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different
neighborhood.
    “You won’t need it, kiddo. Everything’ll be
fine, you’ll see.” Dad kissed her on the cheek, “Now get out and
fix things with your best friend.”
    Mckayla’s mother answered the door; “Uh, is
Mckayla home?” Val asked awkwardly. She was used to walking into
her friend’s house, with or without invitation, where like as not
she’d be greeted by an exuberant Brady.
    “Of course, she’s in her room,” Mckayla’s
mother stood aside to let Val inside. She waved to Dad as he drove
away.
    Val knocked on her friend’s door; there was
no answer for a minute. Then, “Come in.”
    “Hey,” Val shut the door
behind her; the room was messy, with toys strewn everywhere, and
yet Brady was nowhere to be seen. Maybe
Mckayla made him leave so we could talk in
private . “So what do we need to talk
about?”
    Mckayla sighed, “This is gonna sound
horrible, but I have to say it.” She was lying down on her bed,
talking to the ceiling, “You’ve always had everything; looks,
smarts, work ethic. I never had any of that—at Walker I was always
living in your shadow. So I always figured that, like, things were
looking up for me, and you were destined for a fall. So now that
things have gotten even better for you and I’m stuck in the same
crappy home going to school with the same crappy people from
Walker—“ she didn’t finish the sentence.
    “You feel like it should’ve been the other
way around,” Val concluded. Mckayla nodded. “Honestly, I wish it
had been,” she took a seat on the edge of her friend’s bed, “You
have no idea how horrible Palm Lake is. All the people care about
is whose parents do what, and how you look, and nothing
important.”
    “You don’t have to lie to make me feel
better,” Mckayla sniped, “I know what it’s like—all the rich kids
running around, spending money like it’s nothing and having
fun—I’ve seen Gossip Girl!”
    Val wasn’t sure whether she wanted to laugh
or cry, “I’m not lying—it’s not nearly as fun as you seem to think.
I don’t know anybody there and they tell me who I can be friends
with and it just sucks!”
    Mckayla rolled onto her side, so she was
facing away from Val, “Even if that’s true, I still feel like I
should be the one telling you about how it’s not as great as people
think it is. I’m the one who’s due for a lucky break! Not you!”
    “Why can’t you just be happy for me?” Val
asked, her voice hardly louder than a whisper. “I didn’t ask for
this! I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat if I could!” she
pulled out her wallet and threw it on the bed, “There—there’s
everything I have. A—a credit card and a debit card and all my
cash, too. It’s all I can give you.”
    “I don’t want your pity,” Mckayla’s face
contorted with disgust, “Go home, Val, and don’t ever talk to me
again. Don’t even text.”
    Tears welled up in her
eyes, and Val let them fall; she felt like she’d just been stabbed
in the heart. It took all of Val’s mental fortitude to locate the
door and leave her best friend’s—now ex-best-friend’s—house. The
walk to the corner of Keats and Boyce seemed to take forever; she
called a taxi and the man on the phone could barely understand her.
He kept asking if she needed emergency services; no, of course not, since no hospital can fix a
broken heart .
    It was only when the taxi arrived and the
driver asked for payment up front that Val remembered she’d left
her wallet on her friend’s bed. She tried telling the taxi driver
that she’d have money at home to pay him with, but he wouldn’t
listen, “No money, no ride. No free rides!”
    So Val found herself walking home, the
setting sun at her back. It was bound to be a long walk, and if
she’d known that was how her attempt at reconciliation would end,
Val would have worn something sturdier than flip flops.
    She’d gone a half dozen blocks when a white
car screeched to a halt in front of