Cassie frowns at her. “It’s not the point.”
“I get it.” I have had some partners that were good in bed, but none come close to how BJ makes me feel. Even his kiss feels better on my skin.”
Cassie’s eyes widen. “Exactly. It’s the emotion attached to it.”
“Not all of us want the emotion with sex,” Bella states.
We turn to Bella. “But I thought?—”
She shakes her head. “He ghosted me. I’m done giving my heart to men. I just need sex. And if I’m being honest, the best sex I had was with another woman. She understood what I needed more than any damn man has.”
I know who Bella is referring to. “But you also had feelings for her. I think that’s the point Cassie is making.”
Bella stares at me. “And what good did it do?”
“Sometimes, ladies, our vibrator is a woman’s best friend.”
Cassie raises her glass. “Cheers to that.”
“Now that we have agreed on something, what movie are we watching?”
“Horror. Not romance.”Bella isn’t herself.
“Okay.” I scroll the list on the screen. I intend to talk to my friend alone because it’s not like Bella to be negative. “Before we start the movie, we should make a list.” I jump up to get paper and pens.
“I love lists,” Cassie says eagerly.
“What sort of list?” Bella shouts to my back.
“A hate list. I do this often. When something is bothering me, I write it on a list. Or, make ten dot points instead.”
“Give me an example?” Cassie asks.
“Once, I wrote ‘Brandon Johns’ ten times, then burned it. It feels good as you’re thinking about what is destroying your soul, and then you watch it burn, or you can shred the paper. Either way, you imagine abolishing it from your life.”
My friends stare at me.
Cassie gapes at me. “You imagined ending BJ?”
“Not ending him,” I defend quickly. “I wanted to hurt him like he did to me. I wanted to rid myself of the pain.”
Violet clicks her tongue. “It’s a weird form of manifesting.”
Bella takes a piece of paper and a pen from me. “Did you ever believe you would end up together? Be as happy as you are now?”
I hand paper and pens to Violet and Cassie and then sit beside Bella. “Only in my dreams when I didn’t have control of my thoughts. It was sexual dreams that woke me, as though my conscious and dream state battled out who would win, and I’d wake in a sweaty, hot mess. Then, I’d be hit with confusion as waves of anger and sadness rolled over me. I wanted the torture of still wanting him to stop, so the only way to get through it was to hate him every second I was awake.” Cassie is staring at me. “End what made him happy. I wanted him to be miserable, and basketball was the most important thing in BJ’s life, so I wanted him to fail on the court.”
“Definitely not manifesting,” Violet mutters. “Secretly, you’re a witch, and you’re teaching us how to write a spell.”
I laugh at Violet. “It must have worked because look at us now.”
Cassie isn’t looking at me as she writes the number one at the top of the page. “Did he fail?”
“No. He went on to do great things. Even made the Australian Olympic team.”
Bella exhales loudly and lays her pen down. “So the list doesn’t work.”
“It does. Deep down, I knew I was truly happy with him, so it brought us together.” I smile, but the truth is that the lists only helped with my mindset at the time.
