20 Million Tiny Particles

27. Sheridan

I was too sick to drive to Sheridan's that night. I found a Gatorade in the office fridge and curled up with Mayo to watch reruns of house renovation shows all night. Incidentally, it was the first good night of sleep I'd had in months.

The next morning, I texted Sheridan immediately. "Can I come over when you wake up? Wanna talk."

She texted back quickly, which I wasn't expecting. I thought I'd have at least a few hours of buffer time while she slept in. "Picked up a cardio kickbox class at 10. Come by the Y before?"

Before I could reply to confirm, she sent another: "You ok?"

Deciding finally to cut the cord, I answered, "Not really. Talk soon though."

It was raining out on the drive to the gym. Not only that, but there was an accident blocking one of the town's main roads, so I took the long way around. I passed the church on the way there and couldn't remember the last time I'd gone to see Bryce play. I wondered if I ever would again.

Funny how things can stop so suddenly.

I pulled my Jeep into a parking spot near the front and jogged inside since I'd forgotten an umbrella. Sheridan and I probably would've met outside normally, but because of the rain, I went straight back to her group fitness room, where she was sitting in the corner on her phone, alone before the start of class.

She looked up when she heard my entrance. "Hey," she said, her breezy voice strained. "What's going on?"

I felt a trickle of sadness alongside the rain drops sliding down my legs. There was a concern in her voice -- even with the weirdness in our friendship, I knew she didn't expect to be the culprit here today.

It was far too dramatic to start the conversation with "we need to talk" and too cliche, too. This wasn't a breakup, I had told myself on the way here. But even if that wasn't the right word for it, I couldn't think of another one to describe what was about to happen.

"Did you get sick last night?" I asked.

She cocked her head. "What?"

"Did you get sick?" I repeated the question. "After taking those cleanse pills, did you get sick?"

She laughed a little. "Oh, no, not really. I mean, it's a cleanse, so I don't know what you were expecting."

"I was sick, Sheridan -- violently sick."

"Oh, shit, I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay, but that's not the point. I really don't want you to sell those pills to your classes."

I saw her roll her eyes a little as she readjusted her posture where she sat on the hardwood. "Julie, I don't mean to come off condescending, but that's what a cleanse does. It's got, like, probiotics and stuff to make you, you know, regular."

"Sheridan, this wasn't regular," I sneered, furrowing my brow. "Come on. Tell me you weren't shitting your brains out last night."

"Julie," she scolded. She looked taken aback by my words, and a little embarrassed too, even though we were the only ones here. What, was toilet talk too real for her?

"I'm serious, Sheridan. You can't charge people money for those things and not be honest with them about what's going to happen."

"Honest?" she repeated, coming to her feet now. "No offense, but that's rich coming from you."

The offense was taken, hard.

For the first time it occurred to me that this was a two-way street. Sheridan had seen me. She knew my game as well as I knew hers.

Still came the defense: "What is that supposed to mean?"

"All of this was your idea," she said, her face up to mine now. "This whole way of selling and marketing and everything -- this was all you. So why are you suddenly acting like you've got too much integrity to sell diet pills? That's what we've been doing this whole time."

"Not like this."

"Yes, like this." She scoffed, turning away from me. "You're just like Missy. You think you're so much better than the rest of us."

Her words stung and she knew it. "That's mean, Sheridan."

"Well, I'm sorry, but you know what I mean. You can't decide that you're too good for this because your ethics got tickled. And I know you think you're better than me. I saw how you judged me for the Diamondtinis and the pills-- what do you think you've been selling all this time? These drinks, that gel? That's just Walmart ephedrine, Julie, and you know it." She looked back at me, her jaw tight and her eyes narrowed. "Don't play dumb."

Somehow this whole time, I thought I'd be the one to outsmart her. To fly above the moral gray that Sheridan had painted her world. To be in it but not of it.

When I told Sheridan back in her room the first time that I wasn't as smart as she thought I was, I was right. I was much, much dumber.

Or at least much more willing to ignore what I knew.

And I hadn't gotten away with anything -- I had judged her. I thought I was better than her because I had good grades and smart friends and was too cool for Facebook marketing schemes. But here I was, with no college prospects and no other friends and nothing to do except peddle diet pills.

I thought I would get a pass by seeing everything I didn't want to see and turning away from it. Running from it. Moving for the sake of moving with no sense of where I was going or what I was running away from.

She was right: I was a part of this too. And we were looking at each other through a glass that was shattering in front of us. She saw me. I saw her.

We knew what this was.

"Just don't sell those pills, okay?" I said, my voice cooling down the air in the room. "Please, for me."

"I'll do whatever I want," she said. "You don't have to do it with me."

It wasn't a breakup, I had told myself. But what were we supposed to call this then?

I nodded slowly. "Okay." It was all I could say.

She said it back. "Okay."

We stood in defense, the space between us opened up to a chasm that neither would cross. She didn't have to tell me to leave; after a moment, the first person from the workout class came in with a duffel bag and began to set up their space for kickboxing.

"Goodbye, Sheridan," I said. It felt too formal, but there was nothing else to say. It was what it was. It was goodbye.