Best Served Fake

six // we are never ever getting back together

I only remembered flashes of last night.

The feeling of dancing in Sydney's spotlight, and the warmth of Kai's gaze as he watched me. Taking care of me, as Cora had made him promise to. Laughing and screaming and yelling. Flashes of light and bursts of sound, the bass thrumming like a heartbeat through my veins. Downing shots fast enough to drown the feelings of unease, until the only unease I felt was from the liquid churning in my gut. Stumbling, giggling, the hedge in Jack Heath's front yard. My knees pressed into tanbark as a cool hand held the hair loosely at the nape of my neck.

I wrinkled my nose. "Classy."

Mum sighed. "I failed raising you. This is a fail grade for me."

Cora was back to looking concerned again. It was her natural state. "Valerie, are you—"

"Fine," I said, smiling brightly. I think I might be halfway to dead and my head hurts and my heart hurts and since when was the sun so bright? "One hundred percent fine."

"And you look it too," said Mum.

Cora smiled hesitantly at my mum. "She's not fine, she's... well—"

I snorted a laugh, and it was almost hysterical; a manic edge curling at the corners of my voice. "Fine. She is completely and utterly fine. So what that my boyfriend of two years cheated on me? And so what if he decided to do it with my best friend of forever? And so what if I had to witness it happening with my own two eyes, because the dumb shits didn't even have the courtesy to do it in their own homes?"

My mother's eyes were blown wide, and her mouth had fallen open to form a small oh. She looked from me to Cora, as if she was unsure how to progress in this situation. She turned back to me. "Um, Valerie? That, uh, doesn't exactly seem like a so what situation."

I shrugged. Dreariness was fading quickly, leaving me somewhat clearheaded and alert. I waited for a moment; waited for anger, rage, heartbreak, sadness, despair. Instead, what set in was a feeling of tranquil apathy. Because so what. Sydney and Tommy had made their bed, and I wasn't planning on falling on it in a heap.

They could grovel and they could beg, but I had already buried them both. I wasn't ever looking to dig up the bodies.

So, I drew up in my bed, looking at Mum and Cora with a bright smile. They eyed me back wearily. "They can enjoy each other for all I care. I want to enjoy a fat stack of pancakes. With a shit tonne of hot fudge sauce and ice cream. I am talking diabetes onset. Does anyone feel like breakfast?"

Cora was wincing. "Um... sure?" She looked at my mother for confirmation; Mum just shrugged desperately in response, as if to say, well, Val's gone nuts, let's just keep her comfortable. Cora turned back to me with a bright smile. "Sure! Yeah. Great. Fun. There's a café around the corner we could go to?"

I gave her an enthusiastic thumbs up. "Awesome. I'm just going to get changed, but I'll meet you outside in a second."

Mum's smile was still firmly fixed in place, but it was wearing at the edges, obviously false. "Sure, honey. We'll uh... we'll see you out there in a second."

Cora and Mum exchanged another holy shit, Valerie's gone off her rocker expression, but I was relieved when they didn't press further and departed the room swiftly, presumably to wait for me downstairs. But I didn't break down when Cora gently closed the door behind her. I didn't even want to. My headache had vanished with my anger, and I was feeling... I was feeling fantastic.

I looked at my reflection in my wardrobe mirror. And yeah, I looked a little worse for wear. My makeup was smudged around my eyes, and my hair was mussed and tangled. Kai's shirt, which had a rather cute graphic picture of some indie band, was big enough to make me look like a formless blob. But my eyes were bright and joyful. My lips were curved into a smile. Fuck you, Tommy Aster, I thought viciously. This is what you're missing.