"Hey, I'm sorry to bother you while you’re on a date, but can you call me as soon as you get this?" I said in a trembling voice.

The phone rang about a minute later.

"Are you okay?" she said. "What happened?!"

Apparently my voice had been a little bit transparent.

"Can you come home?" I said.

"Blair," she said. "What's happened?"

"Aiden's been lying to me,” I said, my voice breaking on the last word and threatening to fall back into hysterics.

"I'll be right there," she said.

A little while later, Kelsey came rushing through the front door, tossing her purse into the chair and sinking into the couch next to me.

"Who do we need to kill?" she said.

I pulled my hands across my face, clearing the tears away. My skin felt red and puffy from my crying binge.

"He said that he was using me to keep me distracted from the case. So that he could get the job, or at least have the upper hand with the case. He said he did the whole thing as a game to get the upper hand."

"But why would he say that?" Kelsey demanded. "He seemed like such a nice guy in high school and now from what you had told me."

"I know,” I said, reaching for the tissue that Kelsey handed towards me. "This isn't like him. At least the him that I used to know."

"Yeah," she said and nodded.

"I mean, I knew he had changed since we had known each other, but this..."

"We have to get him back,” Kelsey said.

"He thinks I already have."

"What do you mean?"

"He thinks I reported him to the partners for drug use."

"What?"

I explained what I had found the last time I was at his place, including my resolution to help him through it without telling the firm about his extra-curricular activities. "I mean I would have implicated myself just as much as him if I had said anything. I don't know why he thinks it's me."

"Wow,” Kelsey said. She sat back on her heels and a thoughtful look crossed her face. "Based on everything you have told me this does not seem like him at all."

"You should have heard him Kelsey,” I said. "Not only did he confess everything, but he sounded like he enjoyed it. I mean he laughed as he told me."

Kelsey tapped her chin as she thought it over. Suddenly she stood and instructed me as to what to do. "You stay here. We need hot tea, ice cream, and movies, right away."

She vanished into the kitchen. I could hear the sound of her fluttering around, the sounds of various items landing on the surfaces of other items, water running, refrigerator door opening and closing.

"Do you need help with anything?" I called.

"No, you just sit there,” she replied in her chirpy voice. A few minutes later she appeared with a mug in each hand, steam arising from each. She set one down in front of me and grabbed the remote. "Okay now what to watch."

"Actually I think I might just go to bed,” I said.

"Are you kidding?" she said. "This is prime man bashing time. You need a good action movie, something with lots of explosions! Vicarious violence."

"Yeah." I nodded, taking a sip of the tea. The hot beverage did help to calm my nerves a little bit.

"I'll get us some ice cream,” she declared and rushed off to the kitchen.

She must have already dished them up because she returned just as quickly and placed the bowl on the table in front of me, chocolate chocolate chip. Her flavor not mine. I set down the steaming mug and sat back against the couch, watching her flip through the channels on the television trying to find the right one.

"What are you in the mood for?" she asked.

"Whatever you decide,” I said.

It seemed important to her that I accept her comfort, so I let her settle on an old move from the nineties, robots from the future wreaking havoc on modern day Los Angeles, or at least nineties Los Angeles.

Before she started it she turned to me, tucking her feet underneath her legs.

"Do we want to plan his murder now or after the movie when we have some inspiration?" she said with a gleeful grin on her face.

I rolled my eyes over to her, feeling a fresh batch of tears forming just underneath the surface.

"Kelsey," I said. "We are talking about Aiden."

"Oh," she said.

I watched her face transform as the slow dawning crept over her features. Her smile vanished and her eyes subdued. She remembered us back in high school after all.

"Of course."

She set down her mug and offered her arm out to me. Unable to hold back, I curled my head onto her bony arm and succumbed to the fresh onslaught of tears. She endured silently, for a long while, as the ice cream melted in the bowls next to us. I had never felt so hollow from the inside out, as if everything inside me had been scooped out with a giant melon baller, cut into tiny pieces and displayed to be eaten by whatever onlookers may be close by.

Not only had I lost myself, but I had lost my best friend.

Despite everything I had begun to hold on to the notion that Aiden and I would remain friends as we always had been. I couldn’t comprehend the turn that he had taken.

If I thought back to our days in high school I would have recognized the potential he had for manipulation, but since we had reconnected I had seen a maturity, or perhaps I had assumed it. I didn’t realize that he had pointed that same ability to manipulate towards me.

I had fallen for it because I hadn’t seen it coming.

His familiar face had been my down fall. I assumed a trust that wasn’t there. I brushed away the tears and picked up my cooling tea.

"Go ahead and start it. I'll go change. I think I could use the distraction after all."

She turned on the movie and I slipped into my cotton pajamas and wrapped my robe around me, returning to the couch. I could barely pay any attention to the film before me. The future of humanity was at stake, and I couldn’t care less. The heroine fought a valiant struggle, but about halfway through I found myself nodding my head backwards against the couch.

"Kelsey," I said. "I've got to go to bed. I have court tomorrow and I need to get some sleep. I'm sorry I ruined your date."

"Not ruined. Just postponed,” she said, as I stumbled back to my bedroom, stopping only to briefly brush my teeth and wash my face.

Once I made it back to my bedroom, I curled under my blanket. My window remained open to create a breeze, a small reprise against the Southern California heat. I felt glad that I hadn’t boxed up my stuffed animals, but had brought them with me as an inkling of sentimentality when I had packed for the move.

Now I felt comfort in their bizarre presence.

The large plastic googly eyes of my stuffed wombat stared at me plaintively as I wrapped my arms around the small Teri cloth unicorn, a remnant from my elementary school days. I tucked the corner of the blanket over the small family of creatures, the clown with the red and white stockings, the long haired cat puppet, the tiny sheep that fit in the palm of my hand, all received the same care that I had once devoted to them when I was a very small child.

After I felt satisfied that they were all sufficiently tucked in, I pulled the blanket up to my chin. Despite my previous nodding off in front of Kelsey, I felt as if all thoughts of sleep had left me. I laid completely still and closed my eyes listening to the hum of silence around me. The small noises from outside seemed to jolt me back to awareness as if a jet plane were flying overheard. I wanted nothing but to slip into the oblivious nothing of sleep.