Where We Used to Roam Jenn Bishop (red white royal blue TXT) 📖

“What?” I ask.

“What just happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Riiiiiight.” He raises an eyebrow at me.

I cross my arms and kick my feet up on the coffee table.

“Who sent you the package?”

“Just these girls I used to be friends with.”

“Used to be? Dude, I wish people I used to be friends with would send me a package they clearly spent hours decorating.”

I don’t think they spent hours on it, but I’m not about to quibble.

“What happened with y’all?”

Part of me thinks I should just tell him. That we’ve spent enough time together, and he’s not going to turn on me.

But then the other part feels so guilty still. Like I don’t deserve his friendship at all, and if he knew the whole truth of what I did to Becca, maybe he would think he’s better off without me. That I’m not the kind of person he can really trust. And would he be so wrong?

Before I’ve had a chance to answer him, he reaches for an Oreo. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. I know we promised we wouldn’t make each other say things we didn’t want to. And you kept up your half of the deal.” He twists the Oreo apart. “But if you ever change your mind…”

We watch in silence as Lorelai and Rory go to Sookie and Jackson’s for their deep-fried turkey.

As I grab Oreo after Oreo, stuffing myself along with the Gilmores, all I can think about is that time over at Kennedy’s when we binged-watched Haikyu!! and how much fun we were having, the three of us. Before I brought up Becca. I still don’t even get why I did it. Why is it that sometimes we feel the urge to put somebody down for a quick laugh? I know I’m not the only person who’s ever done it. But I still don’t understand the why of it all.

Did it really make me feel that much better? No. Not in the moment and definitely not in the long run. So why did I do it?

I try my hardest not to think about it anymore, to push all those thoughts away and watch the show.

“How come on TV shows and movies, everyone always has just one best friend?” I say, thinking out loud for a minute. “Rory has Lane. Lorelai has Sookie. How come no one ever has two best friends? Or, like, really close friends but from totally different worlds?”

“Isn’t Luke kind of Lorelai’s best friend too, though?” Tyler says.

“No, he’s her love interest.”

“But what about Paris? You haven’t seen all the seasons yet, but once they’re in college, Paris stops being Rory’s frenemy and becomes her friend. Like, as much as Lane is because she’s right there all the time.”

Maybe he’s right. Maybe it is possible to have more than one best friend, so long as you don’t throw one of your best friends under the bus.

Tyler leaves right before dinner, even though Delia says he’s more than welcome to join us any time he wants. As I’m setting the table, Delia plops down a vase of black tulips in the center, and that fast, I’m in third grade again.

Grandpa Bill died unexpectedly, a heart attack. I was having a hard time with all of it—not just losing Grandpa Bill, but death. It terrified me in a way I couldn’t explain to anyone—the idea of not being there anymore. Not just Grandpa Bill, but me someday too.

Before Grandpa Bill, nobody I’d known had died. At school everyone tried to say the right things about heaven and the afterlife. How he was in a better place. Except I wasn’t so sure of any of that, not the way they were. Our family didn’t go to church.

But then Becca—classic Becca—brought me this picture book. Duck, Death and the Tulip. It looked sort of creepy, with only that long, slender duck on the cream-colored cover, but I read it anyway. Unlike everyone else who tried to comfort me, Becca hadn’t expected me to be just like her. To share her same beliefs about death. She saw me for exactly who I was. She listened.

She knew me better than anyone else. When no one else could figure out the right thing to say or do, she did.

When did that change? When did she go from being the person who got me the most to someone who didn’t? And can I make her again?

Can I really? Can this box be enough?

I want it to. No, I need it to. But right now I’m not so sure anymore.

After I set down water glasses at all four spots, I’m about to ask Delia if I can have one of the tulips for my Becca box, but then I remember that it won’t look this way once it’s dead, and so I don’t.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Today marks Austin’s twenty-eighth day in rehab. Two more days, and then he gets to come home. I’ve been texting with Mom and Dad constantly, checking for updates, but I guess with the facility he’s staying in, there really aren’t many updates. According to them, everything has gone fine and Austin will be discharged on Saturday.

He’s coming home. For good.

Mom says we can FaceTime once he’s home. I can’t wait to see him—a letter just isn’t the same.

The only sort of sad thing about Austin coming home is that it means my summer in Wyoming is half-over. Only one more month with Tyler.

I’m at the kitchen sink rinsing out my cereal bowl when Sadie asks, “So where’s your conjoined twin?”

“My… what?”

“You and Tyler hang out so much you’re practically attached at the hip or the brain or… wherever twins are conjoined.”

I place the bowl in the dishwasher and glance up at the clock. It’s 9:47. He’s usually here by nine thirty at the latest. “Huh.”

“He didn’t text you?”

“I don’t even have his phone number.” I haven’t needed it since we spend pretty much every day together. I use my phone only