Wait.
Icelle?
Did Mom lie?
What if she really did text Icelle, but my friend hasn’t read Mom’s message yet?
Is that why Icelle hasn’t blacklisted me yet?
“What are you doing here?” I demand.
Icelle only looks at me with her RBF. As in, resting bitch face, which I asked about the first time we met. And in case you still haven’t figured this out by now about me—I am very,verybig on honesty.
“Why aren’t you dressed?”
This is so typical of Icelle. She tends to answer every question with another question because she thinks her face already says it all. I’ve tried my best to convince her otherwise, but shestillbelieves that her RBF is supposed to be enough for all of us poor mortals. Icelle may have the kind of face that can launch a thousand ships—but anyone relying on her for direction is better off buying an emotional compass, and...here we go again.
Why are all the ladies in my life so uniquely stubborn?
Icelle grabs one of my duffel bags and starts shoving clothes into it without saying a word.
I jump to my feet, and we end up playing tug-of-war with my favorite shirt. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Helping you pack, what else?”
Pack?
For what?
“Did younotget my mom’s text?” That’s the only reason I can think of for Icelle to still be here when she should be running in the opposite direction. Not a single friendship of mine has ever survived the moment my mother enters the picture. She doesn’t just burn bridges. She salts the earth, paves over the ashes, and then asks the person on the other side if they can lend her money for gas.
“Of course I did.”
“And?” This is so, so like Icelle, with how she’s still diligently working on packing my clothes even as I’m just as diligent in undoing everything she does.
She throws something in, I throw something out. I can be stubborn, too, you know.
...
Okay, I give up.
I’m clearly not as stubborn as Icelle or my mom because we’ve already been doing this for five minutes, and I have never been the patient type.
“Stop this!”
As expected, Icelle looks at me with her RBF, butno, no, no,I am not letting her get away with it this time.
“You have to explain yourself,” I insist. “You say you got Mom’s text, but did you read it?”
Icelle’s beautifulblankface finally cracks. Admittedly, it’s the tiniest crack, but it’s enough. I think she’s exasperated. Or annoyed. Hard to tell the difference when you’re only working with a millimeter’s worth of emotions.
“Why are you being so silly about this?”
I can tell she feels strongly about this. She’s even shaking her head as she says the words, which for Icelle is as good as a yell.
But honestly?
I’m tempted to shake my head back at her becauseshe’sthe silly one, not me. How can she not see it’s the height of silliness—no, actually, let’s call a spade a spade here. It’s not just silliness but sheer stupidity to stay friends with me, now that she knows what Mom’s capable of.
