Riding with the boys

Riding With The Boys 40

Chapter Forty

Two days after I took my last final exam I finally got the cast taken off my leg. The one on my arm had been taken off two weeks earlier, so now, I was back to my old self. Well, physically, anyway.

The truth was, despite having Derek, Jenna, and Mandy to spend time with while I was stuck at home healing, my world had been turned upside down. Things had changed for me so much since the night of the accident, that no matter how happy I was with scraping back the pieces of my old life, I still felt a big piece of my heart missing.

Yes, I missed Cambree, and even Andrew sometimes. I wasn't stupid, though. I didn't miss the real ass hole underneath. I missed the prince on top that he pretended to be all that time, the guy I met at the party that night. I missed my best friend just as much, if not more. It didn't matter what she had done to me, what mattered was that it hurt like hell to think about her siding with them after everything Andrew and his clown of a crew had caused. Cambree and I had been through everything together, and she'd turned her back on all of it for popularity.

I sat back, and I saw the pictures I kept wedged in the frame of my mirror. I'd gone on a rampage and ripped all of the ones up that had Cambree in them the night I'd come home from the hospital, but there was one I just couldn't bear to get rid of.

I walked to the mirror and picked up the picture. We were 12, and with our arms wrapped around each other, cheek to cheek, we were grinning for the camera. I'd never forget that night. She'd slept over at my house, which was nothing special, but for some reason, that one night just stayed stuck in my memory. I could remember practically everything we'd done. We'd stayed up until sunrise watching scary movies, then snuck out of the house, walked to the pond in my woods, and hung out, just talking. God we'd talked about everything. I couldn't remember it all, but I did remember saying that we would be best friends until we were in a nursing home.

Cambree had just replied with a laugh, saying "We'd so get kicked out of that nursing home."

She was right. We would have. Never in a million years did I think that after all this time our friendship would just end. No calls, nothing. She didn't even have the decency to act like an acquaintance and check to see how I was after the accident.

I had no idea what that said about ten years of friendship.

"It means they weren't for shit," I muttered to myself.

I grabbed the photo, and tried to rip it, but I just couldn't do it. So much anger and hurt was built up inside of me. Some of it should have been able to make me rip that photo. It must have been that one little ounce of hope that stopped me. Hope that our friendship really wasn't over, and that someday we could go back to being the friends we once were.

So I didn't rip it. Instead, I yanked open a drawer, and stuffed it at the bottom, under some of my old stuffed animals that I couldn't part with, despite the fact that I'd outgrown them.

My mirror was new and improved with bits and pieces of the old me. Gone were the pictures of me, Cambree, Laurel and Taryn. I'd filled their spots with new pictures of me, Mandy, Jenna, and Derek. Even Tony was in a few. Of course, all of them featured my casts, so as time went on, I'd replace those, too.

I heard my phone vibrate from my bedside table, so I rushed over and grabbed it. It was a text from Derek.

Hey, movies tonight?

I smiled and quickly replied.

Sure thing! You ask Jenna and Mandy yet?

Actually, I was thinking maybe it could just be us.