Declan Hankinston is on a mission to find a new prom date amidst the pain of his first heartbreak. Encouraged by his cousin Aubrey, he ventures into the world of gay online dating and signs up for Grindr to seek a companion. Little does he know, Aub...
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"Excuse me." I try to go unnoticed and squeeze my way through people, speed walking, hoping Aubrey will lose me in the crowd. "Sorry," I whisper and lie low, forcibly smiling through my discontent. But I know resentment is written all over my face. The anxiety it brings me is boiling over and cracking through to the surface.
Aubrey wasn't always like this. The things she used to do made sense. She made sense, but I can't even recognise her nowadays.
As her Mom's condition worsened, I noticed that Aubrey became more unbalanced, to put it nicely. The things she cared about, she started caring about more in an unhealthy way. Take her Mom, Emma, for instance. She's giving up her life for her. A life I know she wishes she didn't get stuck with, no matter how much she tries to convince everyone otherwise. She had dreams.
We would talk about how we pictured our lives after high school a lot. She was so excited to have the chance to get out and explore what else the world has to offer. She knew that there was better out there than the meaningless lives of those surrounding us.
She daydreamed about dorming on a college campus, joining a sorority and having sisters. She even applied to UPenn and managed to receive a full ride. And now she's just throwing it all away to play caretaker for her Mom, working odd jobs and isolating herself from society.
And then there's the Declan thing, which is beyond next level.
"Hi, excuse me. Can you point me to the bus schedule?" The lady at the customer service desk barely looks away from her phone that she has propped up against her tumbler.
"Yup, walk out that exit over there behind the theatre. The bus schedule will be to your right." She points to the theatre exit, but her eyes are, quite literally, super-glued to her phone. Her name tag says her name is Teri, Teri with one r, not two. Yup, she's one of those. I bet she thinks the spelling with two R's and a Y is the 'wrong way to spell it, too.
"Um, okay. Thanks." I back away slowly, cautiously scoping out the crowds to see if Aubrey is around. I'm surprised she hasn't come to customer service to ask them to call me over through the loudspeaker. As if this isn't already a horrible day, that would worsen it.
Still, it gets even worse when I finally get to the bus schedule because the buses are fucking done running for the day. You've got to be fucking kidding me. Of course, this happens to me.
"FUCKKKKKK", I caterwaul, leaning against the Mall's Renaissance-inspired concrete brickwork and pounding my fists against it.
Hey, do you mind picking me up from the mall? I text Ben and slide my back down the brick wall, all the way until I'm sat flat on my ass. My phone buzzes but buzzes too long for it just to be a text. I scoff at the sight of Aubrey's caller-ID photo. Fuck off. I let it ring instead of clicking deny, but she calls again.
