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“I’m glad I came to my senses enough to come back,” I tell her as I get in the car.

Ella almost speeds off without me, and I take a deep breath as the tension fills the car.

In about two hours, we’ll be in Virginia Beach at the hotel Paige and Oliver booked for the wedding.

They’re getting married on the beach, and I couldn’t think of a more perfect location for them to tie the knot.

I try not to think about all the pieces of their lives I missed, but it’s hard not to.

We’ve all grown and changed so much, but we weren't around one another to see it. It’s a strange feeling, one I don’t want to sit with for the entire two hours, or I might go insane.

So as Ella clears her throat, I take this moment of silence to try and spark some conversation.

“So, Ella, is Leo driving you crazy yet?”

She can only sigh heavily. “He always drives me crazy, but I love him, so I deal with his stupid British ass.”

“Don’t you mean arse?” Paige asks with a giggle. “All I can think about when I hear him say that is the time you set it as his wake-up alarm.”

“Oh my gosh, that was so funny! And the fact that he would change it and the next day, it would be the same,” Hads says, laughing at the inside joke I am not privy to. Obviously, they aren't doing this on purpose. I'm sure they don’t even realize it, but I do.

“I don’t know why it took him so long to change his password on his phone if he wanted it to stop. He knew it was me the whole time,” Ella says, a proud smile on her face.

“Maybe he thought it was Grant,” I say, trying to insert myself into a conversation I wasn't part of in the first place.

“I doubt it,” Ella scoffs. “Grant kisses the ground Leo walks on. It’s almost comical.”

“Really?” I ask, but then I remember what happened at the Halloween party senior year. “Does he do his British accent around Leo, or is he still too scared?”

“It is constant,” Hads laughs, some pity in her tone. “Paige and Oliver even did an accent around him and Alissa for Halloween. ”

“Oliver only did one sentence and then stopped because he felt silly, but Leo and Alissa told me mine is good,” Paige says, flipping around in her seat to face Hads and me in the back.

“I remember when we would watch movies with accents, and after, you would be stuck mimicking it for days,” I say, reminiscing about a time when I was a part of these stories.

Paige’s face falls as soon as I say that. “I still do that.”

“Oh,” is all I say, and the awkward tension comes back.

“You would know that if you stuck around,” Ella says under her breath, but not really.

Awkward silence fills the car once again.

There are so many things I want to say to them, but I stop myself.

I know it’s not the right time. It’s been all of twenty minutes.

I can’t just keep spewing stupid shit to distract myself from the giant elephant in the room. Well, car.

“Amelia, do you have some sort of happy playlist in your repertoire that you can turn on for us?” Hads asks me. “I was going to make one for us, but I didn't have time amid all of the Maid of Honor stuff, and I’m sick of the fucking silence in here.”

It’s like she read my mind.

I grab my phone and swipe through my playlists. “Uh, they’re all pretty depressing, but I can make a new one and share it with you guys so you can add whatever you want.” I quickly send it to our group chat, all their phones buzzing.

“All depressing songs? Wow, I guess nothing has really changed,” Ella says, more silence filling the car as I try to brush off another hurtful but true comment.

“Yeah, that’s true,” I remind her. Nothing has changed, and yet everything has changed. “A lot more has changed than you guys think, but if one thing is for certain, it’s that my music taste is still the same.”

“I know, Amelia,” Paige says, her voice cracking. “You always did love a good sad song. ”

I hum my agreement as she pulls it up on Ella’s phone, the first song playing off shuffle being one I added to the playlist.

Through the small hums I give, my shoulders feel slightly lighter than they did before I got in the car.

I’m going to call this car ride a win so far, since the air has been partially cleared, I guess.

I had to start somewhere, and I’ll take any win this trip wants to give me, no matter how small it might be.

“Oh my goodness,” Paige says as she pushes the door to our suite open.

Four rooms connect to a main living area with a small kitchen and a table big enough to fit us and then some.

I’ve never been in a hotel this nice, and I’m excited to be able to spend the next two weeks surrounded by the magic I once had with these girls.

I know it still exists. It just got a little lost, but with the four of us back together, that magic is bound to come back.

“This is beautiful,” I say.

The doors of the room open to a gorgeous living area, with couches that look softer than anything I’ve sat on.

A small kitchen to the right is complete with a table and stools under the counter.

There's a sliding door that leads onto the balcony, where a hammock and a few other seats are arranged, looking out at the ocean. It’s bright, spacious, and I feel incredibly lucky to even be here to see it.

“Paige gets the room with the biggest bathroom because that’s where we’ll all get ready.

I’ll take the room across from her.” Ella points to the door to the right by the kitchen.

“Hads, since you’re the maid of honor, you can have the one next to her.

” She stops to look at me. “You’re next to me, roadrunner. ”

“Sounds good,” Hads says as she grabs Paige and pulls her in for a hug. “Should we rest for a little and then get ready for dinner?”

“Yeah, I figured we could eat at the hotel restaurant, so nothing too fancy. We should all be ready by six so we have a bit to check in with boyfriends and fiancés and squeeze a nap in before then.” Ella grabs her bags and wheels them to her room, softly shutting the door behind her.

The rest of us do the same, and when I see the bed, I immediately skip unpacking and climb under the sheets.

Today has been exhausting, and not just because of how nervous I’ve been feeling.

I used to beat myself up about how exhausted I would feel, especially when I had slept okay the night before—which didn't happen often.

I was always really mean to myself when I would have to lay down or take a nap after doing simple housework or anything that shouldn't require as much energy as I thought I was exerting.

When I realized that was because of my ADHD, I tried to be a little nicer to myself about it.

Dr. Elyse has helped me become more conscious of my behaviors and has tried to shift my mindset.

I hated myself. I couldn't understand why simple tasks were so draining.

I was mad at myself all the time because I felt so messy and disorganized when I wanted to be different.

Now, when I need to rest, I let myself. I’ve been trying to act kindlier over the past few months, but I still catch myself. It truly has been an everyday battle to try and reframe my mind to stop jumping right to how terrible of a person I am, or to stop blaming myself for the way I am.

I’ll be living like this for the rest of my life, unless my symptoms die down as I get older, so this is something I’ll have to live with. This is something I have to manage every single day, and some won’t be easy, I know that.

I’m trying to be better. Medication has helped. My routine has helped. Having a name for why I’m like this has helped too, but sometimes, I worry the urge to run from every problem will come back, and I’ll cave immediately.

Dr. Elyse would say I’m stronger than that feeling now, but I still have fears about that.

Amelia, stop thinking like this before you spiral , I remind myself. I take a deep breath before I grab my phone and set an alarm in case I actually fall asleep.

There’s no doubt in my mind that all the girls are talking to their significant others, and since I don’t have one of those anymore, the short relationship I had in England fizzling out when I hit rock bottom, I’m all by myself.

I don’t know if I’m wired to be loved or in love with someone. I don’t know if I should even worry about romantic love, because I’m sure anyone would take one look at the mess I am and run the other direction.

I’m also only worried about repairing what I broke with the girls. Everything else comes second, third, or last in my book. I just have to remind myself I was loveable once. These girls love me somewhere deep down, despite them being pissed at me for what I did.

Platonic love has always felt stronger to me than anything else. It’s always been what I’m drawn to in books, movies, and any sort of media, really.

Except him .

I quickly banish those thoughts before I feel myself drift off to sleep. An hour later, my alarm is buzzing me out of a dreamless nap.

Somehow, I get ready, and before I know it, we’re all sitting around a dinner table, awkwardly deciding what we all want to eat. I don't know how we got here. The past few hours have been a haze of anxiety, and I wish my memory wasn’t so shitty so I could actually remember details.

“We’ll take a bottle of champagne,” Ella says, looking around at all of us before she orders a few appetizers. “We’ll just have those for now. Thank you so much.”

The table falls silent as our server leaves, taking the menus with her. Now, none of us have anything to hide behind—physically, at least. I can’t pretend to read the same thing a thousand times over, and for some reason, I can’t bring myself to speak.

What the hell am I supposed to say? Anything I say will be awkward and pointless, because how do you catch up on this much lost time?

Is it even possible? I can’t just burst out with all the realizations I’ve had in the past few months.

It would be too much at once, and I don’t want to have this serious conversation in the middle of a restaurant.

The champagne comes, and when the server reaches me, I have to decline. Drinking while on a stimulant medication is a recipe for disaster.

“I’m okay with water,” I say. “Thank you so much.”

The girls are looking at me like I’m insane, and rightfully so. The last time they physically saw me was at Paige’s birthday. I drank an entire bottle of prosecco straight from the bottle.

“So, when are the boys getting here?” I ask, deciding on a safe topic to start.

“In a week. Grant planned some sort of greatest hits road-trip for them all,” Hads tells me. “My brother is less than thrilled.”

“Oh, he’ll be fine. He may act like he hates spending time with the boys, but I know he secretly loves it,” Paige smiles.

“Oh, that man only wants one thing, Paigey—to marry you. The only reason he’s doing all this other stuff is because you wanted to,” Ella says to her. “It’s cute.”

“Oliver has gone soft,” I say. “It’s going to be weird seeing him like that. The last time I saw him, he was as stone-cold as ever.”

“Well, that’s because the last time you saw him was eons ago,” Ella says as Paige spits her champagne back into her glass.

“You’re right, Ells. It has been a long-time,” I say before I can stop it.

“I’ve been gone. I’ve been radio silent, and I have no idea what has been going on in any of your lives.

But you also don’t know what’s been going on in mine.

” Ella opens her mouth to speak, but I stop her.

“And I know that’s my fault. I went through a lot over in England, and I’ll tell you all about it when I talk to each of you. ”

All their eyes are latched on to mine. Ella looks pissed off, Hads has more of a neutral expression on her face, and Paige’s are full of something I can’t place.

“But I want to spend dinner hearing about what I missed. So, give me all the stories that come to your mind, even the comments you don’t think you should say out loud. I can handle it, really.”

After a long silence, Paige raises her hand. “I have a story.”

“Lay it on me,” I say to her.

“Okay, so, one day, we all showed up at Hads’ apartment for book club, and everything was normal until we saw something peeking out of the corner behind the bookshelf in their living room.”

“Oh God, not this,” Hads laughs, covering her face with her hands. “I swear, I didn't know he had bought that thing.”

“I still wonder how he got a picture of you for that.” Ella shakes her head in disbelief.

“There was a sheet over top of it, and when we took it off, it was a cardboard cutout of Hads. Grant got it made and hid it from us for months before we found out about it.”

“What?” I say, a small smile coming back to my face. Knowing Grant, that is so on-brand for him. “Why did he have it?”

“Apparently, he gets lonely when Hads stays over at my place or Paige’s, so he bought it so he could talk to cardboard Hads instead of simply talking to himself while he was home alone,” Ella laughs.

“Oh my,” I say with a laugh. “So is that thing on top, or is he?”

Hads lowers her head to the table. “I cannot talk about this again.”

“That was my first question too!” Ella says. “And he still hasn't given us an answer. ”

“Because he doesn't do that with a cardboard cutout of me!” Hads shouts.

“You can't actually confirm that, Hads,” Paige giggles. “It’s still in the same spot, and we haven't stopped pestering Grant about it.”

“I think it’s cute, in a way,” I say, looking at Hads. “That boy is clearly in love with you if he misses you that much. I’m sure he loves having that around because it can’t slap him with a ruler either,” I joke, and the three of them laugh.

“My ruler is still kicking. Don’t make me use it on you these next two weeks,” Hads says.

“I won’t,” I say under my breath. “Okay, what else?” I ask, and for the rest of our dinner and late into the night, they tell me stories upon stories of all the memories I missed.

For a few hours, I feel included again, and that small pinch of hope I have gets a little bit bigger.