Chapter 59
“Yet,” Bethany added, “maybe you can come up and visit me sometime over the summer? I sublet a studio apartment in Falls Church with a stunning view of the DC skyline, you just haveto see it. Please say you’ll come.”
Dana covered Bethany’s hand with her own. “Of course I will. By this time tomorrow I’m going to be missing you something fierce and you know it. I’ll probably call tonight and beg you to let me come back to the dorm.”
Bethany wrinkled her nose. “Ew, seriously? When you can sleep in your own bed at home?”
“Okay, maybe not,” Dana conceded, though secretly she knew she was right. She’d grown so used to Bethany’s daily presence in her life over the past three years that she found it hard on holidays and summers home to be away from her friend for any length of time. They’d talked on the phone every other day over the last Christmas break. She couldn’t envision living the rest of her life without Bethany by her side.
But they were growing up and moving on now, going their separate ways, and Dana would have to learn to deal with it somehow. She’d meet other people, as would Bethany, and sooner or later it picking up the phone to chat or sending a quick email would seem like too much work to keep their friendship going. You’ll be the one I look for in everyone else I meet,she thought, studying the careless waves cascading around Bethany’s petite face. The one no one else can hope to compare with. The one I’ll always wish could’ve been something more than merely a friend.
Pushing aside her melancholy thoughts, she forced a smile and said, “Just let me know whenever works best for you. It should probably be earlier rather than later, though. Knowing my parents, the whole afterglow of graduation won’t last long. If I’m not pounding the pavement looking for a job by next week, they’re going to threaten to throw my ass out on the street.”
Bethany grinned. “If that happens, you can come on up there and live with me. The apartment might be small but it’s still bigger than the room we’ve been sharing forever.”
“Don’t joke around about something like that,” Dana warned. “I just might take you up on it.”
* * * *
When she first came home from college, Dana and Bethany called each other every night before going to bed. Because Bethany had to be up at six the next morning to get ready to go to work, that meant Dana was in her bedroom with the door closed at nine o’clock, stretched out on the bed with the telephone receiver pressed to her ear as she ached to be in the same room with her friend again. Already she missed the long nights they used to spend in the dorm, the both of them relaxing on Bethany’s lower bunk, cuddling beneath the bed covers with their backs against the wall as they watched TV, or talking late into the night after they’d turned out the lights, or simply sharing a pizza while studying. Graduation changed everything. Dana wasn’t too sure it was necessarily for the good, either.
After a few weeks, though, Bethany’s schedule grew more hectic. She was staying at work later, which cut into the time they had to chat. “I have to go,” she’d say after only a couple minutes, even though Dana hadn’t yet had a chance to tell her anything.
Not that there was much totell her; without a job, the news Dana had to share was that she didn’t have any news. Small town politics and intrigue bored her—it was one of the main reasons Dana had chosen a college so close to DC in the first place. To someone like Bethany, still living in such a dynamic place as the nation’s capital, what happened in a little crappy Virginian town she’d never even visited was probably the last thing on earth she cared about. She only listened when Dana talked to be nice. It was what friends did.
Though if she kept rushing Dana off the phone, pretty soon they wouldn’t even have that between them anymore.
Soon the nightly calls stopped, and they were down to every other evening. Then it was two or three times a week, if Dana could manage to catch Bethany at home and not get the voicemail. Then it dwindled even further, a day or two during the week, maybe Saturdays if Dana were lucky. Bethany never seemed to be around, or was already asleep when Dana called, and rarely was the one to call first. She rarely bothered calling back if Dana left a message.