Page 61 of A Thousand Little Goodbyes

“That’ll be Mitchell,” she said as she went to answer the door. “I hope you don’t mind, but I convinced him to borrow his dad’s truck to help us haul some of this stuff to the storage facility.”

“Oh. Mitchell.Goody.”

Chrissie turned and pulled a face at Scarlett. “Be nice, Scarlett. He only wants to help. It’s not his fault he’s head over heels in love with you. If you want guys to stop doing that, you should try being less gorgeous.”

That made Scarlett snort. “I hate to break it to you, Chrissie, but it’s not my looks boys are after. Not when they have you for that.”

Chrissie shot her a puzzled look, but there was no time to explain herself before the door opened and Mitchell bounded in. Which was probably for the best because what could she say to make Chrissie understand?

You’re the gorgeous one, both inside and out. I’m the walking disaster. The good time. The bad mistake.

“My dad says we have until five o’clock, and then he needs to pick up my sister from band practice.” Mitchell strode into the apartment with his long-legged gait, his brow puckering as he took in the empty shelves and even emptier walls. “Oh, wow. You guys made a lot of progress in here.”

“Chrissiemade a lot of progress in here,” Scarlett corrected him. “All I’ve been doing is playing Doodle Jump and eating two-month-old pie.”

“Two-month-old pie?” Mitchell’s face showed his horror. “Isthat…safe?”

“Have some and see for yourself. There’s peach and strawberry rhubarb. Or, if you’re feeling really brave, coconut cream.”

Chrissie rolled her eyes as she grabbed the dolly Mitchell had brought with him and dragged it through the apartment. “Don’t listen to her. They’ve been in the freezer since the funeral. I don’t know why, but everyone seemed to think pie was the one thing that would make all of this bearable.”

“Since the funeral, huh?” Mitchell eyed Scarlett askance. She wished Chrissie could see that look. Far from showing the lovelorn signs of a boy infatuated with her, he looked like a judgmental little prick.

“Yes, since the funeral.” Scarlett swung open the refrigerator door and started slamming pies onto the counter. “Is that a problem, Mitchell? Is there anything you’d like to add?”

“I’ll take a slice of the strawberry rhubarb, thanks.”

This was said with such a calm, good-natured air that Scarlett immediately started to deflate. She didn’t knowwhatwas wrong with her. Two incredibly generous people were standing in her apartment, helping her to pack up her old life so she could start a new one. There was more money in her bank account than she’d ever seen in one place before, and her best friend had just agreed to accompany her on the trip to Paris that she’d been planning since the day they’d met.

She was living the life she wanted. She was living the life her grandmother had given her.

Tears sprang to her eyes before she could stop them. They fell in fat, heavy splotches all over the freezer-burned pie.

“Oh god. I’m such a mess. You can’t possibly eat this now.”

The plate was lifted from her hands before she could add her dripping snot to the rest. Mitchell’s hand fell to her shoulder and forced her onto a stool while Chrissie poured her a glass of water andslid it across the counter.

“I’m sorry,” Chrissie said. “We don’t have to do this today if you aren’t feeling up to it. Or you and Mitchell can go to a movie or something, while I—”

“Stop.”

Instead of stopping, Chrissie started to rub slow, comforting circles on Scarlett’s back.

“Don’t, Chrissie.” Scarlett shrugged her off with a twitch. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

She could hear rather than see Mitchell and Chrissie share a concerned look over her head. She sprang to her feet, ignoring her sudden whirl of dizziness, and turned on them. “Omigod, you guys.Enough.”

They both moved toward her at the same time but she flung up her hands, holding them back like an exorcist keeping the demons at bay. Only…that wasn’t right.Shewas the demon in this scenario, not them.

“Scarlett, what’s going on?” Chrissie’s voice started to take on a concerned vibrato. “What’s gotten into you?”

She would forever regret the way she responded to that question—not with the gratitude she should have shown her best friend of eleven years, and not with the calm, self-assured grace of a woman facing an inevitable dead end, but with a laugh.

Granted, it was a laugh that went on for a few seconds too long, as unhinged at the jaw as she felt all over, but that didn’t make it any more appropriate. Nor did it explain the words that next left her lips.

“Your perfect college boyfriend, Chrissie. That’s what got into me.”

When her confession was met with a shocked stare from one side—Chrissie’s—and a pain that seemed to extend into eternity—Mitchell’s—she dropped her head to the counter with another one of those eerie laughs.