Friday, December 30th

110.)

Blossom got me an appointment with that therapist by the beach house. I was a little wary, especially seeing someone out of state, but Blossom confirmed again and again that it was okay. Apparently she had lived in New Hampshire for a while, so she still saw NH clients.

I climbed into Blossom's car a little earlier than usual. My appointment was at six, and I got out of work at five. But the drive was about an hour and a half. I still had to have a conversation with Aunt Patty about moving my schedule around, but I really didn't want to. Part of me was hoping this therapy thing would just fail.

I got into Blossom's car and pulled the door shut. In the short sixty seconds it took to go from my house to her car, I had flakes of snow piling on my shoulders. It was coming down hard.

"We could always not go," I teased as Blossom pulled out of the driveway. But she seemed... uncharacteristically somber. Did I do something wrong?

"You know about my circles, right cupcake?" Blossom wanted to let the conversation come up naturally, but she was riddled with anxiety about the topic ever since she had her talk with Becky.

"Right...?" Circles, spheres, whatever. Parts of her life she kept separate. Was this about her dad? Did something happen over Christmas?

"Becky is throwing a New Years Party at the sorority. And that falls on a Saturday night. This Saturday night, in fact. And I want to spend it with you. And I want to spend it at the party."

She didn't want to out and out say that it was under pressure from Becky, because if she was going to allow her spheres to touch, she didn't want either group to have preconceptions of the other. And if she said this was because Becky wanted it, it might be harder to express her feelings.

"I want you to come with me. To the party."

Pause.

"Genuinely."

"Uh..." A sorority party? On Saturday. Like, tomorrow Saturday? Which was... "A New Year's party?"

"Mmhmm..."

I blinked a few times. I wasn't sure what to say to that. I admit, the dates hadn't slipped my mind. I was going to spend New Years with Blossom. I didn't have a lot of traditions with my mom for that particular holiday, so I didn't feel any guilt going to the beach house. And ringing in the new year with Blossom... I bit my lip.

"I don't want to cut your trip short," Blossom urged. "If you want to stay at the beach house and write, I can pick you up Sunday? Actually, you could get a lot of Academy Works done."

"Right..." But then Blossom wouldn't be there. I would be alone. 2023 would start and I'd be alone. I knew it was meaningless - that it was just another date change - but...

"I don't have to go," I said plainly, not bothering to fake a smile. I was trying to be sincere. "I mean, if you wanna go, and you feel guilty or whatever leaving me behind, you shouldn't. I told you already, you don't have to invite me places to be nice."

"I promise you, Amy, I am not inviting you to this place to be nice. I am inviting you to this place because I want to be with you on New Year's Eve. And because I want to be with Becky on New Year's Eve. And because..."

Breathe in, Blossom. Breathe in. Don't forget to breathe.

"Because I've always had issues with people from different parts of my life crossing over, and I know you know this, and I know you understand, even if it means I come across like a total bitch when you see me at school and I pretend like I don't. And I understand this is a paradox because - all things being equal - you're the last person I should want to cross my spheres. Unlike most people, you actually know enough about me to destroy me socially, whether on purpose or on accident. I should be afraid of this the most, but it's you and I want to..."

She took a breath in and sighed.

"I want you to be special. I want you to be my exception. Because you're exceptional."

"Uh... I'm not that exceptional?" I really appreciated the gesture, but Blossom was blowing this so out of proportion. I didn't have to go to her party thing, even if the thought of spending New Years alone was a miserable one.

And Blossom was right. Even if I didn't want to ruin her life, I probably would. I mean, she met my mom and she couldn't even keep from embarrassing me in a half dozen sentences. I'd say something I'm not supposed to and Blossom would hate me. It was easier if I didn't go.

"Yes you are, oh my god, Amy. You are, and you have no idea what I'd pay or give to have you understand that. It's so obvious to me, and when you don't see it I feel like this is some Mandela Effect thing or something, who knows."

This angle didn't seem to be panning out, though, so Blossom thought for a moment and made a decision.

"I wanna tell you what happened. Why I have the thing. With the circles."

Blossom knew it was silly, and she knew it didn't make sense, but there was a lot to unpack. If she was going to make Amy her exception, she might as well tell her what she was an exception to.

"Okay...?" A long time ago, I think after we just started being friends, she mentioned that it had something to do with a friend getting hurt. I never put too much thought into it; I just thought it was my fault. That I wasn't good enough. Jeez, how egocentric.

"So... alright, you know about my Middle School Years, you know I used to be... different, right? We've talked about that, I showed you the album, blah blah blah. And I keep that pretty tight-lipped, even now. But like, when I got to high school, and I realized I was popular, and people liked me and made fun of people like who I used to be, I was even more like... I dunno, crazy?"

"Sure..." Crazy wasn't the right word, but I was following along. She was inundated with peer pressure. I probably would have done the same thing, but I wasn't cool enough to be pressured into anything.

"Right. So I got myself all setup, and I leaned into this... this is who I am. And this was during the worst times with my Dad, with me being a bitch and all that crap. And so I had this friend. She wasn't my bestie, but we were pretty close. Her name was Jane Radi, I don't know if you remember her. She had hair that was almost white? Like, super super pale skin, too? She looked like a doll. Anyway, one day Jane was like "So hey Blossom, this is weird, but my cousin Jacy mentioned he went to middle school with a girl named Blossom...""

Blossom was sounding a little more agitated as she spoke, wringing the steering wheel.

I didn't remember Jane. The name didn't ring a bell at all. I knew about half the people in our graduating glass, but not that one. I had a feeling I was about to find out why.

"So at first I tried to play it cool. I was like "Oh yeah? That's cool" and she was like "And yeah the strangest thing is, she's got the same last name as you too" and that made my blood run cold because like... I was a teenager, I'd been miserable for so long, and here was this girl who was about to know everything, or already did. So I thought I'd like... control the narrative, get out in front of it, and all that shit. So... I told her everything. About who I am, who I used to be, all that stuff."

"Huh." That was a lot more foresight than I would have thought to have. I would have probably tried to lie. Then again, I never really had anything to lose in my life. But as a Little, I guess I knew the feeling of someone "finding you out". Panic is inevitable.

"Yeah, I know, I know. I shouldn't have just blurted it all out, but I did. And she... she laughed at me. She like, laughed at me, and told me I was just a fake, and how she always had her suspicions about me and all this... this bullshit. And... I panicked. I didn't know what to do, because so far as I was concerned, she was about to ruin my entire life."

"Okay..." This whole thing had the air of a confession at the end of an episode of Bones. And that's when Blossom decided she had to kill Jane Radi. But if that were true, she probably wouldn't be telling me that in her car on our way to a secluded beach house... oh wait.

"At that point in my life, I had to... I had to put an end to her. I had to destroy her, and get her out of the picture. So..."

Deep breath.

"I told everyone I knew that I'd seen her having sex with Grady - you know the art teacher? He always smelled like peppermint extract, and didn't believe in deodorant? The hippie guy? I told everyone that I'd seen her going to town on Grady, and trying to blackmail him into silence. And that was a good start, but I needed to destroy her credibility too. So I also said that she'd lied about her homelife, and that her dad was in jail, and also that she was..."

This was the stupidest part.

"I told everyone her hair was white because she was an albino, and she wore contacts to hide it."

"Nobody believed that," I said flatly. But Blossom's hands were tight on the steering wheel. I guess if anyone was going to care about something like that, it would be vain, stupid high schoolers. So I changed the topic a little.

"I heard about the thing with Mr. Grady... he was out for a semester." I guess the faculty was trying to figure out what was going on? But he transferred to a different school the year after. I never had him as a teacher, or a lover for that matter. But rumors get around.

"Yeah, and that was fucking horrible of me to do, because he was a nice guy and didn't deserve any of that. But high school girls are the worst and I was the worst of them. Anyway, I don't know if she ever tried to like… tell anyone about me, because after a week she stopped coming to school. And I only heard about it the following year that she became deeply depressed. I saw some Facebook pics and she cut off all her hair and dyed it brown and she looked so fucking sad. And I did that to her. Me. I did that, because I let my spheres touch."

"I don't think that's true..." I said, probably missing the point of her entire story. She did ruin the lives of two people, and there wasn’t any excuse for that. But her cause and effect didn’t add up.

"This has nothing to do with your spheres. You did what you did because you got scared. Now you're so afraid of doing the wrong thing again that you're avoiding any situation where it's possible." It was a test, one Blossom was sure she would fail. But if she kept faking being sick, eventually the teachers would give up. She'd never have to take the test.

Why didn't I think of that?

"Listen, if you don't want me to be a part of stuff, that's fine. I'm happy with what I've got. But for the record, I don't think you need to be scared. You aren't fifteen anymore. You aren’t Abigail Williams. You're an adult now, despite some evidence to the contrary. You’re a different person. If you weren't, then we wouldn't be friends. So give yourself a bit more credit."

If it were any other moment, Blossom might have taken the "despite some evidence to the contrary" part of Amy's speech as an opportunity to puff out her cheeks and pout, but she was too wound up. Although, to Amy's credit... Blossom did find herself coming down a little bit.

"I appreciate that, cupcake. But you're not the only person whose life I made miserable, and I know it's not a correlation and causation thing, but like... I remind myself constantly that it wouldn't have happened that way if I kept my walls up between the spheres."

I wished I had taken more psychology classes, because a lot of what Blossom was saying didn't make sense to me. Jane would have found out either way. Sure, Blossom screwed up big time, but it had nothing to do with letting her spheres touch. She was scared of the damage she could cause, and somewhere along the way she latched onto the idea of keeping things separate.

But if I was going to criticize her defense mechanisms, I'd have to address my own. I'd have to admit that I did the same thing with baking; there are a thousand things I can do with my hands, but only that keeps me safe. Why? Because I say it does. Because it worked once, so it's the only thing that ever can.

I guess Blossom and I weren't that different. Or, we weren't until Blossom said:

"But now I want something without walls. I want New Years with you and Becky. Inviting you to this party is totally selfish of me, because if you hurt me, I might hurt you back. But I trust you not to hurt me, even if I don't trust myself. I mean, I'm not saying that I'm not anxious. I'm absolutely terrified. But I want this anyway."

Blossom wondered to herself when this stopped being about Becky slightly-manipulating her, and when it became about Blossom actually wanting this.

There was a long pause while I thought about it. I think Blossom was thinking the same thing, because when I said:

"You'd be a lot less anxious if I didn't go."

she said:

"I'd be a lot less happy if you didn't go."

Then Blossom quickly asked:

"Do you want to go? You seem like you don't want to go. You don't have to go."

"No, I... I want to..." Well, no, that was a lie. I sunk further into the seat and picked at my fingers. "I want to go, because you'll be there. But I guess I'm just... lamenting my imaginative foresight."

"Huh?"

"Like... I dunno. I thought we'd both be dressed cute and... we'd have a night to ourselves." I honestly didn't realize how important that was until this moment. It wasn't even the "wearing a diaper" thing. Ringing in the new year in a diaper wasn't going to be any more baby than doing it without one. New Years wasn't exactly a Little holiday. It was the "night to ourselves" thing that seemed to have some weight. I always took it for granted, because it was only ever Blossom and me at the beach house, but the thought of sharing her with her friends...

"What if we went to the party for a few hours, I introduced you to people, we hang out, and then we come back to the beach house by midnight to ring in the New Year together?"

"That's a two hour drive, Blossom." She was an engineer; she could do math. We would have to leave by 10pm. Actually, if we wanted to be dressed and cute for the year-change, we would probably have to leave by 9:30. I didn't know a lot about college parties, but I think 9:30 on New Years Eve was a lot like leaving a dinner party at two in the afternoon.

She was quiet for a moment as she came to that same realization. It didn't matter though; my answer was the same. Even if I had to grieve for my time alone with Blossom, time without her was worse. I didn't want to be alone on New Year's Eve.

"I'll go," I said. "If that's okay."

"It is one thousand percent okay. And if at any point you feel uncomfortable and wanna leave, you tell me, and we'll go."

Becky could hardly be upset at Blossom for that, as long as she showed up.

"Gosh, I'm really excited. And when we get to the beach house I cannot wait to show you my new dress!"

"Yeah," I said quietly, a little less enthused than Blossom. But her newfound excitement did stir a feeling of security in me. It was my first venture into Blossom's world, into her life outside of me. For some reason, she had imbued me with sacrilege. She made me an embodiment of violation, a profanity. It was like injecting cancer into your body and trusting it not to kill you.

I should have been scared. I wasn't. I was flattered.