Page 94

SOPHIE: I don’t know. I think so. How is Hayden?

BETTE: He’ll be fine. I’m not sure I will be if he doesn’t come clean and apologize. I’m so pissed about what he did and hurt that he did it behind my back.

SOPHIE: You do know you just did the same thing?

BETTE: Stop being my conscious. I want to get past all of this. I’ve shoved the pain of his betrayal down so I can address it with him. I want to be rational when we talk about all this shit. And I won’t apologize for getting to it first because if I didn’t take care of myself, who else was going to do that? I would have been sitting there looking like a fucking idiot and feeling even worse.

SOPHIE: Look, I’m all TEAM BETTE, but girl, remember he was sitting there thinking the same.

BETTE: And that’s why we’ll talk about it all. I gotta go and face the music.

I put the phone down, take another swig of champagne, and walk over to his door. I knock on it. “Hayden, stop sulking and drink with me.”

There’s no answer so I bang, it slowly opens and the room is empty. It looks like it’s been tossed by the cops. I start running from the closet to the bathroom then my room and back to the kitchen. I whip open the refrigerator to check for Greek yogurt, he’s never without it. It’s gone.

I put the bottle down and spin around, looking for any sign of him. All he left was his sexy-as-hell smell to haunt me. He ghosted me again. I know rationally he didn’t before, but this time, the coward left. I flop down on the couch and pull my feet up under me.

I’ve already talked to my mom and Sophie. And he’s not here which means, I have no one. I didn’t even notice I’ve shoved everyone out of my life. Maybe Three-Date Tate will pick up.

Where did he go? I text on our work phone and my personal.

BETTE: We need to talk. Where are you? I need to know why you did that?

BETTE: You’re really gone?

BETTE: Again.

I lay on the couch and the gloom creeps up on me. I thought I had a handle on it, but I feel it at the back of my spine and it envelops me without thought. It possesses me in such a familiar way, it’s the same pain of being left by the one person I thought was meant for me. I don’t understand how what I did was any different than what he was going to do?

I’m alone.

With my dream job.

I say weakly as I lift my fists on either side of my shoulders, “Yeah. Go you!”

I sit there for another minute or two staring at my quiet phone.

“Hey, Siri, I got a promotion!”

“I don’t know what that means, ‘I got a promotion.’ Do you want me to search for it?”

No. I don’t. “Hey, Siri, why am I alone?”

“Hmm… I don’t have an answer for that, is there something else I can help you with?”

“Hey, Siri, are you happy?”

“I’d say I’m the software version of happy right now. How about you? Are you feeling happy?”

Fuck you, little robot. You’re happy. I’m happy. Do not ask me that again, little robot.

I say to her, “I guess.”

Siri says, “That’s great. You should write down everything you are feeling so you can remember it.”

“Hey, Siri. Can you bring me fried chicken? That might make me happy.”

“Here are places that deliver to your location.” I push on one of them and get chicken delivered.