On a Loop

2| "YOU A DAMN DRUG, YOU'RE TOXIC" - KEHLANI

Lauren held her breath.

She swallowed the food in her mouth slowly. It went down in a thick, dry, gulp.

"Uh, I have absolutely nothing to do this weekend. You?" She stammered.

Yes! That's it Lauren, be as free as humanly possible.

Trent dusted some pizza crust crumbs from her lap. "A friend of mine is throwing a wild party at his family's cottage on Saturday. It's supposed to be an all day thing. I plan to spend Sunday curled up next to a bottle of Pedialyte!" He chuckled.

Lauren waited in anticipation for any of the following offers to spill from his lips:

You should come!
Since you're free...
Wanna join?

But they didn't.

Lauren sat pondering how much of an idiot she was, while picking away at the remains of her pizza slice. She had lost her appetite.

How embarrassing.

Less than two minutes ago, she would have jumped - no - leapt at the opportunity to spend her Saturday with this mediocre, white guy.

Okay, she knew that was mean. That was just the rejection talking but what was worse, was at this point she could only think about how she could not possibly be good enough, pretty enough or even white enough for him. She sulked at the thought.

She. Was. Sick. He got to fuck her, and a commitment free weekend with the boys.

"Sounds lit." Lauren said dejectedly.

"Are you okay? You don't look so good." Hearing this, she realized she must've looked as gruesome as she felt.

"I'm not feeling so good, Trent." Lauren replied through her teeth. Her voice was tense, but he didn't seem to pick up on that and she couldn't help but think about how oblivious Trent was, or maybe he didn't care and was just vapid. Either way, Lauren couldn't help but feel that all the emotions surging through her were his fault. All because he couldn't take a hint.

"Our lunch is almost over," She said, though it wasn't. "Let's head back."

Trent looked stricken, but rigidly remained in his seat. Lauren forced a weak smile and all her patience evaporated. She quickly threw away her leftovers and sped out of the door, leaving Trent still eating, alone.

Once she had gotten to the edge of her workplace, Lauren couldn't bear to even think of passing Cherise alone. She carefully peered through the window closest to her to find Cherise was being incredibly chatty with a senior citizen delivery man. Figures. Girl does have zaddy goals. Lauren passed the windowed lobby quickly so as to not be seen and reached the opposite end of the building's Pierre Davenport Enterprise sign.

She paced back and forth in steps so small, she looked like a crazy woman spinning around on a sidewalk's square space. Lauren racked her brain to find an idea, a concept, a thought to save her from either having to explain to Cherise that she had left Trent in her dust, or that he just was not interested. She also mulled over cutting her losses and lying, or faking an illness.

Lauren rummaged through her sleek, black mini bag looking for some sort of life vest while the lunch rush of humans passed around her. She spotted her rose gold, wireless, in-ear headphones under her Fenty Glossbomb, keys, debit card and some loose change. She wanted to blast her music and ignore Cherise, for now, but when she squeezed the power button, there was no juice. She placed both earbuds in anyway and committed to the plan, for several reasons including the fact that a seemingly perfect sunny day had become overcast and she didn't want to get her hair wet. It seemed dramatic, but regardless of how coiffed, a fro is a fro and shrinkage is a real thing.