Likes by Sarah Bynum (e novels to read online .TXT) 📗

hallways, heads bowed like novitiates, with Bree maintaining a respectful distance, back turned to them as she spun and spun the combination dial on her locker. And for the first weeks of high school they did give her some space. But not unkindly. They continued to exchange smiles with her; they offered to loan her a pen when she needed one; they waved and said hello, liked her new jacket, laughed when she said something funny in class, held the door open for her.

Being a duo again brought with it the ease of traveling light. Maybe Mari’s mother hadn’t been completely wrong about two being less complicated. On some days it felt good, the way depriving yourself during Lent felt good, the invigoration of being disciplined and lean. But on some days it was terrible not having Bree at her side, and Mari walked through the school building feeling wobbly and exposed, buffeted by air, as if riding along bumpily in a jeep without a door. In the lunchroom she watched from the corner of her eye as Bree made forays into other groups—for a while she joined the musically gifted girls, the ones who spent their Saturdays at the conservatory, and then she seemed to hit it off with a new girl named Pam who lived in a town even farther away than Revere. There were also the two Allisons, whom she’d always liked and been chatty with. She never sat by herself, in other words; she wasn’t friendless.

One day Mari saw her leave the lunchroom holding the palm tree–covered cosmetics bag in which she carried her tampons, and briefly felt sick with missing her.

But in only a few months, they were back to being friends. The three of them had been placed in the same advanced French class, with sublimely silly M. Bernard, and it was hard not to sit together when there was so much goofiness and group work and all the ridiculous skits going on. Then, separately, Imogen and Bree became possessed by the crazy idea of rowing crew, Bree as a coxswain and Imogen as a bow, and before long they were all at Imogen’s house on a Friday night, eating Dino’s. Lifting a slice of Hawaiian pizza from the box, Bree asked, “Am I off probation now?” and even though she asked it sincerely, without any sarcasm or humor, Mari and Imogen both laughed gently, as if she’d made a sweet but impenetrable joke. And so they picked up again, the three of them. The various parents supported it, some more cautiously than others, on the understanding that certain ground rules would be observed.

If Mari was being honest, however, she would admit that even as their friendship continued—and it did continue, ever-shifting in closeness and distance, through high school and college and deep into adulthood—she carried with her an unwanted residue, a sort of fine, nearly invisible grit she’d tracked in without noticing. Hard little traces of something that refused to be swept or smoothed away. When Mari eventually brought a boy around—it took a while—she had to brace herself. She was watchful. Noting the moments Bree turned her smile on him, or touched his arm, or looked up at him from under her tumble of hennaed hair. And all her tireless self-grooming—it was no longer a curiosity but a threat. The absurd amount of time Bree needed to prepare herself before leaving the house—enraging, resentment-stirring. Mari knew it was unfair to feel this way. Unfair to perceive what would have been merely annoyances in another friend as evidence in Bree of a failing that had already revealed itself, treacherously. But this was how she felt. She couldn’t help it.

Are your parents still living at same address? That question was original impetus for now epic length text! So saddened by news of Imogen’s parents selling theirs. Hard to think of them in a condo. I hope yours have stayed put for now—can’t imagine all those paintings and plants belonging anywhere else. My first time at your house I thought I was inside museum! But seriously I loved stillness and calm and smell of soil from all the pots. I can’t walk past a bromeliad without thinking of your mom.

I’m ashamed it’s taken me this long to send proper thank you note. Also the kids tanks. Hahaha tanka. Sent email of gratitude immediately via website but want to do something better for her. Every time I pull food from fridge or turn on stove or put clothes in washer I thank her. All our tiny appliances. As lifesaving as the brakes! Please send her my love and confirm address. Also update from you please! No need to write 19 c. Novel like this one but miss you and want to hear how you are. xoxoxoxo

Mari felt unsteady. She had to put down her phone. She felt a shrinking all over her body, and then a wave of prickling, an intolerable heat.

How had she not told Bree about her mother?

She didn’t need to calculate how long it had been. She knew it already; she knew it down to the day. On Saturday it would be four months. Four months, plus the preceding six months of treatment, and in all that time she hadn’t managed to tell her.

There had been long spells of silence before, on both sides—growing longer as they themselves grew older. Mari hadn’t known, for instance, about the beetle study, or the bus. She couldn’t remember if she’d mentioned to Bree anything about their moving. She sent holiday cards every year; they texted each other on their birthdays with strings of fond, exuberant emojis. There was no sense of neglect, no recriminations, between the two of them, or none as far as she knew. But this omission on Mari’s part was different—not in degree but in kind. It was a disgrace.

Her mother had made a donation, clearly, and by the sound of it not a small one. This was Mari’s first time