Page 28 of Wherever You Are

“Me three,” Rose proclaims.

I nod, more assured than before.Okay.

How I end up smiling, I can only attribute to these people, in this kitchen, who made me feel loved when I felt lost and alone.

Okay.

I smile. “Okay.”

And for the first time in a long time, I’ve felt a part of a group.

A part of a family that I know is my own.

* * *

Garrison drives me to my apartment. As his Mustang slows by the curb, I wonder if I should invite him in? We’re not together, and I don’t know if it’d come across as a suggestion.

“Thanks for letting me tag along with you to the party,” he says first.

“Thanks for wanting to go with me at all.” I take off my blonde wig and shake out my hair, a couple bobby pins were sticking into my scalp. “You’re lucky that you left me for a while. I could’ve burned you.” I’m not a smooth-talker, and in the quiet of his car, I feel more like a dork.He knows you’re a geeky dork.And still, he wants to hang around me. That’s something, isn’t it?

He puts the car in park and rests his forearm on the steering wheel. We both sort of angle towards one another on our seats. I like how his hair always catches his eyelashes, and his eyes peek between the brown strands.

“About what Mrs. Nash said,” he starts.

“It doesn’t matter what she said.” I wonder how long this has been eating at him.

“Yeah it does,” he breathes. “Because…it’s true, Willow. Loren can compare us all he wants and say that he did worse shit, but I did shitto him. I wrote on his mailbox. I put dog shit on his front porch—I even filled a bucket of…” He looks away from me, ashamed.

I know what he did.

Lo told me everything, and I told Garrison that he did. There must be a place inside of him that still feelsso guilty. Or else he wouldn’t feel the need to confess outright like this.

Garrison stares out the windshield, gathering his courage, as he says, “I filled a bucket up with liquor, so it’d pour on his head as he opened the front door. Knowing—knowing, he was an alcoholic and he was fighting to stay sober. I did that.”

He doesn’t add,my friends were there.I know they were, but he’s not making excuses or shirking the blame. He’s taking it all.

That’s why he’s a good person. Beneath what happened. Beneath his bad choices. He’s a good person. I hope one day he can see this too.

“Lo forgave you,” I remind him.

Garrison shakes his head, and softly, he mutters, “I can’t forgive myself.” He holds my gaze. “You shouldn’t be around me, and I don’t think I can be the better person and walk away from you, so you gotta do it for me. You have to tell me to stay away from you. You have to tell me tonevercome back here.”

It’s my turn. I shake my head vigorously. “No. I won’t do that.”

His eyes well. “Willow—”

“I’m not a fool.” I remove my glasses, wiping the foggy lenses. “I’m just a girl from Maine who wants a friend from Philadelphia. You’re my friend. I chose you as much as you chose me.” I put my glasses back on to see how reddened his eyes have become. “You’re the second friend I’ve ever had in my whole life, and I’m picky about my friendships. But I chose you.”

This might be the most I’ve said in one sitting, my lungs filling with oxygen and threatening to burst.

Garrison tilts his head, his features twisting through so many emotions. “What kind of friendship requirements did I pass to be yours?”

“You’re kind.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re good.”