Washed Up (Bayside Heroes)

“I want to get high.”

I choke on a laugh, eyebrows popping into my hairline.

“Hey! No laughing aloud!”

“I’m sorry! I just… you surprised me with that one.”

She grins then, shrugging. “Well, I never did any of that. I mean, I was pregnant at fifteen, remember? I missed out on all the partying and doing stupid things as a kid. And now that it’s practically legal everywhere… well, I don’t know. I think it could be fun.”

I frown, writing down her idea as number two on the list as her words sink in. I met Amanda when she seemed so happy in her life, when even on the worst days, she seemed like she knew what she wanted and had it all together. And when Josh started showing his true colors when I was around, when I realized it was all a show, I was always focused on who she was in that moment, on how she could keep above water with everything going on.

I never stopped to think about who she was as a teenager, about how her hopes and dreams must have taken a hard left turn when she found out about David.

What would I have done if it were me, if a girl I’d been intimate with got pregnant before we were even old enough to drive?

“Were you scared?”

Amanda frowns, looking at me.

“When you found out you were pregnant.”

At that, she smiles, letting out a long exhale through flat lips. “Among other things, yes. I was scared. Angry with myself. Terrified of my future.” She swallows. “Sad.”

Pain zips through my chest at the sight of her, of those warm eyes of hers dulled from a memory of the past.

“But I knew in my heart that it happened for a reason. I think everything does. After a while, that fear turned into excitement.” She pauses. “Of course, my parents didn’t understand that side of my emotions at all. They wanted me to be scared. They wanted me to…”

She swallows, the word too hard to say, but we both know exactly what they wanted her to do.

“Them disowning me and telling me that if I was going to have a baby, then I was adult enough to live on my own… it killed me,” she confesses. “But I couldn’t hide the truth. I was excited to be a mom.” Her eyes meet mine briefly. “And that feeling of everything happening for a reason only bloomed more after I gave birth. I felt it when David would say something surprisingly smart and too wise for his age when he was a kid, or when he accomplished something hard for the first time. I felt it when he aced a test or had a hit in a baseball game. And now, when I see him with Julia, and with a son of his own…” She smiles, shrugging. “He’s the best thing that ever happened to me. He’s my whole life.”

I smile. “You’re the best mom I know.”

“Better not let Clara hear you say that,” she teases, arching a brow at me.

“Ah, she’d probably agree with me,” I say, thinking about my mom and how many times she’d broken down to me, saying she should have been there for me more. I know she never meant to be as absent as she was, but with my father’s job and constant entertainment of clients, it was easy for her to get lost in it all.

I don’t blame her. I just wonder what it would have been like to have someone more present.

I shake my head, tapping the notebook with the pen in my hand. “Okay. So, kayaking, getting high, what else?”

Amanda and I spout off ideas, tossing the creative branch back and forth until we have a full page and it’s bleeding onto page two. There’s everything from go on a real date, from Amanda, to have a movie night, me. Some of it may seem boring to a person who has lived a normal way of life, and other things are a bit braver, like get a tattoo and climb a mountain.

“I think we should also write in amendments for spontaneous ideas,” I say. “Or rather, ideas for each other.”

“Like?”

“Like… I really want you to try meditating with me, even though that’s not something you listed.”

She groans. “Ugh. Sitting in the dark, in silence, with nothing to do but listen to my crazy brain race?” She shakes her head. “Hard pass.”

“It’s more than that,” I say on a laugh. “Come on — you’ll want to do the same to me sometime, too. There’s going to be something you want me to try that I don’t want to try. And I expect you to force me.”

“Oh, is that your kink?”

She winks, and I give her a look, all the while trying to ignore how the word kink sounds rolling off that sweet tongue of hers.