Friends ForNever by Katy Grant

something to Whitney,” I murmured to Nicole as we changed out of our wet swimsuits.
    â€œNo! Not without Sarah,” Nic whispered back.
    â€œI think we should,” I insisted. “We’ve waited too long.” Sarah hadn’t talked to Whitney yesterday like she’d promised. Somebody needed to do something.
    â€œHey, Whitney? Could you come over here for a second?” I called.
    Nicole gave me a look that said, Are you out of your mind? But I didn’t care. Whitney came over to our side of the cabin and stood by Libby’s bed, very straight and still, with her hands clasped in front of her. She looked like she was bracing herself for what was next. “Yes?”
    â€œUh,” I began. How was I going to say this? A speeded-up version of our Whitney-dissing played through my head. Control freak brags too much dump her. “You remember the dance on Saturday?” I asked weakly.
    Whitney remained perfectly still. “Yes.”
    â€œUh. Well. When you walked out, Nic and Sarah and I said some stuff.” That was as far as I could go. Nic obviously wasn’t going to jump in and take over.
    There was a long pause as Whitney waited for me to go on. “Some stuff?” she said finally.
    â€œYeah. Some really mean stuff. Whitney, we know you heard us. And we all feel really, really, really awful. We are so sorry—all of us.”
    â€œDo you feel awful because of what you said or awful because I happened to overhear you?” Whitney asked quietly.
    Ouch. The truth was, if she hadn’t happened to overhear us, then we would’ve dissed her, laughed about it, and then never given it a second thought.
    â€œWe feel awful because of what we said. But we were just being . . .” cruel, heartless, vicious, “. . . gossipy, and none of us meant any of it. You know how it is when a bunch of girls get together. One person says something about someone who isn’t there and then everyone else starts talking and you’re just saying stuff that you never expect will get back to the person, and . . .”
    This was not going where I wanted it to go. I looked to Nicole for help, but she just raised her eyebrows at me. I knew what she was thinking—that incredibly annoying people were at constant risk of being ridiculed every time they left a room. She still thought Whitney had brought this all on herself by being so . . . Whitney-ish.
    Whitney let out a little impatient sigh. “No, Darcy. I don’t know how it is. I make it a practice never to say mean things about other people—ever.”
    I slumped over and held my head in my hands. “That’s a really good practice. One I’m going to follow from now on. Whitney, we are really, really sorry. We said a lot of terrible things, but we didn’t mean any of it. I guess we thought we were being funny, but we weren’t. We were just being horrible.”
    Whitney nodded, like she was considering everything I’d said. “I’m curious about something. Today’s Thursday. And this happened on Saturday. Why has it taken you five days to bring this up?” From the way she said “five,” I could tell she’d been counting off every single day that went by without us apologizing to her.
    â€œWell, Nicole can explain that,” I said, spiking the ball to her when she totally wasn’t ready for it. But why should I be the one doing all the talking? I wasn’t the only one who was there.
    My comment hit Nic right between the eyes and woke her up from a daydream. “Oh. Uh. We . . . kept wanting to, but we were pretty embarrassed about the whole thing. We didn’t really know what to do.”
    I guessed that was an okay explanation. Not the way I would’ve put it, but at least I’d made her speak.
    â€œWhitney, we are so sorry! Really, we are. Do you forgive us?”
    Whitney pressed her lips together. She seemed to be giving it serious