Winter Longing by Tricia Mills Page B

eyes.
    “Come on.” I tugged her into the restroom. Once inside, I forced her to face me. “I’m sorry, okay?” My voice broke, and I swallowed. “I’m sorry I’ve been so awful. I just don’t know how to deal with this. I feel like I’m being ripped to shreds.”
    A tear escaped Lindsay’s eye. “So do I. He was my oldest friend.”
    The three of us always said we were best friends, but the truth was that Linds was closer to Spencer than she was to me. I’d long ago figured out that she confessed things to him that I never heard. And that was okay then. Now, well, now I hoped things would change. They’d have to.
    “I know.” Tears pooled in my eyes as I took her hands in mine, examined the look of fatigue and sorrow on her face. “Something else is going on, isn’t it?”
    She retrieved her hands and paced to the other side of the restroom. “Everything’s just gone to hell, and I want it to stop.”
    The way her body shook scared me. It was so unlike her, the girl who kept everything inside.
    But maybe she hadn’t. Maybe Spencer had been there when she’d needed to talk about whatever it was that ate at her now. I suspected it had something to do with her family.
    I forced myself to be brave and selfless as I picked words I hoped would make things better. “I know I’m not Spencer, but you can talk to me. I’m your friend, too.”
    She swiped at a tear, angrily.
    “Linds, is your dad home?”
    She shook her head. “No. The sperm donor’s gone, thank God.”
    I’d heard Lindsay call her father this so often it didn’t faze me anymore. She maintained that the creation of her and her three brothers was the only thing Dimitri had ever done for them. He’d certainly not done anything to deserve the name dad or father . Definitely not adax , the Aleut word for father . If I knew enough to figure out he was a worthless human being, how much more had she told Spencer?
    Lindsay leaned on the sink counter. “You know what else is gone?” She paused. “Our money.” I could tell it tore at her to have to admit it. “I had to start work at Oregano’s to help bring in some more.”
    Oregano’s was one of only three eateries in Tundra. It was an Italian place that sat on the same small square as Chow’s (the Chinese place), the Blue Walrus Bar, and most of the rest of Tundra’s businesses.
    Lindsay’s absence during the past several days clicked into place so snugly that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed sooner. I’d been too wrapped up in my sorrow to see that my best friend was hurting, too. And on top of her own loss, her family was facing a financial crisis.
    Tears sprang to my eyes, for once not because of the friend we’d lost. He would have noticed Lindsay’s situation. He wouldn’t have been so self-absorbed.
    “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
    Lindsay pushed away from the sink. “I understand, Winter, I really do. It’s just that . . .”
    “You would have normally talked to Spencer about this.”
    She shoved her hands in her jeans’ pockets and leaned against the wall. “It’s just that he already knew everything, and my home life isn’t something I want pasted across a billboard, you know?”
    “I’m not going to spread it around.”
    “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that . . . well, Spencer found out by accident. He heard yelling . . . back when we were in first grade. . . . He saw everything. There was no going back after that. I had to fess up.”
    I leaned against the countertop. “What happened?”
    “I missed the school bus, and Dad had to leave the Blue Walrus to come get me. Spencer was just walking out of the school when he pulled up and started yelling at me for not getting on the bus on time. ‘You’re so stupid,’ he was shouting. Over and over, right in my face. He reeked like he’d been at the Walrus all day. Probably had been.” She snorted. “Then he went back and made me sit in the truck for three hours while he drank