Page 88 of Keepsake
My best friend turned around, marched up to her room and shut the door.
Numb, I walked slowly back down to the kitchen. The prep work I’d promised Ruth was still there on the counter. In a daze, I washed the lettuce and shredded it into a bowl. But my mind was a million miles away, trying to make sense of what I’d just heard.
Daphne said May was in love with…me? Did that just happen?
I stood there, staring at my work without seeing it, trying to sift through my memory for clues. May had once hooked up with a girl who lived on our floor of the dorm. I knew it, and May knew I knew it. It wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t something she talked about afterward. Just like we didn’t discuss the time I had a threesome with a lacrosse player and his girlfriend in the basement of a fraternity.
It was college, right? We tried some things and had some fun. To my knowledge, May had dated only men. All the crushes she confessed to me were on men. There were lots of those.
Too many, maybe? Was she telling the truth about those?
My worried train of thought was interrupted by Ruth, who came in the kitchen door. “Hi, honey,” she said with a smile. “Everything okay?”
No, not at all. “I washed the lettuce,” I said stupidly.
She gave me a patient smile. “Thank you. And how is Zach?”
“Feverish.”
“I’m not surprised. A cold that might bounce off the rest of us always cuts him down. Shall we heat a bowl of soup for him at lunchtime? I have some in the freezer.”
“Good idea,” I said, my heart heavy. “Excuse me for a moment.” Dumbly, I walked outside, my feet pointed in the direction of the bunkhouse. Maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t come to Vermont this fall at all.
The next twoevenings were unbearable. May didn’t look me in the eye at all. She always disappeared right after dinner, claiming she had to study. And poor Zach was sick. Both nights he fell asleep on his bunk right after dinner and slept for twelve hours.
I spent those nights tossing and turning in my bed, alone for the first time in a while. It wasn’t bad dreams that kept me up, either. But guilt. And yet it seemed egotistical to imagine that my best friend had been harboring a secret crush on me.
If that were true, wouldn’t I have noticed it before? I loved May, and I’d always considered myself a good, loyal friend. Yet Daphne had accused me of callous disregard for everyone’s feelings. Lately I’d become a big believer in my own cluelessness, which made Daphne’s theories easier to swallow.
On Tuesday, Griff sent me to the Montpelier market with Zach, who was mostly recovered. Or at least he said he was. Zach looked awfully pale, and he was terribly quiet. I wasn’t great company, either.
“Did May get her paper written?” Zach asked me in between customers.
“Not sure,” I mumbled. Zach hadn’t noticed that May was avoiding me. He’d probably noticed Daphne staring daggers at me the whole time she was home. And now May wasn’t speaking to Daphne, either. And Daphne wasn’t speaking to Zach.
Griff had driven his youngest sister back to college last night. But the damage was already done. I’d come to Boston to relax, and give my parents a break from their worry. And in doing so, I’d come between several members of the Shipley family, and broken Daphne’s heart. And maybe May’s.
“You okay?” Zach asked as we finally got into the truck to go back to the farm.
How many times had he asked me that question this fall? A million? Shit. I was sick to death of being needy.
I was sick to death ofme.
“I don’t need you to ask me that anymore,” I said quietly.
“Okayyy,” he drawled.
Since I’d made conversation nearly impossible, the ride back to Tuxbury was long and quiet.
When we got back home, Griff met the truck and helped us unload. I tried to slip away to my room, taking my bad humor someplace private. But Zach followed me. “Hey,” he said, appearing in my doorway just after I’d sat down on the bed. “Why are you mad at me?”
I looked up into his kind blue eyes, and my heart tightened in my chest. “I’m not mad at you. And I never would be.”
“Then who are you mad at?”
Me. As if I had any right to be angry with anyone else. “I’m not mad. But I’m in a tough spot. I have to go back to Boston.” The words just fell out of my mouth, but as I said them, I knew it was true. “My job…” That part was a lie, but it made for a convenient excuse. I couldn’t stay here.
“So that’s it?” he asked quietly. “You made up your mind?”
