For you

Chapter 3: Let it go

My ears are suffering but I'm still clapping along and pretending to be amazed by the performance Anna is putting on in front of me in Lily's living room.

"Let it gooooooo, let it goooooooo." She's prancing around and pretending to throw snow. Apparently she just watched Frozen on disney plus yesterday and now she's obsessed.

"Sweetie, go play in your room for a bit." Lily sits on her couch next to me before muttering "I guess I should have named you Elsa instead."

"I'm not done with my song mommy!" Anna pouts and seems like she is about to start up where she left off with her toy microphone.

"You already sang it five times baby. Go put up your toys in your toy box."

"Okay. " She sighs and skips to her room. "Emma! Can you help meeee?!"

Looks like her sister is the next victim.

"You have yourself a natural born performer." I joke and grab a watermelon slice from the plate in front of me. Lily has her own garden in her backyard and grows a variety of fruit and vegetables. Props to her since I can not even keep a cactus alive.

"Maybe one day she will be famous. Back to our topic from earlier, you said Jack now works at the same hospital as you?"

I had mentioned it to Lily and tried to be casual about it. At the time she just nodded and said it was interesting. Seems like we are back to discussing him. Honestly surprised she remembers Jack at all.

"Uh, yeah." Another piece of fruit goes into my mouth to keep me busy.

"I heard he got divorced."

And now I'm choking.

"You need water? Are you inhaling the watermelon? What's going on?" Lily looks more amused than worried that her friend might be about to die.

I take a sip of the lemonade next to me and clear my throat.

"I'm okay, it just went down the wrong hole. Where did you hear that?"

"His divorce? I was talking to Marie the other day. I don't know if you knew her but I used to have some classes with her senior year. I bumped into her at Target and she started talking about our old classmates. She always knew the gossip back then and she still does now. Anyways, she mentioned him and his divorce. The girl he married went to our school too I guess. I knew high school sweethearts never work out."

He's divorced? Not that it changes anything. I stopped keeping tabs on him a couple of years ago now. The past is the past. Like Anna belted, let it go.

Though that's not to say I'm not nosey and I do kinda want to know what happened.

"Aren't you and Henry college sweethearts? It's somewhat similar. Did she say why they broke up?" I try to add the last question like it's just an afterthought.

"College is different from high school!" Lily pauses for a beat than huffs. "Okaaaay. You are kind of right about the similarity. But meeting as adults should count as something. Anyway, I'm not sure. I think Marie tried to tell me but I used having to pee as an excuse to escape."

Damn Lily's bladder.

"You work in the same place now and even had classes together. Just ask him." This is said nonchalantly as if it would be the easiest thing in the world.

I can not just go up to him and say "Hi, how did your marriage fail?"

"No! That's- uh, not exactly promoted in the workplace by hr. We are basically strangers again. It would be weird."

"I guess we'll never know."

"Thanks Kanye West."

"You're welcome. Oh, by the way Henry said that Mark is out on a business trip for a while. So I'm not sure when the date will happen. He should have mentioned this earlier but anyway, I tried to get some info about his personality. But of course men don't describe well. All Henry told me was that the guy is nice. That clearly tells us nothing. Everyone when described is described as nice at first! He couldn't even mention three other quality traits. Only other thing he told me is that Mark works out. I've never met this Mark before because he's apparently always out of town for business. Which now that I think about it, is kind of weird? What if he has a double life? But I-"

I stop Lily to stop her from going on a tirade and for her to breathe.

"Take a breather. Have some agua."

She gulps down the ice water I handed her.

"I'm just saying. As your bestie I'm trying to make sure we don't put you on a date with some serial killer."

She's not wrong, but the most likely probability is that he's not a murderer. I think. All I know is we have both watched too many Criminal Minds episodes.

"I appreciate your failed background check."

"Who said I failed? I found his facebook." She's smirking like the cat who caught the mouse. Or however that saying goes. "Now, his facebook is on friends only but some profile pictures are public. If Henry was on social media we would have an in but this is what we got so far."

After a few seconds of scrolling on her phone, she shows me a picture of supposedly Mark. In the photo he is taking a selfie at the beach so all you can really see is the background of sand and water along with his face up close. Can't lie, he is attractive. He has brown hair, bright blue eyes, and perfect white teeth. Even looks like he has perfect skin. Only "flaw" he has is a scar on his chin.

She shows me the other three photos that are available and all are of him in suites and look professional. I like the beach one since it shows him more carefree. He wasn't smiling in the other ones.

"Not bad." I nod.

"Natalie and Mark, sitting in a tree-"

I shut her up by throwing a pillow at her face.

"Are we singing again?!" Anna runs in so fast that she has to catch her breath.

"Oh, no." Lily responds, but of course, mini Elsa is already singing again.

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Author's note:

I'm trying not to add authors notes at the end but I had to share this with you lol. I couldn't add the tik tok, but the picture below is how I imagine Lily questioning Mark's whereabouts