The Years Between

Part 5

His name was Milton Greasley, but he hated that name. Lizzie and Josie started his tour, but Josie ran off halfway through to go to the Old Mill with Penelope. Once it was just the two of them, he and Lizzie really hit it off. Milton didn’t know any of the rumors about her. He was a brand-new person, a reset button - a fresh start. To him, she wasn’t “Crazy Lizzie"; she was just Lizzie.

“So how do you like it, Milton?” Lizzie had asked him at the end of the tour while they were waiting for her dad. 

He made a face, and Lizzie’s heart dropped, worried she’d said something wrong. “I like it a lot better than my name.”

“You don’t like your name?”

“I hate it.”

“So change it,” Lizzie said. “No one here knows. How about ‘MG’?”

MG smiled at the sound of that. “I like it.”

“See? A fresh start.”

“A fresh start.”

...

MG never stopped giving Lizzie fresh starts. Even after he heard all the rumors there were to hear, he never stopped being her friend. He never shrunk away, never started turning down her invitations, never got awkward when she talked to him while other people were around. Even when she got angry at him and gave him her worst, he always came back and accepted her apologies with open arms and a smile.

And Lizzie had to apologize a lot. It had been a long time since she’d had a friend. She was out of practice.

…

If Hope had thought the way Penelope treated Lizzie while she and Josie were dating was horrible, she was not prepared for the way she treated her after they broke up. It was Penelope who ended things, but it was also Penelope who was the angriest and the most vengeful. Hope thought Josie must have been either oblivious to what went on or she just didn’t care. Penelope made comments about how Lizzie looked fat in her favorite outfits, how she had dated too many boys but couldn’t keep any around, how her struggles with her mental illness made everyone around her miserable. The whole time Josie stood right there and kept her mouth shut, watching her twin argue with her ex. From what Hope heard, Lizzie was the reason they broke up and Josie wasn’t happy about it.

…

The twins sprang back together again when their mom left for a long trip to Europe. They were told it was a recruitment mission, but their dad was being especially cagey about it. They promised it was only for a few months. 

Lizzie repeated it to herself anytime she missed her mom: only for a few months. She would be back soon. They wrote letters and sent them through the fireplace, something she and Lizzie came up with when Lizzie made her read all the Harry Potter books with her. They astral projected with the help of Aunt Bonnie and had phone calls late into the night - or early in the morning; Lizzie could never remember the time zones. It was never enough, but Lizzie just kept thinking: only for a few months. 

A week and a half after she had left, there were more new students: tall, dark, and handsome Rafael and his human brother, Landon. More chances to try again from the beginning, more fresh starts.