Page 18 of A Thousand Little Goodbyes

“Did he make any moves? Buy you a few strong drinks at the hotel bar? Ask you to put on those tiny volleyball shorts and do a dance for him?”

“Scarlett, there are like twenty girls on the team! Whenever we’re at tournaments, we’re so exhausted from trying to feed them and drive them around and make sure they aren’t sneaking vodka into their hotel rooms that it’s all we can do to keep our eyes open.”

“Hmm,” Scarlett said, her lips pursed as she absorbed this. She was still absorbing it when River returned with their drinks.

“I’m s’posed to tell you that your first drink is half off,” she said as she set the glasses down in front of them. “The piano player called out sick, so wine is all the entertainment we have tonight. Bottoms up.”

“No piano player?” Chrissie echoed. She stretched her fingers in an unconscious motion, a few of her knuckles cracking lightly as she did. “Is that why the bartender is being so mean to you?”

“No,” River said. She clamped her mouth shut as though unwillingto say more, but then she sighed and dragged a hand through her hair, flashing Chrissie a sight of both her eyes at once. “He’s mad because we broke up last week and I haven’t been able to find a new place to crash. He says he can’t bring any other girls home until I’m out of his hair. For some reason, he thinks me sitting on the couch watching old Buffy episodes is ruining his vibe.” River snorted. “Hisvibe. Please. Before I moved in, his coffee table was literally a stack of pizza boxes.”

Chrissie stole another glance at the bartender, who was cutting limes as though each one had offered him a personal insult. She wasn’t adept at guessing people’s ages, but his short buzz cut and abundance of tattoos aged him in a way that made her think he’d never again see thirty.

“How old are you?” Chrissie asked suddenly.

“Omigod, Chrissie, you can’t ask people that.” Scarlett rolled her eyes up at River. “You’ll have to forgive my friend. She’s basically an old woman in sheep’s clothing. Do you know what she had for breakfast this morning? Oatmeal. With raisins and nonfat milk and some weird packet of seeds that she brought from home.”

“They’re chia seeds, and they’re very good for you. It’s like snacking on crunchy vitamins.”

Scarlett and River exchanged a look that made Chrissie flush to the roots of her hair.

“Lots of people eat chia seeds. They’re very hip right now. And I’ll have you know that oatmeal is delicious. With enough brown sugar, it tastes just like a wet cookie.”

“Yummy.” A grin curled River’s lips, making her look very much her age. “Wet cookies.”

Chrissie laid a gentle hand on the girl’s forearm, unable to suppress the maternal instincts that arose from the sight of that youthful smile. “Do you have people you can rely on, River?” she asked. “Do you need anything?”

River’s whole body stopped in a way that spoke magnitudes, andin a volume that carried with it the force of a hurricane. Chrissie recognized the signs at a glance. She’d long ago cultivated a similar habit of stillness—of taking up as little space as possible, of making sure each action, each word, each breath would be welcome before she let it out.

Scarlett was never still. Kat wasn’t, either. It was one of the things she loved about them both. They moved through the world as though they belonged in it—or, if they didn’t, as though making space for themselves was only a matter of pushing out a few elbows until everything fell into place.

But not River. Not this girl who’d lost her mother and who worked two jobs to make ends meet, who was living with a man who was much too old for her because she had nowhere else to go.

“I’m eighteen,” River said in a voice Chrissie had to strain to hear. “I turned eighteen yesterday.”

Instead of the pang of sympathy this confession should have elicited, Chrissie found herself sinking into a red-hot quagmire of emotion. At first, she wasn’t sure of the exact cause. Because that bartender haddefinitelybroken the law by dating River? Because the girl should have been out celebrating her birthday instead of waiting tables? Or because Chrissie understood the significance of that number—of what it meant to be thrust into sudden adulthood without any kind of safety net in place?

By the time she finished asking herself the questions, she’d reached her answer. It was the last one for sure. Chrissie remembered all too well that feeling of being unmoored—of being eighteen and on her own, of knowing that the entire weight of her future rested on her shoulders and her shoulders alone.

In a word, itsucked.

“Happy birthday,” she said as she lifted her hand from the girl’s arm. River stared at her for a long, curious moment before nodding and slipping back into the kitchen.

A silence fell over the table as Chrissie tried to process what had just happened, but Scarlett broke it with a sigh so marked it practically had a pulse.

“Okay,fine,” she said. “You win. Get it out.”

“Get what out?”

Scarlett gestured at Chrissie’s purse. “The piece of paper from the motel. Go ahead and write it down—the thing you’re going to do. The thing you can’t help but do.”

Chrissie was tempted to pretend she didn’t understand what Scarlett meant, but the sharp edges of her anger were still there, poking and prodding her into action. Most of the time, she was able to dull those edges with errands and to-do lists, the busy nothings that kept her day-to-day life on track, but Scarlett was right. She was already formulating a plan.

The folded piece of paper was in the front pocket of her purse where she’d left it. Underneath the first line, now readingI like to sit and read without interruption, she added another.

I want to help that girl out of her troubles, only you’re being mean. Sorry, Scarlett, but if you love me, you’ll let me. I have to do something. Don’t be extra about it.

Scarlett took the pen from her and frowned over the words. After a few cross-outs, she handed the paper back.