Nodus Tollens

XXXIX.

After enlisting the help of my friends, Jade, Additri, and I sat around my dining room table stuffing the gift bags for my birthday party. Normally I would have hired someone to do such a tedious job, but I needed a task that kept my hands busy and talk time with my friends to rebuild my crashing self-esteem when it came to Arsen. Not that Jade was helping by any means.

"You are such a chicken," Jade laughed, shaking her head.

"Jade, shut up," I glared at her from across the table. "I don't want to talk about it with you."

"You brought it up."

"I didn't bring it up to you. I know how much of an unsympathetic bitch you tend to be," I turned to Additri who was sitting beside me. "I just don't know why I turn into uncertain ugly green jello when I'm around him. It's ridiculous."

"Because you like him," Additri giggled, grabbing a boxed MacBook from the pile in the center of the table.

"I've liked a lot of guys in my life, Ade," I reminded her. "I've never turned into uncertain ugly green jello."

"You are not ugly green jello," Jade smiled, opening up a box of Godiva chocolate. "You're more like....the delicious cherry kind. With whip cream on top?"

"Very cute," I said dryly, reaching over to snatch the box out of her hand. "This is not for you to eat. If you can't stuff these bags without meddling with the contents you're fired."

"To be fired wouldn't you have to be paying me?" She retorted, snatching the box I held out back.

"Your payment is in the form of this gift bag," I pointed to the large non-woven bags we were working on. "There's over $5,000 worth of stuff in here."

"No kidding. MacBooks, the latest iPhone, Beats, speakers, hundreds of dollars worth of gift cards," Additri grinned, kissing the iPhone box in her hands. "I love rubbing elbows with the rich."

I giggled and dropped a speaker into the bag before pushing aside to the finished pile. "This is why I've always advised you to marry rich. You can never go wrong with a rich man."

"You don't plan on marrying rich," Jade smiled, dropping a pair of headphones in the bag in front of her.

"I don't need to marry rich," my eyes narrowed. "I am rich"

"There's no such thing as too much money," she shrugged. "You should think about that while you're tormenting yourself over Arsen."

I clicked my tongue and roughly shoved a laptop into another bag.

"Oh, I'm joking."

"It's not funny," I opened up a box of chocolate and popped one in my mouth. "I don't appreciate you making fun of me when I'm in the middle of a crisis."

Additri laughed, looking over at me. "Crisis? I don't think this constitutes as a crisis, Juliet."

"Especially since this is all self-inflicted," Jade shrugged. "Hey, how come you get to eat the chocolate?"

"Because I paid for it," My eyebrows arched. "And what does that mean? Self-inflicted?"

"It means you're making this harder for yourself than it needs to be," she unscrewed the lid of her water bottle. "Ask him out and stop being a baby about it. He'll say yes."