Read Online Love Her Madly by M. Elizabeth Lee - Free Book Online

from the outside, and it seems so tawdry, like I’m a big, unfunny joke. And now, after today’s developments, it’s even worse.”
    She wiped her eyes again, then pressed the tissue to her forehead as another wave of emotion hit and she shook silently. I put my arm around her and waited. She took a few deep breaths and cleared her throat.
    â€œIt’s not about the stripping. That’s obviously a fresh issue.It’s everything. I think I have some major malfunction where I can only get interested in realities that aren’t there and people who I’ll never meet, and I’m numb to everything else. I’m stuck on the outside and I can’t get interested.” She looked at me, her eyes shining in the near darkness “You don’t know what I mean, do you?”
    â€œI think I do.” I was so blindsided by the turn the night had taken that I couldn’t think straight. Privately, Cyn was my model of female unflappability, and now I’d seen her completely break down twice in forty-eight hours.
    She was crying quietly, a jagged, uneven weeping. She was human, just like the rest of us, so I decided to do what my mother and father had always done for me when I was disappointed after a loss. They told me what they thought I wanted to hear.
    â€œIt will happen, Cyn. Someone will enter your life that you’ll be crazy about, and things will snap into focus, and all the stuff you’re worried about now will seem really small. It just hasn’t happened yet. But it will. I know it will.”
    She groaned and shook her head in disbelief.
    â€œI guess I just thought things would be better. I thought I’d be discovering things and growing and learning to be more empathetic, but instead I’m just pulling away and getting more lost in my head, and the more I meet people, the less I even want to be human. I just thought college would be . . . better,” she said. A second later, a tiny smile glimmered across her face.
    â€œBut, honey , you’re in Flooorida ,” I drawled, reviving one of our best inside jokes, an overheard phrase we’d co-opted to deal with any topical disappointment.
    â€œI knew that was coming,” she said, rolling her head back in mock agony.
    â€œYou bet.”
    Someone outside howled with laughter.
    â€œSorry about all this.” She gave me a quick squeeze and thenbrushed her balled-up tissues onto the floor. “It wasn’t about you. I love you. I didn’t mean to tell you how to be.”
    â€œIt’s okay. You’ve had a tough couple of days. And anyway, I meant what I said. I think there are good things ahead, for both of us.”
    â€œI hope so,” she said.

    The rest of the spring semester flew by. Since we didn’t have the cash to do anything great for spring break, we spent the week at my parents’ house and took trips to the beach almost every day. It wasn’t full-on beer bong, Jell-O shot, Slip ’N Slide bacchanalia, but it was enough to make us feel young and alive. Cyn even kissed some guy, Danny, at a beach bar one night. Danny was gorgeous, but had eyes only for Cyn, so I spent a long evening discussing war movies with Danny’s married serviceman pal. It was an epic shock when I glanced across the bar and discovered Cyn in a deep lip-lock with Danny. I was mesmerized and a little skeeved out, watching his Adam’s apple dip up and down as they went at it. It felt like ages since I’d gotten that sort of attention. But, good pal that I was, I swallowed my jealousy and heroically managed to keep smiling at Pvt. Talksalot. We closed the bar down, me waiting impatiently in the car for her to disengage. On the drive home, she thanked me profusely for “falling on the grenade” for her, giggling drunkenly at her own dumb joke while I bit my tongue. When the hangover wore off, she had a happy glow about her, and considering her messed-up month, I