The Best Friend Read Online Free

last groom, Parker, paid for it. Parker’s family was overjoyed at the news Vickie was joining their family and marrying their son. She was a charming, delightful, and beautiful girl. Everyone liked Vickie. Most however, didn’t realize, until it was far too late, that she invariably bled them dry of their money, their love and their patience.
    The worst part was: she didn’t even know she did it. She didn’t mean to be so materialistic, flighty, manipulative, careless, or lazy. She just was.
    Gretchen didn’t feel like arguing the same old battle again. Vickie left Parker, claiming he was too boring and set in his ways. She needed more color and excitement. He was currently paying alimony for her boredom. “You guys want some coffee?”
    “Sure.” Tracy set her ginormous handbag down on the couch and wandered closer to the breakfast bar. Tracy was thirty years old with two kids, ages nine and eight, and a loving husband of ten years. She could not have been any more different from Vickie than if they were born to different mothers. Then again, neither could Gretchen.
    Vickie was a preemie baby and almost died due to lung complications. She stayed in the hospital for five weeks. From the time she came home, their parents never once treated her like the other two older girls. Vickie was fragile, vulnerable, and therefore, special. Unfortunately, that label never changed, not in her twenty-eight years.
    Gretchen loved Vickie. Both sisters also babied and protected her. Not until she was divorcing her third husband did they begin to really see the narcissistic, needy, forever unhappy, always seeking what she didn’t have, monster they all helped to create. But hating her was like hating a young child. No matter how mad they got, or how much she screwed up, and how fed up they got with her theatrics, it never stopped them from trying to help her. They couldn’t turn their backs on their sweet, kind-hearted, almost stupidly naïve, and selfish, little sister.
    Vickie rummaged around her fridge. “Got any diet pop?”
    Gretchen poured the coffee. “There’s some in the back.”
    “So, what’s new with you?” Tracy asked, sipping the coffee and watching Gretchen over the rim of her cup.
    Gretchen walked over to the bank of windows that flooded her condo with natural, bright sunlight. The big squares looked like warm puddles over the light carpet. Looking through the windows, she stared down at the grass, trees, and specks of people now enjoying the green city park below her.
    “I had an interesting day at the market, too.”
    Tracy swiveled on her stool. “Oh, yeah? What happened?”
    “I ran into Tony Lindstrom.”
    “Oh my, that’s a name from the past. Will’s best friend? How is he?”
    Gretchen nodded. “Yes, actually, he was both Will’s and my best friend,” she said blowing out a deep, weary breath before she continued. “The thing is, he… he lost his left arm. And I was so shocked by it, I froze up and acted like an immature jerk. I pretended it didn’t happen. I never even asked him about it.”
    Tracy’s jaw dropped open in disbelief. Vickie stopped pouring her can of pop into a cup and blinked in stunned shock, asking, “Gone? What do you mean gone?”
    “Like he lost it in the war. Like it was amputated. What else could I mean?”
    Vickie stuck her tongue out. “You don’t have to get so bitchy. I just wasn’t sure you meant that. Wow. Holy shit.”
    “That’s so tragic,” Tracy said, much more appropriately.
    Gretchen stared down at her hands. “He isn’t well. I mean, he is nothing like the Tony you remember.”
    Vickie wandered out and sat on the loveseat, pulling her legs up underneath her. “He was so hot and so sweet. Remember? He always tagged along with you and Will. He was always the first to help you with anything. That’s so awful.”
    He was? Gretchen frowned and tried to envision her past. She couldn’t get a mental picture of Tony doing such things for her. Did he?