“I mean, no. But also yes. But mostly, spiraling with dignity.”
Maya took a long sip from a mug that read Hex the Patriarchy.
“I think we need a change,” Maya said. “Like a trip, or a tattoo, or burning your ex’s new Jeep.”
Blair laughed, hollow. “Do you ever get tired of telling me I deserve better?”
“Yes. But I also get tired of watching you hand your heart to men who don’t know how to hold their own dick.”
“I’m not looking for forever,” Blair said too quickly. “I’m just distracting myself.”
“You’ve been ‘distracting yourself’ for three years, babe.”
Blair shrugged. “Some people do yoga. I collect red flags.”
“Maybe try collecting orgasms instead,” Maya said. “From people who know where your clit is.”
Blair smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
Her mind flashed back to six months earlier, when it was her birthday.
She sat at a bar with a slice of cake Maya smuggled in her purseand a balloon tied to her wrist like an ironic hostage situation.
The guy she was seeing, Jake, or was it Jason?, had texted three hours ago:
sorry babe work exploded. rain check
No emoji, no punctuation, and absolutely no effort.
Blair had smiled at the text like it didn’t gut her. Like it hadn’t taken her a week to work up the nerve to say, I want to celebrate this with you.
Maya watched her across the table.
“You okay?”
“Totally,” Blair lied. “This cake is amazing.”
“It’s smushed. It was in my purse.”
“If it has frosting, it counts.”
But later that night, after Maya left, the dishes were clean, and the candles were blown out, Blair stood in her bathroom staring at herself in the mirror and whispered,
I might be simply too much, or maybe not enough; I have no idea which one.
* * *
Her mind went back to the present day, and Maya was still on the phone while she got ready.
Blair stared at her closet, as if it held the answers to everything, at least she hoped it did.
She pulled out the costume: a tight black corset, a short skirt, and a maid headband.
“Perfect,” she muttered. “A visual metaphor for how I clean up everyone’s messes and still get treated like I’m disposable.”
She sprayed on perfume she couldn’t afford. Pulled fishnets over knees that remembered being kissed once, soft and slow, before that guy ghosted too.
Her phone buzzed—a text.
