Late to the Party ✔

8. A friend to all is a friend to none

Some ten years ago, there'd been another girl like Jeanie.

Charity Abernathy, prom queen with a handsome boyfriend, perfect manners and the sweetest smile. Mary had never spoken to her, but even if she had, she'd never expected the teenager would ever remind her of Jeanie at all.

That is, until her parents came in the church offices one day, faces bowed in shame, their daughter trailing behind them, teary-eyed. She'd been caught reading inappropriate things, things that were hard to come by in their small Christian town, and her parents were worried for her eternal soul.

While they talked to Pastor Jeff, she'd taken the girl aside. "We all battle with those urges as teenagers," she'd told her, hoping it'd help her, hoping she could show her afflictions like that were totally normal. "What matters is what we choose to do with it." She'd offered a kind smile.

Charity had watched her, calculated, sitting there in her short skirt with her legs crossed, mascara smudges on her fingers. "You don't know anything about me," she'd said. "You don't know the things I've done. You can't even fathom them."

She'd considered it then. "I know far more than you think." She could've said it, but it felt wrong, false, like her and the girl she'd been were separate people, a life broken in two at seventeen years old. Instead, she'd bitten her tongue and kept quiet.

"You tell them if they try to put me in one of those stupid camps, I'll run away," Charity had said, a challenge. It was the thing Jeanie had once claimed when they'd talked about the fear of getting caught — but she shouldn't be thinking of that. Ever.

"Oh, really?" she'd scoffed. "You think you'd be happier that way? Out on your own, with no one to support you?"

She'd been irrationally angry, had been ready to scream at this girl, and it was only days later she'd realized why. Pastor Jeff had called her in, and there were Charity's parents, again with their heads bowed in shame, because Charity had done what she'd promised and rode the first available bus out of town. They were stunned, had never seen it coming, and Mary knew it then. Why she had been so furious, why she hadn't relayed the message.

The girl hadn't reminded her of Jeanie at all.

She'd reminded her of herself.

She reached into the back. The shoebox sat at the very bottom of the closet, coated in a layer of dust. She pulled it out, sat on the bed, and stared at it.

Jeanie's words had echoed through her mind since she left yesterday. She'd bravely collected herself, told everyone she didn't want to talk about it, and spent the rest of the night trying not to fall apart. Once George had started snoring, she'd cried herself to sleep, silently. Her pillow had still been wet when she woke up.

With trembling hands, she lifted the lid. The yellow sweater lay on top. She took it out, hesitated, then brought it up to her nose. It smelled like closet and old dust, nothing like its former owner.

A tear spilled from her eye, and she folded the sweater, setting it aside. Next, she removed the fake bottom from the box, revealing the jumble of pictures and letters underneath.

She picked one. Her mother had taken it, she remembered. They were dressed up for a play, grinning, Jeanie a ghost and she a housewife. She grimaced at the parallels with the future.

She looked at more of them. Always together, always identical moods. Shaking, she opened a small note.

Don't listen to Caroline. You're perfect! She stinks. Love, M.

She'd drawn hearts and falling stars around it. It seemed so pure.

"What're ya doing?"

Her actual heart flew out of her chest, and she dropped the box, pictures and letters falling to her feet. Georgie, who should've been at work, was standing in the doorway, frowning.