"I am genuinely delighted to hear from you," Ara said into the telephone, and Lucielle felt a surge of joy at hearing her friend's familiar voice. At the same time, she felt a pang of guilt for having left her in the lurch over the past few months while she was conducting a personal journey of self-discovery, even though she was unsuccessful.
A heartwarming conversation had been going on between them for the past twenty minutes, during which they had been reconnecting with one another and reestablishing their connection as if the months of emotional turmoil and upheaval that had occurred in the past had never occurred. True friends were difficult to find in the grand scheme of things, and once we did find them, we had a tendency to cling to them and grow alongside them.
When the shocking
