your best american girl ✓

14 | bugle call

"Jesus, have you been crying? Are you okay?" Faye asks, dressed in a baby pink tank top and thin white shorts. Doesn't seem like weather-appropriate gear, considering it's windy enough to knock you off your feet, but she has thick skin. After all the fiascos that have happened today, my most important takeaway is that I definitely need to learn how to drive. The soles of my feet are burning from overuse.

"I—" Hiccup. "Just wanted to say that I'm so fucking sorry. For everything. You were right. God, Faye, you're always right." Sniffle.

I use a tissue to blot my ruby red nose, the skin of my nostrils still inflamed from all the snot leaking out. Long story short, I'm a mess that doesn't deserve her forgiveness, yet here I am, at her doorstep begging for it anyway.

Tapping her foot on the rough welcome mat, she purses her glossy lips. "It's my fault too...if I knew your mom was gonna react like that, I wouldn't have told her. I was jealous and I lashed out on you. That wasn't right. I'm sorry."

The tears are streaming down my face at full force now. Closing my eyes hard, I try to make the waterworks stop, to no avail. I repress a choked sob that feels more like a hurricane than a cry for help.

"Fuck, Lee, what the hell am I gonna do with you?" she groans, pulling me in for a hug, her shiny hair tickling my forehead. Relaxing into her embrace, I relish the feeling of her hands rubbing slow circles on my back. I missed her so much. When I didn't know where else to go, I always found myself navigating my way toward her, and regardless of how mad she was, she'd take me in. "C'mon, I'll bring you inside."

Arm around my side, we walk inside her multi-million dollar house. Even though this is far from the first time I've visited her house, I can't help but be in awe. Like the rest of her street, the whole house is 3 stories tall, and the design is very sleek and geometric. The windows are different sized squares stuck next to each other to form a large rectangle. The ceilings are flat and they extend quite a bit past the walls.

Everything about it screams suburban wonderland in a homogenous way. Historically, Cape Bedford was an area that is a product of redlining, housing discrimination, and poor urban planning. From the startling lack of diversity to the neatly groomed front lawns to the gates high enough to block out anything deemed a threat, this place is a breeding ground for the most sheltered kids across the country. It's the type of city where an indie coming-of-age movie or a shitty Hallmark film would be shot. At first glance, it's perfect, but the longer you stare, the more apparent the cracks in the roads become.

"What even happened? Is this about that D'Medici boy?" she asks, guiding me to sit on the suede striped couch. Gently, she lays a thick quilt over my lap, making sure every bit of my torso is wrapped tightly. "Do I need to teach him a lesson?"

Of course, it would be too easy to blame him for doing this to me. I know that I am at least partially responsible for becoming the person I am today.

"No," I laugh, using my fingertips to blot away the salty water leaking out of my tear ducts. "This was my fuck up."

She doesn't question it. She simply nods, resting her head on her palm and propping her elbow against the velvet cushion. "Okay, I'm all ears. Tell me everything."

So I do that. Starting from the beginning with the phone, then to Kass, then to the stupid charity gala, and the whole time she gives me her undivided attention, occasionally nodding or butting in to insult me. I did what I should've done the entire time: be honest with her.

"That's quite a story," she muses, playing with a stray thread on her shorts. "You know if you told me, I would've kept it a secret."

I press my lips into a line. "I know that now."