Wordle by Wordle: Day 240 - THE END!
Thursday, Sept 12, 2024
Wordle #1181 – BRASS
Bree’s eyes ask me the same question. She looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to break. A few seconds pass.
“So…” Bree slowly draws out the word, an invitation for me to chime in. When I still don’t speak, she forces her lips into a strained smile. “Is there anything you’d like to say?”
“Like what?”
Bree lets out a surprised little huff.
“Like, do you forgive me?” She blinks at me like a doll. “Like, can we be friends again?”
Oh.
I quickly disguise my incredulous laugh as a cough, astounded that she has the brass to ask for my forgiveness. And a little impressed, honestly. But what truly floors me is that she thinks there’s even an iota of a chance that I would take her back.
There’s a pleading look in her eyes, a grasping desperation. Her eyelashes stick together in wet clumps, glistening with tears. She has anxiously shredded her paper napkin into confetti.
She looks the very definition of pathetic, pitiable. But she has already doled out enough self-pity that I’m not inclined to give her more.
“Hey, do you remember when we went to that after-hours thing at the Academy of Sciences?” I ask conversationally. “With the aquarium?”
That day when she had unwittingly included me in a group text asking all her other girlfriends to join her. When she reached out to me separately only after everyone else had turned her down.
“Y-yes, of course!” Bree stammers, a little thrown off by the question but also awash with relief. So pleased that I’ve said something. “I remember that! We had the best time that night, didn’t we?”
Maybe we did. But what I remember most about that night is that it was when I began to understand just how Bree really saw me.
Not so much as a friend, but as a sounding board to hear her own voice, a bin in which to dump her complaints, an accessory with interchangeable, replaceable parts. Never a friend. Not really.
“Yeah, we did have some good times.” I sigh, nodding to myself. Decided, I collect my phone from the table and stand up.
“Cece?” Bree stares at me, aghast, like I’ve just stood up in the middle of a wedding instead of a coffee shop. “What are you—?”
“Goodbye, Bree.” I shrug into my jacket and turn away.
“W-wait, where are you going?” Bree gasps, her chair screeching against the floor as she pushes back from the table. “You can’t just walk out on me like this! Cece!”
“You know…” I pause just long enough to toss my voice over my shoulder. “I’ve always hated that nickname.”
Without looking back, I stride out the door, its bell jingling happily as I go, and I smile.
THE END
Notes:
It’s always bittersweet to type out the words “the end.” And it’s always really hard to write those final lines! So, I hope you’ve enjoyed what I came up with, today and over the last several months :)
THANK YOU for sticking with my story. I’ll be writing up a retrospective post on it soon, so stay tuned for more!
Need to catch up? Visit the Wordle by Wordle archive to read the story so far.
Woohoo! I finally caught up and it was so much fun. I was gripped to my screen for the last hour.
Absolutely loved the story! It was well-written, smart, sassy, and gripping. Honestly, I particularly liked the last two installments--they were good wrap-ups and touching. (And some specific paragraphs that I thought were excellent! Well done!