Page 141 of PS: I Hate You
The soothing caress of her hand runs over my hair, comforting me. “Not yet. But you get what I’m saying. You don’t have to earn our friendship to keep us around. It’s yours. We’re not going anywhere.”
“My job—”
“Your job is ajob, Maddie. You do your best within reason. Work normal hours, be a team player, show them your passion, and then trust them to realize what an amazing employee they have. And if they don’t, that’s on them. Not a judgment of you. Jobs come and go. Don’t let it overwhelm your life. Don’t base your self-worth in the same place you get a paycheck. And give yourself a goddamn day off when someone you love dies.”
Thinking back over the year when Josh was sick, I see I worked extra hard not because of the joy of it but because of the distraction.
Why did I let myself do that? Why do Pamela and Redford expect me to take on so much?
Don’t be ungrateful.
But shouldn’t I be? Just a little bit?
I like my company. I like the people that I work with. But Tula is right. For a long time, I’ve let work take too much of me for fear of losing the comforting safety of a position I’m familiar with and confident performing.
But lately, all I am is my job. Tula and Jeremy had to show up here unannounced because I’ve made no effort to meet up with them.
Not since Dom moved to Seattle and I’ve hid myself away as much as I could.
I brace my elbows on my knees and bury my face in my hands.
“If you need to cry,” Tula whispers, “you can.”
“I haven’t cried since Josh told me about his diagnosis,” I admit, the confession muffled by my palms.
Jeremy stiffens at my side, but Tula goes back to stroking my hair, leaning her cheek on the crown of my head.
“Everyone grieves differently. Tears are a symptom of sadness, not the feeling itself. You can be sad with your eyes dry. Your pain is valid in whatever form it comes.”
As I let her words soak in, trying to draw them inside myself and believe their truth, we three sit quietly.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Dom,” I murmur after a while. “At first, I just didn’t want to talk about him. But then things started to be different between us. Better. And I liked him again. More than that. He…made the pain of losing Josh easier. Because he loves my brother like I do. And I thought if I told you about him then, I’d have to tell you everything. The way he hurt me in the past. The way he left me.”
“Something else changed, didn’t it?” Tula asks.
I nod, feeling so close to crying. But my eyes stay dry.
“I fell in love with him again. But I…I still thought he’d end things after a while. So I wanted to keep him separate from you. Like”—I groan in self-disgust as I articulate my irrational fear—“leaving me is contagious.”
When I hazard a glance at my friends, Jeremy’s mouth is in a hard line and Tula gapes. She snaps her mouth shut and shakes her head, but before she can speak, Jeremy leans in and captures my eyes.
“You’re not as easy to give up as you think, Maddie Sanderson. I hope you figure that out one day.”
As I sit in stunned silence, absorbing Jeremy’s words, I thank the universe that my bag full of cheeses spilled in the lobby the day he was walking through it.
Maybe an important part of keeping someone in my life is knowing who is worth hanging on to.
I watch as my two friends share a heavy glance, then face me simultaneously.
“We brought you something,” Tula says.
“It’s nonreturnable,” Jeremy adds.
They got me a death day gift? Weird, but I guess it’s on brand for them.
“Okay.” I glance around the condo, wondering where this thing might be.
They each grab one of my wrists and pull me to my feet and toward the door.