She glared at me. “If I had, it wouldn’t be any of your business.”
“Considering I’m a person, not some interchangeable object you buy from a vending machine, itismy business.” I pressed my hands against the counter, aware everyone watched us like we were on a messy reality show. Aidan stood inside the living room, and I made another connection. “There’s another guy you can use to check off that writing group, right? What else is on your list? Bag a weatherman?”
“It’s Chelsea’s list. Not that it matters.” She yanked her phone from my hand.
Did it matter? I breathed through my teeth, all the venom I’d intended to throw at Vicky finally finding a target. “Is that how you justify yourself?”
Therewas the look of disgust she’d been bottling up. “Call me when you’ve pulled your head out of your ass.” She grabbed her half-empty bottle of wine, turned, and said, “Or better yet, don’t.”
She pushed her way through the rubberneckers and disappeared. I watched her go, simmering in my self-righteousness, stunned she’d walked out mid-conversation, leaving me standing there in the fallout of a fight I hadn’t even meant to pick. I couldn’t even blame it on the alcohol. My destructive impulses drove me to rage at everyone who’d made me feel this unlovable, this gullible, but spewing my self-loathing all over Elizabeth hadn’t made me feel any better. I should have taken the exit ramp earlier when she’d asked me to calm down.
I already regretted every word.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Elizabeth
“All’s hushed as midnight yet.”
The Tempest
The temperature must have dropped another ten degrees while we were inside, but I was so angry, I burned with the heat of a million suns. I stormed up the street, grumbling about assholes and their asshole behavior. For a heartbeat, I considered turning back to confront Evan and make him apologize, make him tell me he hadn’t meant any of it, that he was just caught up in the heat of the moment.
Was I a coward for running away instead of standing up to him?
At the corner, I spied a twenty-four-hour laundromat and ducked inside to stay warm while I ordered an Uber. Once I had one booked, I dialed Chelsea’s number and waited while it rang. And rang. When it dropped me to voice mail, I kicked a laundry basket, watching as it rolled away wobbly and pathetic. I tried her number again, hoping she’d respond with the urgency I always reserved for her, but as it rolled off to voice mail again, I realized she’d probably turned off her phone to enjoy her night with Bas uninterrupted, and I cursed him for stealing my friend.
At the tone, I said, “I really, really, really need you to call me ASAP.”
As soon as I hung up, I texted her the same, then stared at my phone, willing it to ring. But it never did. I was irrationally angry at her for failing to live up to her end of our friend contract. It was supposed to be us against the world, but lately, her world had revolved around a Greek sun. I wanted to be happy about that, but I felt abandoned.
I scrolled through my contacts, looking for someone else to call, but who could I talk to? I had no other friends. Kate? Gigi? I’d never spoken to either outside of work. Kyan? The author of my current situation? There was nobody. I’d put all my friend eggs in the Chelsea basket, and once she made good on her plans to vamoose, I’d be left here all alone.
I’d been counting on her to chicken out, but tonight felt like a trial run, and I didn’t know what I’d do here without her. I couldn’t even process tonight’s events without her serving as my sounding board.
So I sat on a bench under fluorescent lights, drinking out of a wine bottle, alone on a Saturday night, feeling like a poor character out of a Victor Hugo novel.
Fuck that. I didn’t need Chelsea here to know exactly what she’d say. I stood up and paced the laundromat, breathing in the dryer sheet smells and talking out loud.
“Tonight went catastrophically off the rails,” I told my imaginary friend.
“Do tell,” I answered, imitating her slight Western Virginia drawl.
I retraced the entire trajectory of the night, starting from the moment we arrived. “Evan was on edge meeting all these people he used to know.”
“Because high school sucked,” imaginary Chelsea answered. She was right about that.
“But he rallied, despite the Vicky of it all. He faced down one of his tormentors, and I was so proud of the way he handled that.” The advantage of talking to a figment of my imagination was that I hadn’t told the real Chelsea everything Evan had confided in me, so I could talk openly about Patagonia Vicky. In that moment, I’d thought a weight had lifted, that maybe Evan had faced one of his fears, and he’d let it all go.
“That’s admirable,” imaginary Chelsea conceded. “It takes a lot of courage to confront your demons.”
If the night had ended right there, I wouldn’t be standing in a laundromat, talking to myself. “But then Kyan detonated a landmine, and Evan just—” what? How was I ever going to explain this to Chelsea without her next sentence being, “Kick him to the curb.”
Imaginary Chelsea tsked. “That bomb should have been defused already.”
“Right? We’ve been over it. I’m not crazy to think he overreacted, am I?”
“You know that wasn’t even about you, right?” Chelsea would remind me, and that was true. “But there was no excuse for using you like a punching bag.”
