by Marci Bolden
Opening the site, she selected one of the dresses and scrolled through the comments.
Beautiful work.
Funny stories.
This is cool.
That was the sum of what she read. Until…
I don’t think it’s funny at all. She’s making money off people’s broken hearts.
Darby’s stomach knotted. That wasn’t true. That wasn’t what she was doing at all. She was just selling dresses.
Seriously, a commenter responded to the broken hearts assessment, this is cold.
A sick feeling washed over Darby. Why would anyone say that?
She went back to the product details and read the description of the dress and the sidenote.
This bride dodged a bullet. Literally. Her groom ended up in jail after pulling a gun during a drunken argument with his neighbor.
Darby chuckled. That was funny. Not mean. She didn’t say anything derogatory about the bride. Why would anyone say this was cold?
Jade walked into Darby’s house without hesitation. “Hey.” She used to knock but gave up the habit some time ago, especially since Darby never knocked when entering Jade’s place. Knocking was for strangers and salesmen. “Taylor and I are headed out onto the water. Want to come?”
Darby was tempted to say no. She did not have a love of the water like Jade. Nor did she have the athletic build like Taylor. So why in the hell would she want to sit in a kayak trying to keep up with her friends as they playfully raced across Chammont Lake?
Her idea of being on the lake was a raft lightly floating on the waves created by the adventurous people on personal water crafts and in boats. Or even better, sitting on the shore and watching other people enjoy the water. On the rare occasion she did go swimming, she liked to stay in the cove where she and Jade lived so they were the only ones in the water. On the nicer stretches of beach of Chammont Lake, the water could be crowded.
Darby’s favorite water activity was to find a spot in the sand and stay put until they had to go back to work, which was whenever they chose since they all worked for themselves. Jade was steadily growing her new marketing business, and Taylor was trying to establish herself as a contractor but wasn’t having much luck. Darby much preferred when they were sitting together, soaking up the sun.
Yet, every time Taylor and Jade planned an afternoon kayaking, paddleboarding, or canoeing, Darby went along.
She never told them how much she hated it. If she did, they’d stop inviting her, and while Darby knew she should be okay with that, she really wasn’t. She hated when Jade and Taylor spent time together without her. She’d never had real friendships before these two, and old insecurities revealed themselves when her friends planned time without her.
So despite knowing that her arms would ache and she’d end up overheated with sweat rolling down her back and brow, she nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”
Jade tilted her head and eyed Darby. “Everything okay?”
Darby held out her phone. “People are being kind of mean.” She lifted her face and creased her brow as Jade crossed the room to her.
Jade took the phone and dropped onto the sofa as she looked at the screen. She was silently scrolling when Taylor came in.
“You two coming or what?” Taylor asked.
Darby looked down at her bright yellow dress. “I need to change.” She pushed herself up and headed to the bedroom while Jade stared at her phone. She heard Taylor ask what was going on but didn’t listen for Jade’s response. However, as soon as she was in shorts and a light T-shirt, she rejoined them. “What is that all about?” she asked, gesturing toward her phone.
Taylor furrowed her brow and pressed her lips together as if she didn’t want to answer. The words came out of her anyway. “We told you yesterday. Not everyone is going to find those stories amusing.”
Jade looked up with a sympathetic smile. “Maybe you need to reconsider your sales pitches, sweetie. The dresses speak for themselves without all that stuff about the wedding cancellations.”
Darby accepted her phone and read a few more of the comments. After reading a few funny responses, she shrugged. Though there were a few who didn’t seem to get that the stories were for fun, most of the comments were upbeat and supportive of the listings.
“I don’t know,” she muttered. “Just because a few people are overly sensitive doesn’t mean everyone is. Right?”
Jade and Taylor glanced at each other, but Darby locked the screen on her phone and stuffed it into her pocket.
“You can’t please everyone,” she said. “I learned that a long time ago. I won’t let the naysayers get to me. They surprise me, that’s all. Now that I know the trolls are coming, I can ignore them. It’s fine.” She shrugged off the sense that she’d been attacked and marched into the kitchen and pulled out a water bottle. “Okay, here’s the deal. I’m going kayaking with you, but you have to remember I’m slower. Don’t go darting off and leaving me alone. Got it?”
“One race,” Taylor all but begged. She smiled wide as she looked at Jade. “One race so I can reclaim my title.”
“No,” Darby moaned, but her protest fell on deaf ears. Her friends were already taunting each other. Part of her wanted to back out, but then she watched them head for the door without seeming to notice she was hesitating, and the part of her that needed to belong pushed her to follow.
Rolling her head back, she silently pouted as they walked toward the shore. Once there, they pushed their kayaks into the water and climbed in as they’d done dozens of times before. The trip started out fine, a nice slow and relaxing pace, but soon they were picking up speed, and then as always, Taylor shouted, “Last one to the buoy has to make dinner,” and they were off.
Darby tried to keep up. “Why are you going so fast?” she called, but they were too far ahead to hear her.
However, she wasn’t so far behind she couldn’t hear them taunting each other as they cut through the water like it was offering them no resistance. Setting her paddle across her lap, Darby swiped at her brow and took a few deep breaths, trying to restore her oxygen levels. In the distance, Taylor lifted her paddle up and hooted out in victory as she neared the buoy. Jade yelled something about a redo, and they both laughed.
Suddenly, defeat settled over Darby. She hated moments like this. Far too often, she felt like the third, and flat, wheel in the trio. She didn’t like it. Jade and Taylor didn’t do it intentionally. In fact, Taylor often insisted she was the one who didn’t fit into their group. But sometimes, Darby’s old sense of not belonging was too strong for her to ignore, even when she was with her best friends.
Darby had never fit in. She’d never been a part of a group. She’d always been on the outside looking in. After years of feeling like that, she’d learned to embrace being different when, a few years prior, while waiting tables, she had served a table of loud, confident, and amazing women. As she’d refilled margarita glasses and chip baskets, she’d overheard them talking about the beauty contest they were entered into. Darby usually ignored the conversations of her customers, but these women looked like her. Curvy, boring, and about as far from glamorous as one could get. They did not look like beauty queens.
That night, when her shift ended, she went to the club her customers had been discussing. There, strutting the runway, the women had changed from ordinary to out of this world. Witnessing her first Pinup Contest had changed Darby’s life. She’d been enamored by the women who’d walked the stage in vintage rockabilly dresses paired with bold hair and makeup. What captured her even more was that none of them seemed self-conscious about their bodies. Not a single one shrank back when the spotlight fell on her. They were brave and feisty and had inspired the hell out of Darby.
As soon as she’d gone home, she’d scoured the Internet for patterns and made clothes to adopt the classic look. The victory rolls, bright lipstick, and colorful dresses suited her. She’d dyed her hair fire-engine red and learned how to draw her eyeliner into exaggerated wings. For the fi
rst time in her life, Darby Zamora felt at home in her skin. She was no longer ashamed of her pear shape or shorter than average height.
The clothes became her armor against the self-doubt that had always plagued her, and she’d learned to disregard what other people thought. She was free. Her confidence had quadrupled overnight. She no longer felt the need to hide inside herself. Something about the heavy makeup, fun clothing, and deliberate desire to be seen had shaken her out of her wallflower persona. She was awake for the first time in her life. And she loved it!
But that didn’t mean her old insecurities were gone. They were there, and they tended to nag at her whenever Jade and Taylor seemed to be able to get along without including her. That was trivial, petty, and not a great way to feel about her friends, but the nagging was undeniable.
Jade and Taylor circled each other, tossing out more teasing words, before paddling back to Darby.
“You okay?” Taylor asked, still smiling from the race she’d won.
Darby groaned miserably. “It’s hot. I have sweat in unsexy places, and I’m starting to smell like an unsexy man.”
Jade chuckled as she came to Darby’s side. “Drink some water, and then we’ll go around the island.”
“No,” Darby whined. “You know I can’t keep up. Can we go home now? There are margaritas there. An entire pitcher. Waiting for me to drink it all.”
“Why do you come with us?” Taylor asked. “We all know you hate kayaking.”
“I don’t…” Darby sighed as she struggled to get her kayak turned around. “Okay, I do. I hate this damn thing with the passion of a thousand burning suns, but it’s fun being with you guys.”
“We do plenty of other things together,” Jade said. “You don’t have to do this to spend time with us.”
Taylor cast a glance at Darby. “She’s afraid she’s going to miss something.”
Darby didn’t deny the accusation. She couldn’t. Being insecure in her friendship might be silly, but the doubt, the fear, the worry that someday they would realize she wasn’t good enough to be their friend was real.
Jade offered her a sweet smile. “Come on. Let’s go home. But no margaritas. It’s not even noon yet.”
Darby blew out a raspberry to show her discontent but secretly was happy they were headed back to shore. By the time Darby made it to the sand, Jade had pulled her kayak onto the beach and Taylor was a few seconds behind her.
As soon as the three of them were standing together, Jade quietly said, “I wish you wouldn’t let your insecurities get to you, Darbs. We’re your friends. We’re not going to ditch you.”
“I know.” Darby felt heat flood her cheeks. “It’s silly, but…”
Silence hung over them for a few seconds before Taylor asked, “Are you ever going to open up about whatever?”
Darby lifted her brows. “Whatever?”
“My mom ditched me when I was a kid. Jade’s ex-husband is a lying cheat who broke her heart. You’ve hinted at being an outcast, but you never talk about it.”
“I was a nerd. That’s all.”
“You know, you expect us to be all open and honest,” Taylor said, “but when it comes to talking about your issues, you always blow us off. That’s bullshit, Darby. Jade told me a while ago that we had to be gentle with you because of whatever you’ve been through, but you’ve never told us what you’ve been through.”
Darby screwed up her face as she looked at Jade, who simply shrugged, which was all but admitting she’d said that. “Fine, you want to hear my sad story? We were poor. I never fit in. People picked on me for being Mexican in a predominately white school. The usual high school growing pains bullshit. Nothing as dramatic as maternal abandonment or a broken marriage. Normal life bullshit.”
Taylor’s stare implied she didn’t believe Darby.
“I…” Darby glanced back out at the water. “I didn’t have friends. I was an outcast, which made me an easy target. The other kids were mean. More than mean. They were cruel. They made me hate school.” She looked down and sighed. “They made me hate myself. I hated myself for a long time because of the things they made me believe. You may not like this”—she gestured toward her red hair, navy blue fitted shirt, and high-waisted black shorts—“but for the first time in forever, I feel good about who I am. I feel good about myself. I know my style doesn’t suit you, but dressing like this means I get to control how people see me. They don’t get to tell me how I should be seen. This gave me my power back. Power that I let other people take away from me.”
“Hey,” Jade said soothingly, “you have us now. We’re going to be right here, and we aren’t going anywhere, Darby.”
“Thank you.” Her smile faded, and she shrugged as embarrassment tugged at her. “I guess that’s why I hate it when you guys do stuff without me. I know you aren’t leaving me out, but I was always the last one chosen in gym class or for group projects. It’s silly to feel like this as an adult, but I don’t like being left out. It reminds me of sitting alone every day in the cafeteria in high school with my nose shoved in a book so people thought I wanted to be alone.”
“I get it, Darbs,” Taylor said. “You don’t have to explain to me. I mean, look at me. I wasn’t exactly prom queen. People steered clear of me because I was awkward and…maybe a little mean.”
“No,” Jade gasped with faux shock, “not you.”
“Only to those who tried to cross me,” Taylor clarified. “I never fit either. And I don’t have to tell you how damaged I am from my mom’s so-called parenting. She was in prison before my eighth birthday. Trust me, that screws a kid up. But things are different now. Things are better. We have each other. You also don’t have to do things you don’t want to do to fit in with Jade and me. It’s okay if we do things without everyone included sometimes. You can always hang out here and make us lunch and drinks so we can veg out when we get back.”
She smiled in a way to let Darby know she was teasing, but Darby thought that might actually be an okay idea. She’d be doing something for her friends, even if she wasn’t trailing behind them across the lake. Maybe she’d try that next time. They would appreciate that. Jade would make a big deal about how much she liked whatever Darby had done. Taylor would even smile and say thanks.
That was the best thing about their friendship. They were all intuitively aware of what the others needed. Jade needed to take care of them because she felt she’d been a bad mother to her two kids when they were growing up. Taylor needed to be accepted despite her lack of polishing because people tended to give up on her. And Darby needed her cup filled with love and appreciation because she’d never really had that before.
They all found a way to do those things for the others in small but important ways.
Darby was also really glad her friends understood her insecurities and didn’t judge her. Feeling like she was being ignored might seem foolish to some, but Taylor had a lot of the same problems. Jade had that sense of rejection too, only hers came from her ex-husband. They both understood where Darby was coming from, and she knew they would never abandon her.
And that was why they were such good friends.
The feeling washing over Darby later that evening was far too reminiscent of what she’d felt that morning when she’d first seen the posts people had made about her shop being mean. The comments on her page were mostly positive, but the negative ones were increasing in volume and viciousness. Not only were people saying that The Un-Do Wedding Boutique was mean, but a few had even commented that someone who looked like Darby wasn’t capable of understanding what she was doing. That thread had spiraled into borderline cruelty.
Darby deleted the comments and blocked a few of the people who had engaged, but that didn’t erase what she’d read from her mind. The unease that settled over her was also familiar. She’d felt that way for four long years of high school.
And now she felt that way from her website and the hundreds of messages.
Hundreds of messages. On her we
bsite. Waiting for her to read and reply.
She closed her eyes when her phone dinged, indicating someone else had commented on her page. A squeal of protest rose from her throat as she frantically tossed the freaking device aside. She didn’t want to see it or hear it ever again…or at least for the next hour or so.
After pulling the faux fur blanket from the back of the couch, she tucked it around her shoulders and over her head as if a blanket fort could hide her from her responsibilities. Even under the cozy covering, she felt the weight of the world crushing down on her.
Damn it.
That now familiar sickness filled Darby because of people on the Internet. Hugging a pillow to her chest, she heaved a big sigh. Tossing the blanket aside, Darby grabbed her phone and texted Taylor and Jade to gather at Harper’s if they were able. Darby needed a bourbon caramel sundae with candied pecans and an extra maraschino cherry on top of a cloud of Harper’s homemade whipped cream. Then, and only then, could she muster up the strength to get her inbox and her life under control. She could do this. She had to do this.
Darby drove to her favorite ice cream shop to order the dessert that was intended to put a little sunshine back into her day. As soon as she parked, she checked her texts to see if either of her friends would be joining her.
On my way, Taylor had messaged. Get me a hot fudge sundae with nuts.
“Hey,” Jade called, walking up the sidewalk. Even though Jade lived next door, they usually drove separately because Darby tended to dawdle and Jade liked to get right back to work. She’d given up fighting with Darby about hurrying up long ago. As Darby climbed from her car, Jade pulled her sunglasses from her face and tucked them on top of her head. “You okay?”
Darby shook her head. “I can’t be a grown-up today, Jade. I just can’t.”
