The entangled wreckage gutted Libby. “You really believe you’ve been a good friend to me, don’t you?”
“I’ve been the best version of myself with you.”
Libby wanted to yell, “But that’s nowhere near good enough!” but the futility of saying it crushed her.
For years, she’d embraced their differences, loving what they offered each other. She’d often said they were two halves of a whole and that was why they were such good friends—they complemented each other. Their strengths fused them together into a tight circle and they didn’t need anyone else. Not once had she conceived that Jess could hurt her. Best friends never did that to each other.
Best friends.
The thought barreled into Libby like a runaway truck, bringing with it flashes of memories, like the BFF they’d carved into wet cement when they were thirty. Thirty, for heaven’s sake! The many, many times she’d put Jess ahead of Alice and Nick, because Jess made her feel like she was on top of her life and kicking goals. Libby winced as the truth rained over her. God, she was blaming Jess for being juvenile and yet she’d believed every inspirational quote about best friends. She’d mythologized their friendship, not Jess. They’d both demanded and expected unconditional love from the other, only her idealism of the perfect friendship and her need for rules and boundaries had run headlong into Jess’s pragmatism and survival instincts. The differences she’d embraced were also the reason they were in this nightmare. They were best friends who loved the same man. Jess had survived the only way she knew how.
Jess grabbed the bed bar and struggled to pull herself up. “I won’t ever apologize for Leo. He’s my gift. The only part of Nick I got to share. But I regret what it’s done to us. I’m sorry for that.”
The unexpected apology disarmed her. “I loved you.”
“I know. I love you too.”
If you love me, how could you do what you did? “I thought we had the perfect friendship.”
Jess’s thin shoulders rose and fell. “Nothing’s perfect, Lib. If it was, I wouldn’t be dying. And I wouldn’t have to ask you this.” Supplication filled her dark brown eyes. “Can you find a way not to blame Leo for me hurting you?”
Flames of anger curled around what she’d long believed their friendship to be. The heat rose, cracking the two perfectly connected halves open and searing her. Vengeance oozed out thick and black before catching alight and filling her with acrid smoke and the bitterness of broken trust and faith. When the black cloud eventually dissipated, she glimpsed in the ash something closer to the reality of their friendship—flawed but with love, however misguided, at its heart.
Libby hugged herself hard, trying to hold herself together. “My family’s right. I’ve let bitterness and revenge get in the way of everything I believe in. Along the way, Leo got tangled up in my hate for you and my grief for Dom. He should have been immune from it all.” She heaved in a breath and felt something inside her cleave. “I’m truly sorry for that.”
“Thank you.” Jess sucked in her lips. “And you and Nick?”
“We’ve learned a lot.”
“Will you be okay?”
Libby wished she knew. “We want to be.”
“You have to be.”
“We’re getting help with the speed bumps. We owe it to the girls—” She corrected herself. “We owe it to the children to honor our mistakes, learn from them and live the best version of ourselves. I promise Leo will grow up in the heart of our family surrounded by Hunter and Pirelli love, exactly as he deserves.”
Jess pinned her with the lioness stare of a mother protecting her child. “And you won’t change your mind?”
“No.”
“Not even when he’s fifteen and running wild?”
“By then Lucy and Indi will have taught me a few tricks and I’ll be prepared.”
“You’ll give him the ‘I love you but not what you’re doing’ talk like Karen gave me?”
Libby tried to smile but her mouth wouldn’t work. “I promise, I’ll tell him I love him every day, just like I tell the girls.”
“Thank you.” A tear slid down Jess’s cheek. “Can you do something else for me?”
“If I can.”
“Can you tell Leo I was his mother? Tell him some of the good things I did, not just the bad.”
“Oh, Jess.”
Her chest ached. For so long Libby had believed she was the aggrieved victim who’d suffered the most hurt. Now shame filled her at the many and spiteful ways she’d inflicted pain on Jess since March. She hugged her friend’s emaciated body and gave in to the tears she’d battled for weeks not to cry. This ovarian cancer, this silent killer, was stealing so much. Jess’s right to raise her child to adulthood. The chance for a little boy to remember his mother’s love. The opportunity for Libby and Jess to build a proper adult friendship … and a thousand other everyday yet momentous things.
“You’re Leo’s mother, Jess. You will always be his mother and we won’t ever deny you to him.” Libby swiped at her tears and snorted in a deep breath. “I’ve got a thousand good stories I’ll tell him.”
“There’s things I want to say to him too.”
Libby fished out her phone and opened the camera, sliding it to video. “Tell him.”
Jess grimaced. “I look like a corpse already. I want him to hear what I’m saying not be scarred for life.”
Libby understood. Jess had always taken the time to do her face and hair before stepping out the door. “What if Kathy comes and does your nails, hair and makeup?”
“She’s always booked a month in advance. I may not have that much time.”
“I’ll make it happen.”
“Pulling in those privileged doctor favors, are you?”
“Doing it for a friend.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
December
Alice was happy to be back working at Summerhouse. The routine of the last two
