Page 90 of If We Say Goodbye
My fingers graze the spot on the dash with a faint chuckle.
“What?” Sadie says.
I retract my hand. “It’s nothing.”
She saw my fingers on the mark, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she refocuses on the road ahead.
“It’s just . . . it’s been a while since we drove around like this,” I say, steering away from the topic of my brother.
She slows to a stop in front of a red light. “Yeah.” Her smile twists to the side, and she says in a low voice, “I wish things could go back to the way they were.”
There’s a part of me that wants that too, but I don’t know where to start. The more time we spend apart, the easier it is to pretend that we were never that close.
She clears her throat, breaking the silence. “So the store I’m taking you to is in the mall. It’s where I bought mine. Speaking of my dress, did I show you a picture of it?”
“No,” I say.
She tosses her phone into my lap. “The password is the same.”
I unlock it and open up her gallery. Ethan is on the lock screen and pictures of the two of them take up most of the gallery too, but the most recent pictures pull at my heart. There haven’t been very many new pictures. It’s like all of the memories she wanted to capture stopped three months ago. I scroll up, looking for the dress. “I don’t see it.”
She laughs. “I brought it right before school started, remember?”
Sadie wasn’t kidding when she said I was behind in getting a dress.
Bright purple overwhelms the grid all at once when it comes into view. I press on one of the pictures to enlarge it. The dress is pretty, with a sweetheart neckline and a poofy skirt that flares out at the waist, hitting right at the knee. Sparkling beads cascade down the tulle, thick at the top and sparse at the end.
“The back is cute too,” she says, nearing the mall parkade.
“There’s only pictures of the front.”
Her brows furrow. “I think we took a video or something.”
There’s one video, and I start it.
“So is this the one?” Ethan asked, recording her.
His voice startles me, but I don’t stop the video.
Sadie sways to the side, letting the skirt flow around her knees. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean? This is the only one you’ve tried on for the second time. It makes your eyes shine and your hair pop. It’s perfect.”
She smiled big. “You think?”
“I know.” He moved toward her, his hand coming into frame, nudging her shoulder. “Turn around, I’ll film the back too so you can get a better look.”
Sadie giggled, twirling around to reveal a corset back.
The video ends and Sadie says, “See, I told you it’s cute.” She sniffles and quickly rubs her fingers across her eyes. “Sorry, there’s dust.”
Sadie is terrible at lying. It’s arguably her best,orworst, quality depending on the situation.
“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No, I know you don’t like hearing me talk about him anymore. It’s okay, really. Let’s go back to having a good day together. I don’t want to ruin it.”
I’m a bad friend because part of me agrees with her. We should steer clear of the button in my box, but at the same time, there’s no denying how my heart is ripping for her. She’s suffering the same way I am.