Free When Girlfriends Break Hearts by Savannah Page Page A

answered my subconscious need for a night at home with nothing on the agenda but baking a batch of cupcakes, opening up a bottle of wine, and making it a girls’ night in with sugar, sulfites, and, of course , a film with a sexy actor we both lusted after. Claire was simply my best friend. I loved her and trusted her implicitly.  
    Of course, it wasn’t just Claire; I viewed everyone in our group of girlfriends as sisters—it was a sisterhood, after all. And up until now, I would never have believed any of them could hurt me like Robin had.
    Robin, Claire, and I were a part of the same freshman orientation camp in college. We had clicked—like the three musketeers—and we embarked on the college journey together. Quickly Claire and I decided to become roommates, and probably would have partnered up with Robin too, had she not been on the university’s track and field team and opted to live with some of her teammates in a large, shared dormitory. Regardless of our living arrangements, the three of us hung out all the time. Together we went through homesickness, weight fluctuations, binge partying, stress from too much homework, bad hair days when we had a date lined up—everything a typical freshman girl faces when she heads off to college.
    And thank goodness we had our friend Lara there for us during the troubling freshman year. Lara had been our freshman orientation camp counselor. As a junior we all looked up to her as the resident know-it-all. Lara and Robin actually became closest of friends, much like Claire and myself. They eventually lived in an on-campus apartment together while Lara continued on at U Dub to receive her MBA.  
    It was through Lara that Claire, Robin, and I met some of my other best friends, Jackie Anderson and Emily Saunders. They were both sophomores when we met my first year at school, and had been friends with Lara for awhile. When they discovered that some of Lara’s best friends were three silly freshmen she had befriended at orientation, they welcomed us with open arms, ecstatic that their sisterhood was growing. All of these girls, my very close circle of girlfriends from the beginning of my time in college, all through today, seven years later, never in a million years would purposely hurt or betray me. Not until a few weeks ago, that is.
    Claire was absolutely right when she consoled me there in my room, saying that everything would work out in the end, but that it was going to take time to heal and repair things.  
    “Eventually everything will be beautiful, Sophie,” she said sweetly.
    I loved how optimistic Claire always was. She was always able to look at a bad situation and find the good in it. She said she tried to live by the adage that “with something bad comes something good”, and she most certainly did. Granted she would break down now and then as any normal, emotional woman does, but she always strove to keep a stiff upper lip. And even if grief or anger had to spread their wings, eventually she’d make sure happiness and kindness always shoved through. I wished at that very moment I had the strength and optimism that she was blessed with.
    “You want some brunch?” Claire asked, getting up off my bed, whose sheets and comforter were strewn about the place, thanks to my rant when I burst home.
    “Nah,” I answered, suddenly feeling exhausted. “I’m not really hungry.” It was a small lie. My stomach had been rumbling all morning, but I didn’t feel like spending another waking moment…awake. All I wanted was to sleep. Maybe I could sleep away my problems.
    “You need to eat, Sophie. You’re thin enough as it is. Don’t be silly and starve yourself.”  
    I chuckled. “Like that’ll happen. You know how much I love to cook and eat baked goods.” I had a naughty sweet tooth. How can you be in a kitchen and bake magnificent cakes and cookies and breads and not nibble at them? “I just feel like sleeping. I’m going to take a nap. Thanks though.”