* * *

“Are you sure you want to?” I asked Marti three weeks later. We hadn’t talked at all during the past twenty-one days, except for casual conversations at school about homework and graduation projects and can you believe Brandon and Amy are actually dating.

   It was funny. Miraculously, I somehow felt comfortable waiting around for Marti to speak.

 I didn’t worry, which was unusual for me. I knew she wasn’t avoiding me exactly. Just, when you tell someone everything     every deep little puckering worry that nags at you each night, every bloodthirsty wish, every haunting thought and desperate prayer      there is always a fear in the back of your mind: what if they tell?

  She’d known me forever. But it was the first time she’d truly trusted me, you know, as an older kid. We were eighteen now, adults technically, and she had trusted me with a big girl problem for the first time ever. It had to be a little scary for her. Heck, it was a little scary for me.

However, I was proud of myself. I’d been a little unsure whether or not to tattle to my mommy, but when I really thought and prayed about it, I realized that this was probably a natural way for Marti to act. Someone important had been robbed from her, so of course she wanted to know a little bit more about the robber. I kept my mouth shut. And I felt warm inside, confident suddenly for the first time in my life. I felt different. Fuller somehow. I was secure in my own abilities as a good friend.

 I had kept Marti’s secret, and I would reap the rewards for many years.

 That morning I could tell as soon as I saw Marti that it would be the morning I’d been waiting for. It was etched in her eyebrows that something was on her mind, and so when she said it, I wasn’t surprised.

  “I think I’m going to go visit.” That was all she said, and her voice sounded like a matronly housewife stating that she was going to buy ham for dinner instead of turkey.

  “Are you sure you want to?” I asked, also a little flatly.

  “Yes.”

  There was an awkward pause, a rare occurrence between me and my best friend.

 “Do you want me to go with you?” I queried. I was hesitant. Was it my place?

Marti stared at the ground and then nodded.

  “I think so, if you wouldn’t mind?”

I nodded too. I didn’t mind.