October to October

{Chapter Thirty-Two}

     "So are you moving into Joan's house too?" Ruth asked one afternoon in August when Lauren came home to get a change of clothes. 

  Most of Lauren's things were at Joan's house, but they were in the wash, and she was going out to dinner with Joan, Wren, Henry, and a few of his friends that Lauren had grown to like. He was always throwing impromptu parties now aided by his co-host Wren, and Lauren was in the thick of it these days. She felt she could be herself among their diverse group of friends. She considered most of them her friends now, and they were better friends to her than Hope and most of the girl's at her church had ever been.

  "I still live here," Lauren said with a forced smile as she sat on her bed and packed a few things in her backpack while Ruth leaned against the door frame. She hadn't knocked as usual. "I'm just enjoying my summer. You should try it sometime."

  "... I'm enjoying my summer."

  "You stayed inside all day and read," Lauren said with a laugh. "It's almost over, and you never did anything, but go to the library."

  "God forbid I educate myself."

  "Hey, I love to read. Joan even has her own library so I'm reading a lot more these days, but it's summer, Ruth," Lauren said. "Get out and do something! You never even swim in the pool, and it's just outside the back door."

  "Yeah..." Ruth said slowly. "I am a little depressed, I guess. There is the whole Wren situation, and you're never around now. Plus I miss Alex as much as it pains me to admit."

  "You do?" Lauren asked, and she felt ill thinking about Ruth reconciling with him.

  "I think I miss having a boyfriend more than anything else," Ruth said. "I don't miss the way Alex treated me a lot of the time, but we had fun sometimes. I miss having someone, you know? I hate being single."

  Ruth looked wistful as she watched Lauren zip up the backpack. "So do you miss having a boyfriend?"

  "Well... no," Lauren said slowly. "Sometimes I get sad that I don't speak to Jake any longer, but it's nice not to have that burden on my shoulders any longer."

  "He was a burden?"

  "After a while he was," Lauren said, "but not because anything he did. I don't think I loved him as much as he loved me. Pretending you feel that way about someone is definitely a burden."

  "That's what I was doing, I think."

  "So why don't you go out with the girls, and you can meet some guys?" Lauren asked. "I know there are a lot of nice guys in this town, and ones that are probably thrilled to hear you're free this summer. Remember Michael from high school? Didn't he used to write you poems?"

  "He did," Ruth said, and her lips slowly grew into a smile. "I still have a few of them. Alex would get so jealous when I talked about Michael. I have to admit that's why I would bring him up. Michael was sweet though. Remember when we all went to Six Flags together? He held my hand on that one roller coaster you guys dared me to ride."

  "He's back for the summer from NYU," Lauren said. "I saw him the other day at the Dairy Queen which is why I brought him up. He's back doing his old shift there."

  "Oh my goodness!" Ruth laughed. "He's working there again? He used to give us so much free ice-cream. I'm surprised he didn't get in trouble for it."

  "Well, his uncle owns it so I don't think that was an issue," Lauren reminded her as they laughed together, and she thought how nice it was to have a normal conversation with her sister for once. "You should go say hi sometime. He asked about you, and I said you were doing okay."