36

"I did some mean stuff to him," she says quietly, shifting Jimmy so she can see his face. "The kind of stuff you shouldn't do to a friend."

"What did you do?" he asks, never taking his eyes off her.

"You don't need to know," she says. "Just take it from me, if you have someone who treats you well, you should treat them the same way. If you don't and you push them too far, you'll probably regret it someday. Good friends are very hard to find."

She looks at him and he looks back, a small frown weighing on his forehead.

"Izzy?" he says at last.

"Yeah?"

"Can I have a popsicle?"

She smiles and shakes her head at his reaction.

"Sure, we'll get one soon."

"Please?" he whines

"I said yes, you know I always keep my promises," she says, lifting him to his feet and reaching out to straighten his shorts and t-shirt. "Now go and play a while."

"Okay!" he says, already turning and running away, looking back curiously at me until Izzy yells at him to look where he's going.

"He didn't get a word of that, did he?"

"No, but I did," I tell her. I'm guessing her words were for my benefit rather than Jimmy's anyway.

"I'm sorry. I just want you to know," she says, eyes down, watching the ground as her fingers wind around the blades of grass and pluck them from the earth.

"Izzy." I pause until she looks up at me. "I have no interest in keep raking over the past; life's too short."

We sit in silence as I think of Emmett. I guess she's probably thinking of her mom.

"You never replied to my emails," she says eventually. "I emailed you every week when I got back to Phoenix, and you never sent anything back."

I don't look at her.

"I changed my email address right after you left," I lie, thinking guiltily of how I still have every last one saved in a folder, all of them unopened.

She says nothing.

Jimmy runs over again.

"Can I have a popsicle now, please?" he begs, wrapping his little arms around her. She sighs.

"I'll get it," I say.

"No, really…" she protests.

"It's fine. Is there anything he doesn't like?" I ask. She looks at him and laughs.

"Are you kidding? Jimmy's a professional popsicle destroyer. He loves them all." She ruffles his hair and when she looks back up at me with a grin still on her face and one eye scrunched up against the sun shining behind me, I feel a rush of affection.

"I'll be right back," I tell her, returning the smile. It takes longer to fade than it should.

~S~