"Is that why you read her books? To understand?"
"Am I that obvious?"
I nod. "Did it help?"
"It did. And it didn't. I can see what she was going through now, how she felt, but I still don't get it. There's something that just doesn't make sense to me. How she could leave me that way? How she could hide this from me? Iknowit's not about that. Iknowshe was too hurt, she probably thought she was doing me a favor. I know, but I can't quite wrap my head around it."
"Do you have to?"
"I don't know." He sits on the bed next to me. He sits close enough our legs touch. "It gets kind of exhausting, thinking about her in these terms. I annoy myself for making it about what I could have done, how it affected me. She deserves better. She deserves to live in my memory as the person she was too."
"What was she like?"
"Witty. She always had a literary reference. For a while, she threw out Shakespeare quotes as quips. I never got it. Our parents hated it. Molly hated it. But that only encouraged her."
"A troublemaker?"
"Yeah." He smiles. "She was like you. In her head a lot. I always wondered what she was thinking, what it was like to have such deep, interesting thoughts."
"You looked up to her?"
He nods. "She stood up to our parents, she stood up for me. Hell, she stood up for people who needed it. She ran the Amnesty International chapter at our school and she volunteered to teach at community centers. She always said it was for her, too. That she did it 'cause it made her feel good. But sometimes I think… she was doing what I did, staying busy to stay away from her ugly thoughts."
"We all do it."
He nods. "She had refined tastes in literature. Even the graphic novels—she only read the acclaimed books. But her taste in music?" He shakes his head. "She loved the worst shit."
"Aren't you all classic rock, all the time?"
"Sure, I don't have taste, but at least I don't have bad taste."
"Isn't that worse?" I ask.
"Hey." He nudges me.
"What did she like?"
"The cheesiest sensitive dude songs."
"Softboys?" I ask.
"Yeah, that's it." He laughs. "Molly was always tossing 'softboy' memes in our group chat."
"The three of you had a group chat?"
"It was mostly the two of them, but I jumped in sometimes. Deidre was funny. She gave as good as she got. It's not like Molly had better taste. She loved the same stuff Chase does."
"Chase?"
"Our shop manager. Even though he's a dad now, he still listens to the music he liked in high school. All these toxic dudes whining about their ex-girlfriends. And Molly loves that too. They'd fight about who was a bigger traitor to feminism. Molly would insist she was laughing at the misogyny, depriving it of its power. Deidre would say her favorite bands seemed like they were doing concept albums, to try to prove Margaret Atwood right."
"Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them."
"Yeah," he says. "I learned a lot through them."
"Bossy older sisters are the best."
"You'd say that." He smiles. "They had these epic fights about it, but it was in good spirit. Molly thought it was better to face anger and know. She thought it was honest. At least the guys she listened to were upfront about being assholes. And, well, she never really admitted it, but I think she felt that anger too. With her girlfriends. She hated that she identified with all these possessive assholes. Fuck, that was a long time ago."