"You're still a mess," Lottie told her bluntly. It wasn't kind, and it wasn't gentle, and truthfully, Friendship knew that what she was about to say was really going to hurt her friend. She hated that. But she'd tried being supportive, and this is where they'd gotten. So maybe it was time for some forthright honesty.
"I love you, Harm. I always will. But you're still a mess. And you're going to keep being a mess and keep hurting the people that want to help you if you don't start getting it together.
"Which doesn't mean," she hastily added, "that you need to be perfect, or figure everything out right now. What it does mean is that you've got to stop being so self-centered.
"And you have been, even if you don't think you have, you have, Harm. You're very focused on you. And at first, that was okay, because you had a lot to deal with and a lot to catch up on, and a lot to sort out. But here we are now, two years later, and everything is still all about you. Nobody is going to say you didn't get the shitty end of the stick, or suffer more than anybody should have to. I know you did. I know, because I was right there with you. Every loss you suffered, I suffered too, every hit you took, I felt it too, all those years you were gone, I didn't have my best friend and she refused to come back to me, she basically told me that I wasn't worth the effort because her pain was too much. And I understood that, I still do, I know how much you hurt.
"But you are not the only person to have gone through major tragedy and loss. You are not the only one who has suffered and been in pain. You are not the only one who struggles. And you are, sadly, not the only one that refuses to move on from it, but you're my best friend and I love you far too much to let it keep you in this place where you feel like you have to cry all the time. You deserve better than that. You should give yourself better than that."
Throughout the recital, Lottie kept her voice gentle and non-accusatory. She wasn't trying to attack or lay blame. She was trying to yank Harmonia out of the rut she seemed to have fallen into.
"Don't you think," she asked softly, "that this rock bottom thing might be a sight that you've been doing ti wrong, and maybe you should try something different? Maybe stop giving your entire resume of wrongs and woes every time you have a conversation and try instead to focus on the good things in your life. Stop being a mess. Start being Harmonia.
"And she," Lottie finished firmly, "since you're trying to figure out just who Harmonia is, is not defined by what happened in her past. She is shaped by it, but not held by it, because she is the daughter of two very powerful gods, and strong in her own right and if she'd just stop to see how much strength she's had to get this far, maybe she'd see that Harmonia is pretty damn kick ass."
That speech might have just cost her her best friend, Philotes realized. Because she hadn't coddled or held back as she'd been doing. She laid it out there and figuratively gave her friend a kick in the pants. But given that Harm had said how much she wanted to change at the beginning of the conversation then started backsliding right back into that negative space, Lottie didn't think she'd had a choice. She'd do it again, even if she lost the friendship, if it meant that Harmonia would be happier in the end. But she really hoped that it wouldn't come to that. She really hoped.
Of course, Elpis was a really fickle bitch sometimes.