Neighborly Love

by Christine L'Amour

  “I’ll think about it,” Amy said, and though she didn’t mean to, her voice came out as a whisper. “I mean, it sounds great right now, but… it sounds like such a simple solution. Too simple. What if something goes wrong?”

  “What could go wrong?” Chelsea asked in turn. “The only reason this plan wouldn’t have worked before is that you would have refused to leave your home. Just that. But now they’re more or less forcing you out… Please, just give it a long, serious thought?”

  “All right,” Amy said. “I will.”

  And she was glad, too, that she would have something concrete and solid and good to bring to Meghan. She finally had an actual plan that would paint her as someone responsible, not someone who had no idea what she was doing and could only think up silly plans. She thought Meghan would be proud of her, and she could help her actually figure this out.

  ***

  She knocked on Meghan’s door the next day, after waiting a while just to let herself feel firmer with Chelsea’s proposition. The more she thought about it, the more sensible it felt. Chelsea was right—if it were two months ago, she would never have even thought about accepting something like this for the simple fact that it was too far away from home, but now she felt stupid for never thinking about it.

  As much as Amy said that college was too expensive, and it wasn’t worth it, and she could already draw well enough not to need a degree… she could admit to herself that she still wanted it. She knew she could draw well enough to get her money online, as well as some people who went to classes for it, but… she would have classes on painting. On art history. Maybe those weren’t needed for the jobs she wanted, but she still wanted to know.

  It was with a renewed sense of hope that she went to Meghan, and Meghan smiled back at her automatically when she opened the door. Amy looked at her and felt her heart clench painfully. Meghan looked tired. Whatever she had tried after Amy had left the other day obviously hadn’t worked, and it had left its marks.

  She wished so much that Meghan would let Amy make her some soup or something like that. Amy could take care of her just for a few hours, if Meghan weren’t so focused on fixing each and every single one of her problems right now.

  “Hey,” Amy said, walking into the apartment when Meghan stepped back for her. “I know you’re terribly, awfully busy, but I was wondering if I could talk to you about something? I need some help with college and some stuff that has been going on with my parents. I know that you don’t have time, but…”

  “No, it’s all right,” Meghan said, catching her hands in hers, a look on her face that made her look surprised at what Amy was saying. “What’s going on with your parents? I hope it’s nothing like what is happening to me.”

  “No, I’m lucky in that area,” Amy admitted. She went easily when Meghan led her to the kitchen and stood by while Meghan started to make some coffee.

  She really needed to cut back on that and maybe take a nap, Amy thought to herself.

  Amy took a deep breath, then let it out.

  “So,” she started. “My parents want me out of the house. I know I’ve been unbearably lucky with them to even be able to stay that long, but my luck’s finally run out. As I told you before, I dropped out of college three years ago and never went back, because of how expensive it is and how not worthy it seemed. My friend Chelsea came up with a plan I think will work for me, though! I don’t know if you know it, there’s a community college two hours away from here.”

  Meghan nodded at her, passing a cup of coffee to her when it was done, and said nothing.

  “It’s too long of a commute if I stay here in the city, and the cost of life here is too expensive anyway, but Chelsea says she’ll move closer to there with me, and help me with rent while I look for a job,” Amy continued. “I’ll have to go back to one of those mind-numbing retail jobs I had promised never to return to, but if we budget well, I won’t have to stay for long. If I take a few semesters of classes on the community college, I should be able to save enough for classes at a paid college for the classes that really matter to me, because let’s face it, community college doesn’t get as much funding as it should and the classes won’t be the best.”

  Amy wanted to continue. She wanted to talk about how she had spent the previous day thinking about nothing but this, about how excited she felt that things seemed to be working out. She wanted to tell Meghan her working on commissions would actually be a bonus at art school and give her an edge over her classmates. She wanted to talk about so many things. But Meghan had a look on her face that stopped Amy short.

  Amy wanted to call it upset, but she knew annoyed fit it best.

  “Meghan, is something wrong?” Amy asked, her eyebrows lowering over her eyes. What could Meghan have to be annoyed about?

  “No,” Meghan said, shaking her head, though she wasn’t looking at Amy, but at the mug in her hands. “It’s just that, well… It’s nice to see you so fired up about something. It’s cool to see how much thought you’ve apparently put into that. I guess I’m just wondering where all that motivation came from, because you haven’t had it at all when it came to helping me.”

  Amy’s mouth dropped open in surprise.

  “Of course, I tried to help you,” she argued, setting her coffee down on the counter with a pointed click. “I’ve been trying for days to get you to sleep or eat something or take your mind off all this!”

  “Well, that’s not helping!” Meghan snapped. She looked at Amy with an angry glint in her eyes—betrayed. Amy didn’t understand it and felt betrayal rise up in her as well. She had thought Meghan would be proud of her for this. “You were trying to get my mind off things, not coming up with ways to fix thing like you just did with yourself. And I get it, you’re not a business owner, you don’t have any money to give me, you couldn’t possible ever think of anything else that could help me, but—”

  “Don’t put words into my mouth,” Amy interrupted, crossing her arms. She kept a scowl off her face, but only just. “It’s not my fault you don’t see what I was trying to do as helping! Look at you, Meghan! You look dead on your feet. Just because I wasn’t handing you a solution on a silver platter doesn’t mean I wasn’t trying, and besides, you won’t even really tell me what’s going on! I asked and you just told me there was nothing to do!”

  “That’s because you turned to me point blank and said you could do nothing,” Meghan said, taking an angry step forward. “What was I supposed to do, keep pushing you to help me? I can’t do anything when you told me so obviously you didn’t want to! You’re so lazy, Amy! It’s obvious you just didn’t care enough to help me, because you got up from your couch for long enough to find a solution to your situation just fine, apparently!”

  Amy’s heart broke.

  She couldn’t believe this was what Meghan really thought of her—lazy and self-serving. Was that the image Amy had given her, Amy who had tried to put her mind at ease so many times, Amy to whom she had turned and said had made her laugh for the first time in a long time, Amy who was trying to make her proud?

  The smart thing would have been to realize Meghan was stressed beyond words and fired up from the fight, but Amy wasn’t feeling like being the bigger person then and there.

  “Lazy,” she repeated. “Don’t care enough to help you. You know what, Meghan? You’re the one who doesn’t care about me. You didn’t even notice I’d been feeling down these days. You didn’t even notice I was having problems, you’re so stupid and self-centered it never went through your head that I needed help too, did it? I came to you for help, actually, and you turned me away! You’re always so busy with work!”

  “You never said you needed help,” Meghan argued, taking a wounded step back.

  “You never did either after that first time,” Amy hissed, taking an angry step forward. “You don’t get to sit here and shout at me for focusing on finding solutions to my problems when you were doing the same! You didn’t even know I was having problems!”

>   “I did notice you were feeling down!” Meghan defended. “But you didn’t say anything and I didn’t want to push—”

  “You don’t care about me,” Amy said, tears burning furious in her eyes. “You only think about yourself. You know what, Meghan? I’m going to move away and go to college and find a good job and you can stay here and worry about your fucking problems and continue not thinking about me at all!”

  She marched out. She thought, up until the door slammed behind her as she left, that Meghan would go after her.

  But she didn’t.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Meghan didn’t have the courage to go after her.

  Every cell in her body was shouting at her to do it, that this had fixing, that she shouldn’t let Amy walk out. She knew deep in her heart that Amy had never been as accessible as Meghan thought of her—they weren’t actually neighbors. Amy was leaving sooner than she had cared to remember, and what was to say that she would give Meghan her actual address, now?

  But a huge part of Meghan was still feeling small and betrayed, too much so for her to move from her spot in the kitchen. She couldn’t believe that after trying to make Meghan stop thinking about how to fix her problems, after so long.

  Sitting by and not doing anything to help Meghan, Amy had just shown up like that with a brilliantly thought-out plan to her own problems. It made Meghan feel small. It made her feel like Amy didn’t care about her. Like she hadn’t been thinking about Meghan at all.

  Meghan lay on her couch, too tired to even make her way to her bed, and watched TV without watching it. She had no idea what program was actually playing, too spent emotionally after their fight. She couldn’t stop thinking about Amy’s words. She didn’t mean them, right?

  Had they broken up?

  Meghan felt, terribly and awfully, that they had. She lay with her knees brought up to her chest and wondered how on Earth she was going to fix this, now, this new problem on top of everything else. The only thing missing from this wonderful month was getting into trouble with Carlos. What was he going to do, burst into her apartment and shout at her that actually he had hated her all this time and he was moving away to another continent and he never wanted her to see him again?

  She paused for a second, but of course that didn’t actually happen.

  Meghan had managed to, on top of her usual problems keeping her publishing house afloat, ignore her father into giving her financial problems, then accidentally come out to her family and ruin their relationship, and now she had sparked a fight and her girlfriend had broken up with her.

  How was she going to fix this now, alone and heartbroken?

  ***

  Carlos came over with a folder under one arm and a pot of ice cream under the other. Meghan didn’t get up from the couch when he arrived, even though her body was feeling cramped and aching from her having stayed in that same position for hours and then slept there. Meghan was feeling pathetic enough to justify it.

  “I know it’s winter, but I got ice cream anyway,” Carlos said, sitting down beside her. “If you get a cold, that’s on you, though. Sit up, for God’s sake, and tell me what happened now. I could barely make sense of the texts you sent me.”

  “Amy broke up with me,” Meghan told him in a whisper, not moving except to drop her head on his lap. “I ruined everything, in every single area of my life. I’m going to have to close my press, my parents will never speak to me again, and my girlfriend will move away and never see me again. Carlos, what the fuck is up with this month?”

  “There, there,” Carlos said, awkward but sympathetic, patting her shoulder. “What happened with you and Amy? I thought you guys were just fine.”

  “She just came here with this whole plan laid out for her college thing and I got so upset that she had helped herself but not tried to help me at all,” Meghan said, shoulders drawing in. “I know it sounds bad when I say it like that, but aren’t I right, Carlos? Why didn’t she help me? When we were together, all she wanted to do was talk about plants and watch TV and take naps. She never wanted to brainstorm like we do, she never tried to figure things out.”

  “I don’t know her, so I can’t really say anything about her,” Carlos told her. “But—Meghan, look at yourself. You really could do with a nap and some TV. I know you’ve basically been doing that the past few hours, but that wasn’t resting, that was ruminating on your problems.”

  Meghan buried her face back on the couch.

  “Carlos,” she said, voice small, “how am I going to do this alone, now? She’ll leave and I’ll never see her again.”

  Carlos gripped her by the shoulders until she relented and sat up, then looked her in the eyes.

  “Meghan Crichton don’t turn to your best friend of over ten years and tell me you’re alone,” he snapped—not angry, just forceful, like he wanted her to understand precisely what he meant. “Who’s lying on her couch and ruminating on her problems and not thinking up solutions right now? You! Stop moping, for God’s sake. There hasn’t been a single thing you haven’t been able to work out in your favor in the whole decade I’ve known you, and it’s not one girlfriend who is going to reduce you to this!”

  “I’m tired of having to fix everything,” Meghan said softly.

  “Tough luck,” Carlos said, not unkindly. “Now go wash your face. I brought my finished draft here and I want you to take a look at it, and then you’re going to take a long and hard think and figure out how to make it up to your girl.”

  “All right,” Meghan said, relieved to her bones that Carlos was there, and Carlos knew what to do.

  ***

  Meghan did wash her face, and even changed clothes. It was just the type of person she was—after she got up, she was up, and she wasn’t prone to putting herself down again. So, she washed her face, changed clothes, and went to the kitchen for some coffee, even making some scrambled eggs after Carlos glared at her for not eating dinner the night before.

  They worked for some time—Meghan read over some of Carlos’ draft and pointed out some common mistakes to him, or ways she already noticed they could change things to give him a stronger first chapter, a more solid feel of the protagonist, things like that. It was a good way for her to get her mind off of Amy, because Meghan felt best when she felt she was being useful, and for all that she knew that Carlos’ book probably wouldn’t become the latest sensation and the two of them wouldn’t become millionaires, they had joked about it enough for her nerves to settle a little.

  After all, what if it did happen? This work she was doing now could be invaluable.

  He left late at night, way past the time he normally left at. He lingered at the door for a moment, a pensive look on his face.

  “You know, I never really liked your parties,” he admitted. “I always thought they were a weird way for you to get your mind off work and relax a little. You’d be better off sleeping more instead of chugging down alcohol. But I just noticed now that it’s been weeks since you’ve thrown one, and I’m kind of missing them. So don’t forget to do it this week, all right? Friday’s two days away.”

  “I haven’t been in the mood for partying,” Meghan told him dryly.

  “All the more reason to have one,” Carlos told her with a grin, then walked out.

  She was alone after that.

  Amy was so close. She was just across the hall. But Meghan felt like she was an ocean away. She sat on the couch with paper strewn haphazardly around her, all the notes she had taken on Carlos’ novel messy around her for her to organize and make sense of somehow, and thought about what Carlos had said before they had distracted themselves with editing.

  You really could do with a nap and some TV.

  Maybe… maybe it had been unfair to want Amy to help her like Carlos did, by getting her up and helping her fix things. Maybe her way of helping Meghan, where she pushed Meghan to lie down and rest for a while, was actually just as important. Meghan did feel weary down to her bones, and a part of her knew that if
she had followed Amy’s advice and focused on resting instead of all of her problems for a while, she would be feeling better.

  She couldn’t believe some things that Amy had said, how could she possibly think that Meghan didn’t care about her?, but other things struck her. She really hadn’t done anything, even if she had noticed how downtrodden and subdued Amy was, had she? She really hadn’t asked how she was, or thought about problems Amy might be having, so focused she was on her own problems.

  Meghan realized, sitting there, that she was the one who fucked it up. She was the reason their fight broke out. She remembered beautiful, romantic Amy with her dinner, the plants and the candles and the roses.

  Amy had wanted Meghan to go after her, and Meghan hadn’t.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Amy ran off to Chelsea’s house.

  She wasn’t proud of it, but the thought of staying so close to Meghan after their fight was excruciating. She couldn’t bump into her in the elevator or something, it would be mortifying. So right after she stormed out of Meghan’s apartment and after she waited ten frustrated, fruitless minutes for Meghan to arrive after her, she packed a few clothes into a bag and made her way to her best friend’s place.

  It really wasn’t doable for her to stay there for longer than a day; Chelsea had roommates and not nearly enough space. Chelsea couldn’t even stay with her for long after she arrived, running off to a night job she had, leaving Amy feeing lonely and some unholy combination of frustrated and guilty and horrified on her small room. Chelsea’s roommates were clearly watching some kind of soap opera in the next room and pretty obviously having a blast.

  There were many things she could be thinking of. She could be lingering on the way Meghan hadn’t denied some of her accusations. She could think about the words Meghan had said. She could ponder on the merits of how tired her girlfriend had been—and was she even still her girlfriend? It felt like Amy, actually, had broken them up—and how much you say things you don’t really mean when you’re angry, versus how anger usually brought about honesty, actually.