The Friends We Keep by Holly Chamberlin Read Free Book Online

that she was dead serious.
    â€œOf course,” I said soothingly. “You’re a wonderful woman. Any man would be crazy to leave you.”
    â€œI know. Anyway, everything was just fine between us. We spent a part of each weekend together and we text messaged during the week. It was all perfect, not a glitch.”
    â€œOh, he lived out of town?” I asked.
    â€œNo. Right here in the city.”
    â€œBut you said you didn’t see each other during the week. Did he travel for business?”
    â€œNo. But do you know how crazy my schedule is?”
    â€œNo, I guess I don’t.”
    â€œBelieve me,” she said—beckoning to the bartender for another drink (I declined)—“I have very little free time. At first, he complained. He wanted to be with me almost every night. He even wanted to talk on the phone every day and I just have no time for empty conversations. I have a very demanding job; I just can’t be available to everyone. He didn’t get that about me at first.”
    â€œAt first,” I repeated. “So, he understood eventually?”
    Eva shrugged. “He came around. And everything was going just fine until he met that other woman. For weeks after he broke things off with me I watched his apartment. I was dying to catch him red-handed.”
    I took another small sip of my Cosmo and thought: You had the time to stalk him after the relationship but not the time to see him during the relationship . But I would never say anything so confrontational.
    â€œSo,” I said, “did you ever see him with a woman?”
    â€œUnfortunately, no. He always came and went alone.”
    I thought: What was the point of the stalking? Just because he came and went from his apartment alone didn’t mean he hadn’t been seeing someone during his relationship with Eva. Anyway, by that time he was single again and perfectly free to date other women. Poor Eva. She must have been terribly distressed to act so strangely.
    â€œSo,” I said gently, “what happened next?”
    â€œI called him, of course. Several times. I wanted an explanation for why he ended the relationship.”
    â€œHe never gave you an explanation?” Well, I thought, that can be very frustrating.
    â€œOh, sure,” Eva said, waving her hand dismissively, “some nonsense about our not being compatible for the long run, about each of us wanting different things out of the relationship, ridiculous excuses.”
    Well, Brad had said similar things to me—and he’d been right. “So, what did he say when you called him?”
    Eva took a sip of her second drink before answering. “Nothing, really. He refused to talk back, which I knew meant he had a guilty conscience. He would just listen to me call him a liar and worse, and then he would say, very calmly, ‘Good-bye, Eva,’ and hang up.”
    â€œHuh,” I said.
    â€œI tried to get him to meet me face-to-face but for some reason he kept refusing.”
    I thought: Because he was afraid of you, and maybe rightly so. And then I felt bad for the disloyal thought. Eva was my friend and there I was taking the side of some man I didn’t even know.
    â€œHe said,” Eva went on, “he thought it best to just cut the cord and walk away. It was extremely frustrating for me.”
    â€œOh, I’m sure it was. Everyone needs closure.” Even Brad and I, though I wondered if we’d ever achieve complete closure, given the fact of our child.
    â€œExactly. But he just couldn’t give me that.”
    â€œSo,” I said tentatively, “since then?”
    â€œNo one,” she said. “For the past few years I’ve just been a wreck.”
    If what was sitting next to me at the bar was the personification of a wreck, I thought, I, too, want to be a wreck. Eva looked marvelous. Her skin glowed. She was impeccably dressed and looked toned and fit. Suddenly, I was