What Are Friends For? (13 page)

We lay there in the dark for a minute. She was right, how could I know if she’s good? She looked great to me last year, but I don’t even know what turn-out is.

“That must feel awful,” I whispered.

“It does,” she said. She started to cry.

Oops, wrong thing again. It had felt so good when she said it to me. I looked around for Kleenex, but she didn’t have a box. “You want me to get you some toilet paper?”

“For what?”

“To wipe your nose? Eyes?” I asked. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Some toilet paper?” She wiped her face on her T-shirt. “It’s OK.”

“So what are you going to do?” I asked. “About dance.”

“There’s nothing I can do, because it’s not up to me, it’s obviously my mother’s decision. Anyway, the point is, I know just how you feel, about nothing of your own.”

I nodded. I never know what to say when people get serious.

“Morgan says I should just quit. But she doesn’t care about stuff like disappointing your mother. I mean, my mother’s always telling me I’m her best friend.”

I stopped myself from saying that’s so nice. Instead I said, “Oh, that makes it complicated.”

I wasn’t even sure what I meant, but I was glad I said it because CJ nodded fast, looking right at me. She has really intense green eyes. “Exactly,” she said. “See? Morgan doesn’t get that—she doesn’t care what her mother thinks. But on the other hand, Morgan is right—it is my decision, really. Whether to dance and even who my best friend is. My mom can’t just decide we’re best friends. Don’t I have some say?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

She nodded more and smiled a little. “I mean
best
friends—it’s too important. It’s a commitment, right? Best friends have to choose each other.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I agree.”

“I’m glad somebody does,” whispered CJ.

“Who’s your best friend, then? Morgan?” CJ and Morgan Miller hung around a lot last year. I guess I thought of them as best friends. I was regular friends with both of them, although since
The Nutcracker,
I’ve been a little shy around CJ. It’s hard to imagine all my friends needing permission slips to come see me do anything.

“Well,” CJ said slowly. “I was best friends with Gideon Weld when we were little, but then, you know, we figured out he was a boy and I was a girl, so that ended that.”

“Right,” I said, like obviously you couldn’t be best friends with a boy. I’m just friends with anybody. Nothing of my own. Why didn’t that ever bother me before?

“And since fourth grade, it’s been Morgan, although, sometimes, lately, I feel like she doesn’t understand me,” CJ whispered. “But yeah, I guess it’s Morgan. Who’s yours?”

“I don’t know.” I faced away from her, toward the door, and folded my pillow over. “I don’t have one.”

After a while, CJ whispered, “We should go to sleep, huh?”

I said, “Yeah,” but I can’t sleep.

Every girl has her own story.
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THE FRIENDSHIP RING
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Rachel Vail

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