I joke, “I’m really glad you hit on me at the bar.”
We laugh loudly together.
“Damn right, bitch.” A small curl sneaks at the corner of her mouth. “Me too.” She jumps on me for an embrace and my immediate response is to resist but I surrender to it, squeezing her tight between my arms as I did with Lenny earlier today.
I never had a real friendship.
I’m trying to open myself to new people and let them inside even though I’m scared. Yet I feel liberated. The friends I had in the past weren’t as real as me and Lai for only two days. There is no comparison because this is night and day when it comes to my past friendships.
So far, I’ve learned that a week and a half feels like a month and that the majority of these people are genuinely kind.
Meadow
Every time I open my eyes the memories flood me and I can’t. I just can’t stay there. I can’t relive them over and over again like a never-ending cycle. I just can’t.
One decision changed multiple lives.
Sometimes I wake up and all I see are funerals around me, another tombstone, another loss, another nightmare. Even when it’s someone from the community who wasn’t close or familiar it still pains me, especially when I think about their families and friends.
Chaos and Arrow help blur it when I’m around them but when I’m away nothing separates me from those memories or holds me through the night.
My alarm goes off and even Arrow grunts in annoyance when she hears it, wanting to snuggle a bit more so she licks my face off, giving me a morning shower.
I rub my eyes, “Gotta go, girls, we need to take you out.”
They both make disapproved sounds and continue to murmur as if they complain and I chuckle as always when they do that.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, running my fingersthrough my thick strands as I get up and walk toward the door, more like dragging myself there.
“Ouch!” I stumble over one of Chaos’s toys, losing my balance, and nearly eating the door handle for breakfast—it stares at me with a murderous look. “Are you trying to assassinate me, little girl?” with a sharp turn of my head, I gaze at her with a pointed look and she’s giving me her innocent expression—those big puppy eyes. I already have one assassin and she’s going out of her way to prove that.
I didn’t get much sleep between flying abroad to compete in another racing competition and flying back while thinking about Blakely the whole time.
Her lips are like two soft pillows I want to dive into again and again and when I think it’s enough, I need it like a drug one more time.
I needed to silence the memories that assaulted me three days ago so I kissed her and crossed the line that I promised myself I wouldn’t cross. She is Blakely Wilder and I don’t want her to suffer the weight of my world.
I gather my phone from the table and open the group chat.
Dylan
He does that thing with strawberries and chocolate and WOW.
Frankie
Theo, I want to try this.
Theo
I’m going to the store.
Luka
Experimenting with food is the sexiest thing.
Lennon
Dean loves to tie me up so…
