Hearts and Heels

07 // in which jen finally has had enough

          “Don’t you think you’ve been a little . . . different?” Tim speaks as he’s staring at me in a weird way, as if he’s lazily scanning my features. I raise my eyebrow as a signal, allowing him to elaborate. “Like . . . I don’t know, but you kinda look like crap.”

          I snort. “Thanks a lot, Tim. I feel great about myself now.”

          He fakes a bow. “As well you should be, princess.” He pauses. “No, but seriously, you kinda look like crap. You usually use minimal make up, but now? It’s like you just rose from the dead. I mean,”—then he whispers, leaning closer to me—“have you seen Layla? She looks like a damn queen all the time with all that make up, and still manage to look like one without it.”

          “Yeah, I can tell by the way your heart is swooning over her.” I roll my eyes. “I’m still mad at you guys for not telling me you two slept with each other. Constantly.”

          He reddens, and murmurs while looking away, “We couldn’t find the right time to tell you until it just . . . came out, you know?”

          “Do you guys still . . . ?”

          “What, no,” he blurts out, shaking his head vigorously in defense. “No, no, no, no. Ha, no. Definitely not, no.”

          “That’s a lot of no’s,” I state, raising an eyebrow. I can tell he’s hiding something away from me by the way he’s avoiding eye contact and his vigorous body movements—his leg shaking and simultaneously sucking his cheeks inside slightly. “Do you wanna tell me something?”

          Hesitation. “No.”

          I sigh. “Okay then.” I’m not one to force secrets or things out of people. I just wait for them to get comfortable with it and finally tell me.

          Hearing a knock from my apartment’s door, I ask him, “Did you invite anyone?”

          “That’s probably Layla.”

          Groaning, I turn away from him, and walk towards the door. To say that I’m totally okay with being in the same room with Layla is not the right statement. I’m not okay. I don’t exactly know what to feel towards her after finding out a lot of things that she’d done behind my back, but I know that hooking up with Joshua isn’t really one thing to be mad of. It’s just . . . there’s just something.

          Once I open the door, she looks at me with a wary glance, and says, “Hi.”

          “Hi,” I mumble. Then, I step out of her way, and push the door wider, allowing her to walk in. She does. She sits next to Tim on the couch, and everything’s just so awkward in this atmosphere.

          But knowing how straightforward Layla is, I expect her to say something first. And she does. “Did I do something wrong to you, Jen? You’ve been giving me the cold shoulder for the past two days.”

          I have a feeling that this is going to end badly. Arguing with Layla has never been on my wish list.

          So I try to be as gentle as possible. “Maybe.” She opens her mouth to speak, but I cut her off, because I want her to listen to me first, “I mean, you did tell me that you slept with our best friend and Joshua. I’m somehow not okay with that.”

          A look of disbelief falls upon her features. “Is that it? Is it? Because I’ve told you that I was drunk that time with the whole Joshua thing. I didn’t recognize him at first! And when Tim mentioned about a party, I remembered. I even told you about it right after—at least when we had a little time to ourselves.”