Like Gold

34.

34.

PIPER STARTED driving me to school.

Actually, Piper started driving me and Jace to school. It was nice, because Jace still hadn't gotten his car back from his mom, but it was also just overall different.

It seemed that after I'd spoken with my mother, word had gotten to Piper and she showed up one evening with my favourite ice cream and two seasons of America's Next Top Model that we decidedly didn't pay any attention to.

Instead, we broke apart, arms wrapped around each other on my bed.

The tension that had built around us over the past year burst and we cried – we released tears and spoke words that had been stifled for months.

I told her about how suffocating it was to be constantly watched, for people to treat me like a piece of porcelain, waiting to crack. I told her I dreamt of Amber, of her screams and her blood staining my fingertips.

She told me about how she'd worried about me every day since she saw Amber's car, smashed and bent into pieces. She hadn't seen us. No, she'd come afterwards – when we'd been sped off to the nearest hospital, and only a mangled piece of metal remained – but she still dreamt of it.

Sometimes, she dreamt of me and Amber in it, imagining the way our bodies contorted against the broken metal. She said she dreamt of me leaving her, of me taking my own life, like Jace had tried. She dreamt that she hadn't done enough.

We cried.

She understood that I felt guilty for worrying her, that I just wanted her to treat me normally. For her to be my friend. I understood that she was doing her best to be a supportive friend. She had stuck by me when no one else had, and I'd always be grateful for her.

And then, we talked about Amber.

We talked about Amber's dumb jokes, the way she was always late to school, the way she had all the teachers wrapped around her finger, the way she squealed when we past dogs on the street, the way she slurped her milkshakes so quickly she ended up with chocolate staining her lips. We laughed about how Amber fantasised about running away to Hawaii. We cried because she never got to go.

It felt good just to remember. Remember when she was alive. When there were three of us.

Sometimes, I forgot that Piper was friends with Amber too. I forgot that she missed her too. That I wasn't suffering alone.

"Right, Jas?"

I blinked, meeting Piper's eye in the mirror. "Huh?"

She rolled her eyes but explained anyway. "I was telling Jace that you haven't been to a party in over a year."

Because the last party I'd been to, Amber had died, and I ended up with a fractured leg.

"Yeah," I said slowly.

I still wasn't used to Piper not censoring herself around me. She seemed unused to it too, by the way she quickly shifted her eyes back to the road and chewed her lip.

I decided to make it easier for her.

"The last party I went to, I was t-boned by a drunk driver on Simon Street, but hey, I got a pretty cute boyfriend out of it."

Jace frowned at me and I giggled, leaning into his side.

"It's fine, Jace," I said, nudging him. "I just – it never really occurred to me to go to a party again. Kind of like how I never thought I'd be here." I gestured vaguely to the car we sat in. "And, I mean, it's not like anyone was eager to invite me to one."