Between the texting and the DMCs and the nights, I don’t have that much space in my life for anything else

Nothing has changed but everything is different. It’s not easy, I have to remind myself. I think my instinctive response to anything that has to do with Ma is annoyance. And I feel really bad about it, because as cognizant as I am now, there were probably two million times I wasn’t, and it was probably pretty hurtful to be around me.

Shan hasn’t said anything about going back, and we’ve fallen into a comfortable pattern. I go to school, hang out with Debbi and the others, doodle through Ma’s class, wedding plan with Libby, and then spend most of my evening with Shan in her car or in my room. We schmooze and laugh so hard, we cry, and sometimes we just read next to each other in silence and play with makeup and hair.

I’ve never had a friend like Shan before. Everything we do is deep, connecting; she just needs me so much, and it feels… good. Of course there are aspects I don’t love, like all her other friends and her clothes and the fact that she can get pretty poisonous wh
n discussing her family and friends back home. But I ignore all of that.

The only thing is that being her friend is a full-time occupation. Between the texting and the DMCs and the nights, I don’t have that much space in my life for anything else.