Page 29 of PS: I Hate You

They deserve a better friend than me. Someone who fully appreciates the level of love they have to offer.

“Fine,” I mutter. “I’ll let you know about the next funeral.”

Tula huffs. “Just don’t shut us out. We’re here for you.”

“And not just because of your snacks,” Jeremy adds. “Though that is why I first fell in love with you.”

“What’s that?” Tula points to the coffee table, and the only corner where puzzle pieces don’t lay claim.

“My laptop?”

“Yes, obviously it’s your laptop. But what’s that open on it? And it better not be what I think it is.”

“I don’t know what you think it is.” The heat of the oven brushes my cheeks as I open the door and slide the tray in.

“Maddie.” Tula tries to catch my eye. “Please don’t tell me you have your work email open during your bereavement leave.”

I can’t tell her that. Because I do.

“I’m notactivelyworking.” My voice sounds surly with defensiveness as I straighten. “Just running some reports. And making myself available in case any fires pop up. It’s not like I’m doing anything else with my time off.”

“You aregrieving.” Tula grasps my shoulders, all but forcing me to meet her gaze. “That is something. A huge thing. You need to close your email and really take some time off for yourself. Redford can survive without you.”

That might be true at most jobs, but mine, not so much. Over the years, I’ve become an integral part of the makeup of The Redford Team, an accounting firm that serves clients nationwide and needs their only logistics associate on call most working days. My boss has a general idea of what I do and how I achieve it, but she’s distanced herself from the particulars. Without me, systems would start crumbling within a week. Maybe sooner.

If I tell Tula that, she’ll start badgering me about work-life balance.

The thing is, Ilikehow imperative I am to the company. How they rely on me and how all my coworkers know I can be trusted to keep the ship floating.

“Yeah, well, maybe if grieving came with clearly laid out tasks that definitively took up time, I’d take work off. But I’m just reading and putting puzzles together and falling in love with Nam Do San. Plenty of time to get some work done.”

“Oh! You’re watchingStart-Up?” Jeremy shares my K-Dramaobsession. “I’m with you. Do San is dreamy. I would do very bad things to him if I could.”

“Good. Yes. Binge emotional TV. Do puzzles. Schedule an appointment with a therapist,” Tula says. “Butdon’tpretend like nothing in your life has changed. If you stuff everything down, you’ll explode. You can’t ignore this.”

“I’m not ignoring it. Josh made that impossible.” When I press the buttons on my oven timer, I shove them a touch too hard, and the display beeps a warning at me.

Don’t get mad at your friends,I scold myself.They care about you.

I didn’t expect to have to fight my temper so much. A few times this past year I contemplated a world post-Josh and figured it would involve a lot of public crying.

But I’m not even doing that privately.

“What do you mean?” Tula gives me space by leaning back on the island, but she continues to study me. “What did Josh make impossible?”

“Did he leave you something?” Jeremy abandons the puzzle and gives me his entire focus. “Like the letter he left your mom?”

Guess she did share that with her followers. I wonder if they saw the real correspondence or if Cecilia made up whatever her son supposedly wrote to her.

I suck in a deep breath, let it out slow. “Josh wants me to spread his ashes. In eight different states. The ones he never visited.”

And that’s where I stop. With half of the truth. Because I’m a bad friend.

I’ve shared almost every part of myself with these two. They know about my shitty parents and neglectful grandmother. They know Josh was the one who showed me how families should love each other. They know one time a boy broke my heart, so I decided to start somewhere new. Tula was the internet friend I met freshman year of college in an online fandom group for a fantasy romanceseries. She’s the one who waxed poetic about her university in Washington. She’s the reason I ran here when I ran away.

But I’ve never spoken Dominic Perry’s name to either of them.

And I don’t plan to start now.