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They’ve had this conversation countless times before. Keegan, being the supportive best friend she was, tried relentlessly to help Julia move on, but she couldn’t bring herself to close that wound. It wasn’t that she was that stuck in the past; she was just hopelessly hopeful. She clung to that hope, that little glimmer of light, so tightly that it became a part of her.
“I couldn’t.”
“You could.”
“I can’t.”
“Mmm… But you can.”
“Keegan, you don’t–” Julia started to protest, but she was interrupted.
“You,” her voice grew stern, “deserve to be happy, Julia. You deserve happiness more than anyone else I know. You are allowed to immerse yourself in those moments of happiness and let them wash over you, because you deserve every bit of it, no matter how small.”
Julia teared at the words. How could she deserve happiness when she drove away the person she loved the most? How could she deserve love, to be loved? Did she not love Marin enough, or did she love her too much? How could anyone want to be around her when the one person who was supposed to be her forever couldn’t run fast enough? Most days, she couldn’t even bear to look in the mirror and face the person she had become, let alone imagine being with someone else.
“Be a teenager in a grungy bathroom,” Keegan begged. “No one cares.”
“That’s not even the worst part.” Her voice cracked as she wiped her tears with a tissue from her desk. “It was Erin.”
“Erin?”
“Calanis,” Julia sighed, the tissue still pressed against her eyes.
“The McSellen rep?”
“Yes.”
“At the bar?”
“Yes.”
“Holy shit!”
“I know,” Julia groaned. Keegan’s jaw dropped, her eyes wide with pure amusement. She stood, unsure of what to do with her antsy legs.
“She’s hot!” Keegan emphasized the words with a mountainous bounce of her eyebrows. She closed her mouth and it turned to another one of her devilish grins. Her mind was always in the gutter, always full of feathers lightening the mood.
“She has to be half my age!”
“And that matters because?”
“Because I’m sure she’s young enough to be my child.”
“But she’s not a child.”
“Because it would be professionally irresponsible! A conflict of interests, amongst other things!”
“And?” Keegan smirked.
“I don’t even know why she sat down next to me in that bar last night, anyway.”
“Probably because you’re beautiful.”
“Oh, please,” Julia groaned.
“Maybe because you have kind eyes.” Keegan stared seriously before her voice grew softer. “Maybe because she noticed how when you don’t think anyone is looking, your smile fades.”
She didn’t finish her thought, but Julia knew what she was referring to. She fought day and night to hide it. She did everything in her power to make sure no one else knew she fell apart in the darkness, that some nights she still didn’t find the energy to pick herself off of the couch.
