Summers on the Shore

Paige

In the months since Lauren stopped being my therapist and became my best friend, I’d seen a lot of new sides of her. I’d seen her drunk, furious at the city regulations that kept us from adding additional protections to the Haven, flirting outrageously with a random musclehead at a bar. But never, in all that time, had I seen her cry. My stomach dropped instantly to my toes. She sank to take a seat on the stairs, and I sat instantly next to her. Sera, seeming to sense that, while she and I were closer than we used to be, that friendship didn’t transfer, passed me a box of tissues from the same hall table where Natalia left her phone and disappeared.

I rubbed Lauren’s back and offered her a tissue.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t…shouldn’t be reacting like this.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “This stuff is intense. You don’t have to be perfect all the time.”

She shook her head and scrubbed at her tears. “I don’t want to be perfect, but—”

I smiled. “Nope. You taught me about