Summer took a wide, uncoordinated swing and knocked a bag of Lay’s potato chips onto the floor. I watched as she regrouped, raised the bat again, and although she didn’t say it, we knew she wasn’t finished.

“Get away from them,” Summer said through clenched teeth. A brown head of hair and black-rimmed glasses emerged from behind the cash register and Plexiglas barrier.

“You!” I called. “Hiding like a coward. Call the police!”

“Call the police!” Summer repeated with her eyes locked on the truck driver. She took another swing; this time she was oddly precise in her aim. A bag of chocolate-covered pretzels flew from a hook near the beef jerky packages and took flight. We all watched as it slowed at the peak of its arc by a sprinkler head, then dropped somewhere out of sight.

“What the . . . ?” the trucker said.

“Hey!” the man behind the counter shouted. “Leave the merchandise alone.”

Summer lifted the bat over her head and brought it down on the top of a display of Funyuns. And, oh my God, at that moment I finally got it. Fun Onions! Uninhibited and into this vigilante justice, she swung the bat and toppled the revolving sunglasses display. Plastic frames skittered across the floor followed by a loud crash of the flimsy tower. “That’s for not calling the police.”

“What is wrong with you bitches?” the trucker said with real wonder, backing away from Holly and me.

“Bitches?” Summer yelled. “Bitches?” She looked between the manager and the trucker, who was now making a break for the door while grabbing the keys that hung from a chain at his pocket.

“We bitches are getting our friend and her kitty and by hook or by crook getting out of here.”

“By hook or by crook?” I said. Don’t get me wrong. I was in full admiration mode. Summer was rocking a baseball bat in the middle of Nebraska, scaring the bejesus out of a big, imposing man, but the phrase by hook or by crook was a buzzkill. Honestly, it was worse than trope.

The manager hit the button on his intercom-microphone. There was a loud static-feedback screech followed by a nasally voice: “Ma’am, please put the bat down, and come up and pay for your snacks.”

Summer slammed the baseball bat on top of the ice-cream novelty case and shouted, “We will not pay for the snacks.”

And I thought, Oh, what the hell. “We will not pay for the snacks!”

“Blow job,” Holly shouted.

“Blow job!” I shouted.

Holly and I joined hands and grabbed Summer and ran out of the gas station breathing hard like three ecstatic high school girls who’d just stolen condoms.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

FRIEND-DEMENTIA

The moment we three stepped into the cool night air, I heard the dead bolt click into place behind us. The gas station attendant flicked off the hanging neon OPEN light, and the sidewalk went dark. But the shaky effects of my adrenaline rush couldn’t be switched off so easily. I heard the slap of our tennis shoes echo on the pavement.

I’d stood up to somebody. Not just anybody: a giant, sexual-favor-requesting, hostile man. Or, I should say, we did. Sure, the tiny Summer had to rescue Holly and me, but when push came to shove, I didn’t slip into unconsciousness. Au contraire. I aggressed! I always wondered if, in a survival situation, would I be the person who peed and cried, or would I grab a floaty and jump?

It was clear. I was a jumper. We were jumpers!

“You guys! Holy crap!” We were still holding hands.

Summer let out a “Whoop!”

I peered at Holly; she was oddly silent. Was she pissed at me for kissing her? Was she insulted? She let go of our hands first, and I took a deep breath in and held it.

“GAAH!” she shouted into the night air. She dropped her head back, put a hand over her face, and shouted again. She shivered all over like Peanut or Moose would if they’d just come out of the rain.

I waited, unsure how to feel. I knew Fun Holly from college and grown-up Fierce Holly, but Paralyzed Holly and now Screaming Holly? I was at a loss. I needed a prompt.

“Let it out,” Summer said, and she herself let out a loud, prolonged scream.

This time the dogs got involved, letting out short yips from the car as if to say, Absolutely! Yes! Also, what’s happening?

I said, “Go, Team Katie!” But that didn’t do it for me. I tried again. “GO, TEAM KATIE!”

We made eye contact before all three of us shouted, “GO, TEAM KATIE!”

A loud squawk punctuated our voices, and a speaker from the top of the gas pump crackled, and a man’s voice said, “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

The three of us laughed so fully and completely that at that moment we felt like one person.

While we’d been inside the gas station, Peanut had moved to the driver’s seat, and Moose to the passenger side. Both dogs sat with humanlike anticipation. When Holly opened the driver’s-side door, one hand steadying Utah, Peanut pivoted and threw his bulk into Holly’s arms. One paw went up to her shoulder and the other navigated the kitten respectfully and landed on her chest.

“Whoa,” she said, just before Peanut washed the length of her face with his tongue. “Peanut!”

I sprinted around the car and slid my fingers under his collar. “Okay, dude. This is not okay.”

“No. Leave him.” Holly, averting her face from Peanut’s slobbering, let him lick her neck while she shielded Utah. “I’ve got him.”

“I think he’s glad you’re okay. He was worried. That’s why I went looking for you.”

“Is that right? Peanut, were you concerned?”

There was no way I was going to ruin this moment by pointing out that she usually called him “the dog.”

“He was. Concerned. We all were.” I gave Summer a quick glance.

Holly scratched the big dog’s ears and then helped him out of the car while wiping her face with the back of her hand.

The dog bumped his head against her thigh as we walked to the back of the Prius. Holly put Utah into the makeshift cat box. Her expression darkened as she watched the little bundle. I could see the victorious Holly humbling again as we all calmed down.

“How am I ever going to be a parent?” she said, her eyes still on Utah. “That man walked right up to me and took Utah. I couldn’t stop him.” She glanced at me, the expression on her face filled with angst. “Rosie is going to have that baby, and they are going to send her home to us.” Her voice went up an octave when she said, “It’s harder to adopt a dog than to take a baby home. We are going to walk out of the hospital with a human and try not to kill her or lose her for eighteen years. There are men like that out there. Just taking whatever they want, and we are having a girl. You had a girl. How did you do it, Samantha?”

“Oh, Holly.” Everything about Holly’s hardness about Peanut, Moose, and even Summer, her difficulty with empathy outside of her tight circle, this was all fear. Fear that she wouldn’t come through for love.

“How did you keep her safe? I can’t protect Utah. I couldn’t protect myself.”

“You could have. You would have. I know you would have.”

“No, Sam. No. I wouldn’t have. I didn’t.”

Summer appeared at Holly’s shoulder and said, “Safety and the idea that you can keep anyone safe is an illusion. But, loving someone is the ultimate safekeeping.”

Holly and I looked at Summer, the woman who continued to amaze us with her insights. “She’s right. No matter what happens to us in life, we can always come home to the people who care for us. They are our safe harbor. We are. Holly. We are here for you,” I said. Finally getting to finish a sentence that was started all those years ago when Holly walked out the door.

Curing yourself from avoiding conflict wasn’t just about stepping up to fight. It was also about learning to lean into discomfort. Maybe the process was like washing windows on a sunny day: the big dirt was easy, but the final smear on a filthy windowpane could be the hardest to rub out. With the last bit of bravery juice slowly leaking out of my nervous system, I said, “Do you want to talk about what happened in the gas station? I feel like something else was going on in there?”

Holly lifted Utah and handed the kitty off to me. I took her soft, warm body into my cupped hands and cuddled her to my sternum. “Remember the house party, graduation night?”

“Of course,” I said softly, slowly. “I wanted to kiss Jim Calhoun, so I hung around the pool table the whole night.”

“Upstairs. Yeah.”

“So long ago. But I can smell the stale beer.”

“Ugh. Me too.” She stopped speaking and waited so long I wondered if she was going to keep going. She started up again. “I ran out of wine, so I went down to the keg room. Tucker was down there.”

“Tucker. Yeah. I vaguely remember him. Tall with that scruff on his face. The goalie.”

“That was him. We took all those classes together. Anyway, someone threw a beer can at him. Split open his eyebrow. There was blood everywhere. Tucker pulled me into a room where the light was better, asked me to look at the cut on his head. Wanted to know if he needed stitches.”

“Obviously he didn’t know you.”