Curvy Girls Can’t Date Best Friends by Kelsie Stelting
Forty-Five
Callie
As I pulled into my driveway, I saw a moving truck outside Carson’s house. The sign had been covered with a SOLD banner.
I put my car in park and covered my mouth, feeling like a giant door had been slammed on my heart. For the last ten years, I’d looked through my window to see Carson, and this just made it that much more real that I wouldn’t be able to do it again.
Carson’s dad walked out the front door and down the sidewalk toward the moving truck. Seeing him made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Even the stance of his shoulders was predatory, brutal.
Despite growing up next to Carson, seeing him every day after the devastation, I had no idea what he’d really been through. What it would feel like to know the blood that ran through a monster’s veins also ran through yours.
My stomach clenched with guilt. I should have been more understanding. More patient. More curious just to sit with him and hear what had been going through his mind after knowing his dad hurt his sister. I couldn’t imagine what I would do if anyone ever put their hands on Joe.
His dad crossed the front of the truck, got in, and fired it up. Exhaust flew behind the truck and blurred the taillights as he took off down the street, leaving this place forever. Although I was relieved for Carson that his dad was gone, I felt a deep sense of loss too. Deep inside, I had a need to say goodbye to this house, the one that had kept my friend for all these years.
Getting out of my car, I walked to the fence alongside the house and to the back door. I’d never really been in Carson’s house—it was always more comfortable to hang out at mine—but I still remembered the path to his room.
I twisted the knob they always left unlocked and stepped inside, not sure what I would find. A cleaning company must have come through, because the living room and kitchen had been entirely wiped clean of any hint that the Cooks had lived there.
A surreal feeling came over me as I walked up the carpeted stairs, imagining what it must have felt like for Carson seeing this for the first time. For the last.
I turned right at the top of the stairs and walked into Carson’s room. It had been left bare. Not his corkboard with the Star Wars pins, nor his bed, nor the navy-blue curtains at his windows remained.
I walked to the window that faced mine and took in the white blinds I could see through the glass. Was this what Carson had been looking at through all his struggles since he started dating Sarah? A closed window and a friend who shut out anything uncomfortable?
Feeling a stinging in my eyes, I sat on his floor and cried. I promised to myself I would be there for him from here on out. He would never have to face his demons alone, not with me at his side believing and seeing the best in him.
When my tears were spent, I got up from the floor and left the house behind. It was time to move forward.
Once I was in the safety and privacy of my own room, I got out my phone and group called my friends.
“I need your help,” I said.
Equally big grins filled the screen, and Zara said, “Whatever it is. We’re here.”
“I need Carson. This heartbreak’s gone on long enough.”
“Yes!” Jordan cheered. “Let’s stop this nonsense and get you your happily ever after, once and for all.”
Rory nodded. “It’s time to get your best friend back.”
Truer words had never been spoken.
