That Was Then

59-Now

Some things never go away. Some things are as permanent as the scar on my wrist. Like the way the smell of ketchup always instantly takes me back to a place and a feeling I never want to experience again. No matter how many times I smell it, and I mean it's ketchup, I smell it entirely too often. Like late in the night when Petra and I are walking around the New York City streets and pass a hot dog cart.

"You want a wiener?" She asks me, thickening her French accent and giggling. Petra knows almost everything about me but she doesn't know that the smell of ketchup makes me want to cry. I shake my head, feeling a million miles away. Petra loops her arm through mine, "you should call them. If they're as amazing as you say they are then you should, at the very least, text them." She thinks I'm thinking about them and I wasn't, but now I am.

"They hate me now, " I shake my head.

"They're pissed at you, sure. You lied to them. But if you formed real friendships with these girls then they will forgive you. But you have to ask for it." So I pull out my phone and with Petra's arm still looped through mine for support I type out an apology to Vivi first. Another one to Eden and then a third to Allie. Each one lamenting the fact that I royally screwed things up but that I wasn't faking my friendships with them. That I am sorry. Tatum deserves one too but I don't have her number. Afraid that I won't get a response, and maybe even more afraid that I will, I shut my phone off.

We walk and talk, my phone feels hot in the back pocket of my jeans. It's not, but I'm so hyper focused on it that it feels like it just might start my pants on fire. We eat gelato from Petra's favorite place at two o'clock in the morning in the city that never sleeps. I justify the indulgence. We did walk to get the treat and I didn't even really eat my ice cream earlier.

"I can't believe you live here!" I tell her for the thousandth time. "By yourself." A taxi drives by and honks at someone on the crosswalk ahead. Even in the middle of the night it is louder than Erie gets on the busiest days.

"I'm not by myself exactly..." Petra has a guardian that works for the production company. I met her earlier, she lives in the same building as Petra along with a few other underage actors whose parents don't live with them during filming. She has a tracking system on Petra's phone "and probably my hair extensions too," Petra had joked.

"Are you ever... lonely?" I stare up at just one of many buildings that I have to crane my neck to see the top.

Petra shrugs, "sometimes. I'm pretty busy with filming and tutoring. My parents come at least once a month and you blow up my phone constantly so..." she winks at me.

"Oh, I'm so sorry to bore you with all the details of my life," I shove her playfully.

"Are you kidding me? I think our writers for the show should read our texts, they could use your life as material!" This time she is only half joking. There are certainly parts of my life that feel like they could come straight from the script of a soap opera.

When we make it back to her apartment, I take a deep breath and turn my phone back on. Nothing from Eden or Allie, but I have a text from Vivi.

Really Blakely? A text? If you want to apologize and explain what the hell is going on then do it in person.

Ouch. "At least she wants to talk to you," Petra points out, ever the optimist. It's late so I don't respond to Vivi's text. I'm not even sure what I would say.

We don't fall asleep until the sun starts to light up the sky and I sleep through my alarm. By the time Petra beams me in the face with a pillow, demanding I silence my persistently beeping phone, it is way too late to make it to the airport in time to make my flight.