior year of college, the same summer that Elle had stayed in Boston to complete an internship. She’d already felt them drifting, even if she’d told herself that Becca would finish at the college she’d been attending locally and save up enough money working at the inn so that they could make a go of it in Boston together.
When Becca had decided to keep the baby, the door on theirplans had closed. But Elle had been insistent to herself that she could make their friendship work. She’d come home to throw Becca a baby shower, coordinating between her finals and her new job’s start date and moving into her new apartment in Boston to make sure that she could be around.
But at some point along the way, they’d strayed too far away from one another to find their way back.
“We should grab a coffee sometime,” Becca said, filling the silence that had stretched between them.
Elle didn’t know if it was one of those platitudes that people who’d once known one another said or if Becca really meant it. Even so… “I’d like that. I’ll be in town for at least the next few weeks.”
She didn’t miss how Becca’s brows lifted curiously. “Already making your own hours?”
Elle laughed, but she knew it sounded fake. She wasn’t ready to get into that with Becca quite yet. Maybe if coffee actually materialized, she’d unburden herself and spill all the idiotic decisions that had led her life to its current trajectory. “Something like that. Is your number still the same?” Elle pulled out her phone which, miraculously, hadn’t been damaged in the fall.
Becca nodded.
“Great.” Elle slid her phone back into the pocket of her shorts. It almost made it worse, somehow, that the line of communication hadn’t been closed, not really.
They’d both just decided not to use it.
On her walk home, she couldn’t stop thinking about Becca, wondering about all the things she’d missed in her former best friend’s life over the last few years. And Zoe. She’d gotten so big. Elle had been there when she’d been born. A tiny, crying bundle that had terrified Elle with the weight of responsibility that bringing her into the world would mean for her best friend.
She’d promised to be there for Becca, and she hadn’t kept good on that promise.
