I relax slightly. Yes, Georgia’s right. People do change. I’ve changed a lot in the last ten years. Where I was once young, foolish and a bit of a daredevil, now I’m more careful, more prone to thinking things through before I act. I have a daughter and I had to learn very fast to be responsible.
How has Polly changed? She and I had been together since I was nineteen, marrying quite young when we were both twenty-two, and having Lily, unexpectedly, at twenty-three. We were both young and stupid and not ready for the world. We should never have married, and having a child had just shown us the cracks that were already forming.
But now, ten years later, Polly has been married for three years, obviously having settled down. She, like me, is thirty-three, almost thirty-four. We’re older, more mature and more certain of what we want in life.
That doesn’t make any of this easier, though. Somehow, seeing how much Polly has changed is probably going to make me feel even worse.
“Are you nervous?” Georgia asks.
“Yeah,” I admit. I look at her. “I know I have no right to ask this…but will you be there tomorrow?”
“What?” Georgia asks, taken aback. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” I say tiredly. “Please? I don’t think I can face Polly alone, not the first time.”
“She’s going to be upset, especially if she comes alone,” Georgia warns.
“Let her be upset, then,” I snap, suddenly angry. I glance at the door, but I can hear Lily in her bedroom now, unaware of our conversation. “She has no right to be. She can either let me be comfortable or she can get out and leave us all alone.”
Georgia smiled. “I completely agree with you. I just want to warn you that it isn’t going to go down very well, because Polly and I didn’t get along very well.”
“Yeah, I remember that,” I say, frowning at her. “I never figured out why. Then Polly left and I just didn’t care.”
“There…were a few reasons,” Georgia says. She hesitates. “For me, you were my best friend and she felt like an intruder. Remember, I was only a teenager when you married her, and it felt like she took you away. For her, I think she was jealous at how close the two of us were. I was even your best man, or best woman.” She gives a short laugh. “We were very close, and I don’t think she liked it.”
It’s like there’s something she’s not telling me. But I don’t push, because she has a right to her secrets, and if she doesn’t want to tell me, then that’s fine.
“So, pretty much, you were both jealous for different reasons,” I say.
Georgia laughs.
“That about sums it up,” she agrees. “Either way, we never got alo
ng, and that might make things awkward tomorrow. Especially since I’m still by your side, and she isn’t.”
“She’s the one that left,” I point out.
“It doesn’t have to make sense,” Georgia says wryly. “I’m just telling you what’s going to be going through her head.”
“Well, at least you know what’s going through her head, I was completely lost on that even before she left,” I joke.
Georgia grins at me.
“That’s because you’re oblivious,” she says with a wink, and it feels like there’s an odd amount of weight in that statement. Then her smile softens and I wonder if I imagined it. “Anyway, as long as you don’t mind the bitch fight that might erupt, I’ll meet her with you tomorrow.”
“Might take the pressure off me,” I say. “Thank you, Georgia.”
“What are friends for?” she replies.
I smile. But then, abruptly, I remember last night. Yes, Georgia and I are friends, very good friends. Which makes what I did inexcusable.
“Georgia, last night… Did we…?”
Georgia turns to look at me. Her expression is unreadable now. I swallow past the sudden lump in my throat.
“Are you asking if we had sex?” she asks bluntly.
I wince.