The Partner

Chapter Sixteen, "For the Rest of Forever"

I recognize the look on her face but only because I can feel it painting my own. It pains me too much to look at Skye any longer. Glancing at my lap, I hear her footsteps on the bathroom floor. Stopping behind me, silence ensues besides the sounds of her placing things down. I count them to try and stop thinking of what attempts to consume my thoughts.

One, the curling iron. One pregnant woman here and one who's lost a baby. Two, a hair brush. We would've been pregnant together, our two babies being best friends, just like us. Three, a can of hairspray. Harry and I's daughter would have come first and then Skye and Asher's baby around three or four months later. Four, her favorite bottle of hair protectant spray. Now, that wouldn't happen. Five, the case of bobby pins. It had been three months since we'd lost Phoebe and it still seemed so raw at times. Six, a comb for the smaller sections. People say it gets better with time and it had for the last month or so until this week, because I've been dreading to see her again. Seven, shears for any touching up at the end. I had gone barely a week from seeing her at times throughout school and missed her terribly. Now, it had been months and part of me was okay with making it longer while the other part needed her there.

"Your text said some soft curls and two braids pulled back with a clip. Is that still what you want?" she murmurs from behind me.

I answer her with a soft yes, still staring at the floor. When her fingers start to comb through my hair, I'm not phased. I had been Skye's first client after all, back in high school when she had learned that she wanted to spend her life doing other people's hair. Luckily, she had gotten better over the years. Only a few times did I have to visit a salon for a fix, but otherwise, Skye had always been my hair stylist. I knew from some day back then that it would be her doing my hair on my wedding day. It couldn't have been anybody else.

"I think some little curls pulled out in the front would look good. What do you think?" she says tentatively.

I can hear the apprehension in her voice and how it sounds in my agreement. If there was anybody I knew better than Harry, it had to be her. How many times since we were seven did we dream aloud together about getting married one day and having babies? Too many to count. That's what occupies the chilling silence as she runs the brush through my hair. Words are absent from the silent conversation that we still carry without words. I know that she wants to express how badly she feels. Even if she did, I don't know if I'd allow her. I don't want her to feel guilty when she did nothing wrong. It's not like she went and did it on purpose to spite me. She's been my best friend since we met on the first day of first grade. We'd had our good share of fights, but they never lasted longer than a day. Was this considered a fight? If so, it was our worst one yet, and that thought scares me. I'd thought it, of course, the one that can't be unthought. What if we didn't make it past this? Wouldn't it be all of my fault if that happened? It was up to me to decide that, it felt true.

Silently, I thank her for playing music on her phone. It doesn't steal away the awkwardness like I wish it would, though. It does its job and takes away some. No longer can I hear the hum of the curling iron heating up or the spritzing sound of the heat protectant she sprays on my hair. What makes my lungs fill easier with breaths is the loud laughs that carry up the stairs. Harry's and my Dad's. Robbie's too and Asher's. Sitting there, I wonder how Harry feels being in the same seat as me. Have they addressed the elephant in the room yet? How many times has Asher apologized by now? Did I pop up in the conversation yet, concerning how I'm doing with all of this? I can only wonder.

A soft Queen song starts playing as she lays most of my hair over my shoulder, preparing to curl it. When Skye gently moves my head to look up, I meet her eyes in the mirror. I always had thought that our eye colors were so different - hers a light gray and mine a light blue. She had been the artsy outcast in high school to others, a strange match to my normalcy. I had always taken pride in how we were different. It had never come between us or made things harder. She went to college for cosmetology and I opted for law. Her parents were together and mine were divorced. She'd had several boyfriends whereas I'd only had a few before Harry. She loved parties and I hated them. Scary movies were her favorite and I couldn't stand them. We had always been so different but staring back at her in the mirror, we couldn't be more alike, even if this difference divided us.