I dig my toe awkwardly in the dirt.  “So, ummm, I’m sorry about your mother.”

“Yeah, well, not as sorry as I am.”

“What, it’s a competition now?”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“Well then, what did you mean?”

“Nothing.”

“You must have meant something,” the sarcasm is streaming from my mouth, beyond my control. “Why can’t you just let me say something nice to you?”

“Oh, like how you’re being so nice right now?” Since when did she get to be the sarcastic one in this relationship?

“Just what, exactly, is wrong with you?  Why can’t you just let me be your friend?”

“I just….don’t know.  I don’t know, all right?  I don’t know how to be anything anymore.  My mother didn’t die alone.  She took the Elissa you know with her,” Elissa’s voice began to crack.  “I’m not myself any more, and I’m no good to you or anyone else.”

And suddenly I simply wasn’t frustrated any more.  It didn’t matter that she’d been avoiding me or that she was cranky with me. I just pulled her close to me, holding her tight, letting her sob away all the garbage she’d been holding inside during the weeks since her mother’s death.  How could I have been so quick to be impatient when she needed me most?  Well, I would be there for her now, no matter how prickly she was on the outside.