“Is this what it's like, Nikki?” She, such a girl, was almost crying. “Do you just fit together? Or is it something else? I thought I was in love with Michael, but we were so… I think we were too close, you know? I think there comes a point where you can’t go back and be together as a couple because you’ve been through too much as friends.”
“I guess I get it.” She said. “But I don’t know if I agree with that, Marie-dear. I think you and Michael just weren’t right for each other. And everyone would have disagreed at some point, of course, but you changed a lot after you got sick. And when you came back he couldn’t handle it. And I’m totally not downing Bridge or anything, you know how much I love the guy, but he just wasn’t strong enough for you.”
“I don’t know. I’ve done trying to figure that whole thing out.” A flourish of past frustration welled up into those words… I hadn’t meant them to come out so unrestrained and it was quiet for a while before my mind wandered enough to continue. It was oddly clear but still cold outside the windows in Nikki’s little car, we’d spent so much time there recently that I couldn’t even remember whether we were coming or leaving Mitch’s as I gazed out at the little building. It’s battered red and now yellowed sign had seen generations, sympathizing with the life stories of a hundred groups like us before now. A symbol of familiarity and cheer on their dreariest days. It struck me that, with all of the Mitchell family’s renovations over the years, not one of them had had the heart to change the sign. It was just then that I decided, without conscious realization, that I would only have it repainted.
“So...” Nikki half-whispered, and suddenly I was back in the passenger seat. “What about him?” She was smiling. I know she said more about sparks or convenience or something, but she’d lost me to the answer at the end of the question.