Trusting Stone Read Free Page A

to kiss her on both cheeks. Mara made no effort to hide her disgust. She knew how Eden felt about the ASA, and the members seemed to get under Mara’s skin as much as they did Eden’s. It didn’t help that whenever they bumped into Eden and Mara together, they effectively ignored her or else talked to her like she was an idiot.
    “Nothing I want to talk about. Come on, let’s go get those packing boxes and face the inevitable!”
    Mara moaned. She knew it had been the plan for the day, but she was obviously reluctant to face reality. “Let’s just ignore the packing and instead go and get drunk on Guinness and call it cultural exploration. Doesn’t that sound so much better, Eden?”
    “One, you know I don’t like to drink, and two, stop avoiding the inevitable. I don’t want to be hysterically packing my stuff into black trash bags the day before I fly out. And neither do you. And you have so many goddamn shoes, Mara, we need to start now if we even want to make a dent in them.”
    Mara pursed her lips and pretended to pout. “What am I going to do without you in Madrid, Eden?”
                 Eden shrugged and hooked her arm through Mara’s as she pulled her into the crowd. “I don’t even want to talk about it, Mara, or I’ll start to cry.”
    ****
    The next two weeks flew by. Eden and Mara finished their last exams and spent their final days in a whirlwind of packing and celebrating, despite Eden’s attempts to get the apartment ready earlier. Mara’s parents had surprised them with a two-day spa package at the elite luxury Zone One Spa , located at the top of one of Edinburgh’s most exclusive hotels. Mara had been telling her parents throughout her time there about the amazing support Eden provided, and her parents in turn wanted them to enjoy their last days together.
    On the surface, Mara came across as a serious, committed student. She rarely went out with the other students and went above and beyond on her assignments. But to Eden, Mara was quick-tongued, sarcastic, and often had Eden in hysterics. At first, Eden had wrongly assumed that Mara’s dedication to her studies had something to do with not wanting to waste her parents’ money.
    “God no, nothing to do with that. My parents could care less if I wasted their money, they have more than enough,” Mara had explained one night a few months after they’d met. “I’m just insanely competitive! But you know, that’s not an attractive trait in a woman, so my parents taught me to control it through being humble instead. Or as I see it, meek. You can imagine what a joy that was to learn!”  It was after that revelation that Eden realized she and Mara had more in common than she initially thought. Mara had clearly undergone the same social training as Eden and resented it in the same fashion.
    The spa day ended on Friday afternoon and Eden wistfully realized that this would probably be the last time she and Mara would hang out together for who knew how long. They would be on separate flights home by Sunday evening. Eden tightened the robe across her stomach. She wasn’t used to being this bare in front of other people, even though it was just Mara and a few spa assistants. She wasn’t embarrassed about her body, in fact she knew she was lucky to have the sort of body that most women desired—petite and slender but still curvy in all the right places. Although, if she let herself acknowledge it, she wished she had been more well-endowed up top. Her mother had always pointed out that anything larger than a C-cup came across as slutty and she shouldn’t complain.
    But besides her own insecurities about her breasts, Eden knew she should count herself lucky when it came to how she looked. She just didn’t know what to do with it anymore. Eden, who used to secretly love the envy she induced in her peers, now couldn’t even stand to look at herself naked. She had been working on her body confidence with Dr. Shepherd, but it had