To be honest, I’d rather wallow in bed all day. The high of last night is over, and that realization has my skin hot as anger floods my veins. She did this. How does Nina still have so much power over me? To completely flip my mood? To rip me from my high and crush me until I’m sitting here crying in the very bed I was screaming in pleasure only a few hours prior.Fuck!
And then Casey drags me off themattress.
“Hey!” I squawk in protest.
Casey’s hands are on my shoulders as she guides me toward my room. “Brush your teeth. Put on some deodorant. You can borrow shoes from me if you need them. Because we’re leaving in twenty, and I’m not taking no for an answer.”
We rode in comfortable silence to a state park forty-five minutes away. There’s only a handful of cars in the parking lot when we arrive, and we wordlessly head down the opening to the two-mile trailhead. It’s a warm day, and a light sheen of sweat gathers on my skin halfway through the walk. Birds sing and, with every step, tension eases out of my shoulders. The pressure on my chest lightens, and my limbs feel looser. As we finish the two-mile walk, Casey glances at me expectantly.
“Again?” I ask.
Casey nods and follows me back through the opening.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Casey says as we pass the first bend in the trail.
I sigh. “Is it a good idea? You know—considering?”
“Considering what?”
I glance at her knowingly, and she levels me with an exasperated look. “Dakota, I was your best friend before we had sex, and I’m your best friend after. You can talk to me about anything.”
I kick a loose rock and send it tumbling into a bush. “I don’t know. I can’t stop thinking that I blew my chance.”
“At what?” she asks.
“At happiness. At being with my one true love.” I don’t dare look at Casey. I already know what her face looks like—all disgusted and angry. She insists every time I bring up the breakup, it’s not my fault, and I did nothing wrong, but didn’t I? I’m the one who walked out on her.
Nina and I were fighting a lot at the end. She’d get so jealous if I hung out with Casey or my coworkers, Beth and Mary, yet told me I was overreacting for being upset at how often I caught her smiling and texting her new coworker, Jamie.
It was easier to ditch my friends and avoid the fight with Nina, but after Beth and her fiancé broke up, Mary and I told her we’d bring over her favorite food and ice cream and have a movie marathon. Since I didn’t run it by Nina first, she was pissed that I was ruining her surprise date night. She got us tickets to our favorite comedian’s stand-up show.
Beth needed me, I thought Nina understood. Turns out she took Jamie to the show with her instead. I was shocked and hurt since she knew how I felt about her coworker. So when Nina confessed that Jamie kissed her, I reacted poorly. Betrayal and anger flooded my veins. I yelled at her and called her nasty names.
Nina blamed me. Said it was my fault for ditching her and that Jamie never would have had the chance to kiss her if I wanted to actually spend time with her. So I left.
I didn’t want to break up. I was just too angry for words and was afraid I’d say something I couldn’t take back, so I went to Casey’s to calm down. That only made things worse. Nina accused me of sleeping with Casey in retaliation, which was ludicrous. I didn’t see Casey that way, and I never would have done that to Nina. But the damage was done. Nina kicked me out of our apartment. I crashed with Casey until I could get back on my feet.
At the time, and with Casey’s insistence, I knew I didn’tdo anything wrong. But what if I did? We could still be together. She’d never be engaged to Jamie.
“Have I ever told you about the first girl I fell in love with?” Casey asks, startling me with the change of topic that pulls me from my thoughts.
“You mean Lily?”
Casey shakes her head. “Fiona Ellis.”
I frown. I’ve never heard that name. And I’m shocked. Lily was Casey’s sexual awakening. They dated briefly. But they were never in love?
Casey rubs her nose, her nervous tick. “Lily helped me figure out I’m bi. She helped me accept that part of myself, and, for that, she’ll always hold a special place in my heart. Despite us attempting to date, we were never in love. I loved her as a friend, and I got things confused for a while in the haze of grappling with my sexuality. But the first girl—the first person—I ever fell in love with was Fiona, my freshman year of college. I loved her in a way that was all-consuming.
“We met at a party right at the beginning of the semester. This random asshole almost knocked me over, and I spilled my drink on her. She looked pissed, and I froze, thinking this gorgeous, angry woman was about to yell at me, but then she went off on the guy who didn’t even apologize for tackling me. He was going to walk away without acknowledging what he did, so she grabbed him by his collar and spun him around and made him apologize to us both and demanded he pay for her dry cleaning.”
“Damn,” I say. “And he did?”
She nods. “You don’t tell Fiona Ellis no.” Casey tightens her grip on her backpack straps. “She got me a new drink, and that was it. We spent the rest of the night talking, went back to her place after last call, and from then on we were inseparable.”
Casey picks up the pace of her stride, almost like she wants to outrun her memories.
“My roommate was a nightmare. So passive-aggressive and complained about everything I did. The light on my phone was too bright. The volume of my music was too loud, even through myheadphones.”
