"This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends - they'll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, some go. The ones that stay with you through everything - they're your true best friends. Don't let go of them." Marilyn Monroe
Elizabeth cried for six days straight. She refused to see her friends. She wouldn’t talk to Olivia. She couldn’t talk or think without sobbing. On the seventh day, she allowed herself to only cry in the shower. She dried her hair, got dressed and put her make-up on. Elizabeth would no longer spend her days crying. She had a life to live and Jack Bennett wasn’t going to control her happiness any longer.
“I’m starting a diary,” she told Kate and Angela while shopping at Target. “When I’m upset, I can write down how I feel and move on.”
“That’s genius,” encouraged Angela. “You’re going to meet another Jack Bennett someday.”
“Not too soon I hope,” Kate said. She held up two of the same lamps with different color shades. “Which one matches my comforter better?”
“The yellow one,” suggested Angela. Kate placed the lamp in her cart.
“There’s no yellow in your comforter,” reminded Elizabeth. “It’s orange and pink.”
“I’m keeping it. I think my roommate’s Emo. She could use some color in her world. What’s next on the list?”
Angela had typed up a college supply list and highlighted it by category. Elizabeth already had most of the items she needed. “Carpet,” Angela said. “Like ten rows back.” The girls turned their carts around and headed to aisle where the rugs were. “I call green.”
“You can’t call a color,” snapped Kate. “We’re not even going to the same school.”
“Green would look tacky with your yellow lamp and orange and pink comforter,” answered Angela.
“I told you, I’m trying to be colorful. If they have a lime green it would look awesome.”
“Purple,” Elizabeth blurted out. Her friends stopped pushing their carts and looked at her. She pointed to the lilac shag carpet rolled up on the shelf. “I’m getting the purple one. I don’t care if you want to get the same one.”
Angela grabbed sage green shag carpet while Kate settled on black. “My roommate will appreciate the lack of color,” she mentioned.
Olivia helped her younger sister pack everything she needed. Three suitcases and four storage bins later, Elizabeth was packed and ready for school. Olivia drove back to New Haven two weeks early to get herself ready for the new semester. Leighton drove with her and flew back to Charlotte in time to take Elizabeth to Durham.
Elizabeth was going to be the first to leave and she knew it was going to be hard to leave her best friends. She was only going
to be an hour and a half away from Angela in Winston-Salem and two and a half hours from Kate in Wilmington. They decided not to make saying good-bye a big deal. All three girls would have cars to visit each other once they got settled even though the frequency would be much less than they were used to. Kate planned a final night with dinner at their favorite restaurant, Firebirds.
Elizabeth wasn’t surprised to find that the girls had invited Nick and Liam to join them for dinner. They were just as important to Kate and Angela as Elizabeth was. She wondered if Nick would bring up Jack’s name at dinner. She secretly wished he would. She wanted to know Jack was doing in Pennsylvania but she didn’t have to nerve to ask about him.