The Friendship Pact. Tara Taylor Quinn

      Chapter One

      May 1997

      “You asleep?”

      “No, are you?” I guess the question was kinda dumb, but Bailey and I...we had our own code. It meant she needed to talk, and I was ready to listen.

      “Uh-uh.”

      When she didn’t say anything else, I started in. “It’s going to be okay, you know.” Her mom, who was drunk a lot, was getting another divorce, but Bailey would be fine this time. Neither of us liked Stan, her stepfather.

      And my mom and dad would make sure Bailey was okay. Just like always.

      Too bad they weren’t Bailey’s parents, too.

      My one dark spot in life.

      “No, it’s not, Koralynn. It’s not going to be okay.” Bailey’s voice sounded stern, even in a whisper. Not like she was going to cry. That I could deal with. It sounded more like...foreboding. I’d just read that word and now I understood exactly what it meant.

      “You said that when you found out Brian had cystic fibrosis,” I reminded her in a calming whisper. Bailey adored her older brother. Her only biological sibling. I did, too. Brian was cool. And doing pretty well now that they knew what was wrong with him.

      She flipped over on her back next to me in my queen-size bed, holding down the covers on both sides of her so the cold gusts of air didn’t get in. “He’s never going to have a normal life,” she whispered back. “Or have kids, either.”

      “He’s alive.” At first they’d thought he wasn’t going to make it. “You said it wasn’t ever going to be okay again when your mom and dad got divorced, too.” Five years ago. We’d been ten at the time.

      “And I was right.”

      “You survived.” And we’d had a lot of great times since then.

      “Yeah, and my dad lives in Florida and I hardly ever see him.”

      I wasn’t doing so hot here. So I tried again.

      “Your life is harder than mine, Bail. Your mom, with her drinking... It’s not fair and sometimes I feel so guilty....”

      “Why? It’s not your fault.”

      “I know, but look at me.... My folks are the greatest. We have a nice house and...” Wait, I was supposed to be making my best friend in the whole world feel better, not worse.

      “It’s just...I don’t know why I get all the luck,” I told her. “You deserve it way more than I do.” All our lives it had been like that. And it wasn’t fair.

      “It’s how life is, Kor. Different things happen to different people and we don’t know why. I mean, look at Brian. Cystic Fibrosis is a genetic disease, and both our parents were carriers so either of us could’ve gotten it. I didn’t. He did. Go figure.”

      I shuddered, remembering those weeks when Brian had been so sick and they’d found out what was wrong and Bailey had to go through testing, too. We didn’t know if she was going to turn out to be sick and maybe die, and I could hardly stand it while we waited for the news. Bailey’s mom and dad were already not getting along, her mom was drunk all the time, it seemed, and they’d just found out about Brian. So no one really had time for Bailey. That was when Bailey had first started staying with us—more than for just a sleepover—and that night before we got the test results, Mom stayed up with us, sitting on my bed, one arm around each of us.

      “Your folks were great, weren’t they?”

      They’d promised Bailey they’d make sure that if she was sick, she’d get the best care available. They’d promised her they’d be there with her, every step of the way.

      Mom was a stay-at-home mother, so she was always there—and Daddy, who worked in top management at a software firm, made enough to take care of one more if he had to. Besides, there was the money he’d inherited from his own father.

      Bailey was fine, thank God. And now she had three drawers in my dresser and a lot of her clothes officially hung with mine in the big walk-in closet that used to hold shelves for all my toys.

      We’d carted those up to the attic for my babies—when I was married and everything—to play with someday.

      “I can’t believe my mom did this,” Bailey said now. “I mean I get why. Stan’s a jerk and she should’ve left him a long time ago, but for her to go and have an affair...”

      I couldn’t believe that part, either. Not even with Bailey’s mom. Why make Stan madder? He’d found out a couple of days before and now Bailey’s mom had a black eye she wouldn’t go to the cops about and Stan was threatening to leave her high and dry with no alimony or furniture or car or anything.

      “Stan seemed so nice in the beginning,” I said, shivering a little as I pictured the bearded man who scared the shit out of me.

      “He’s fine until he starts drinking.”

      “It sucks that he hid the whole recovering alcoholic thing until after they were married.” At least Bailey’s mom had been upfront about her own relationship with the bottle.

      “And the hitting thing, too.” Bailey’s whisper changed.

      Sitting up in bed, I stared down at my friend, my sister, the other half of my soul. “He didn’t hit you, did he?” I asked, ready to hit back. Funny, most times Bailey was the stronger one of us—the one who fought our battles. My job was to tend our wounds.

      Or go to my parents to do it for us.

      “No,” Bailey said. But she turned her head toward the wall and I was mad and scared all at once.

      “Bail?”

      I thought I saw a tear slide down the side of her face into the pillow. Leaning over her, I pushed her dark hair away from her eyes and said, “Bailey, tell me what he did to you.”

      “It was nothing.”

      My heart was pounding. “Bailey, tell me.” And then I was going straight to Mom. She’d know what to do. Where to go for help, even if Bailey’s mom wouldn’t call the cops.

      “He...tried to kiss me.”

      I could hardly breathe. I was freezing and frightened and... “Tried?”

      “He was drunk and I kneed him in the you-know-where and ran.”

      “When was this?” And why hadn’t she told me?

      “This afternoon.”

      Oh, God. And I’d been thinking her dark mood all night was because her mother had been caught having an affair with her boss—a partner in the law firm where she worked as a paralegal—and was getting a divorce as a result. We didn’t know if she was also going to lose her job.

      “You were only home for a few minutes,” I said now, trying to wrap my mind around a world that had just completely changed.

      “He came into my room when I was getting the red dress from my closet,” Bailey said. I’d been running errands with my mom after school and we were picking Bailey up to spend the weekend with us on our way home. My folks were taking us to a dinner theater in Pittsburgh the next night to celebrate the end of the school year. Bailey and I had both made the honor roll; I had straight As and she had all As and one B.

      And we’d decided to wear the red dresses Mom had bought us for a Christmas dinner show we’d gone to last winter.

      None of that mattered now. But it was what I wanted to think about.

      She sniffed and I rubbed her shoulder. “Tell me everything,” I said. We stuck together.