real life!
"I'm in a crisis" are the first words I say to West as he lets himself into my apartment.
Watching the little rat as he weasels his way to my kitchen and inspects the fridge as if he hasn't seen it a million times already and isn't about to take the expired cranberry juice waiting patiently at the back, I already know the next words out of his mouth. West Monroe is about to tell me he's not the right one to listen to my problems and send me off with a nice pat on my back to Angie.
"I love your energy," he starts, pointing at me. "But I can't hear anything about a crisis right now. That's more Angie's thing."
And there it is. Trust West to be predictable.
Frowning, I ask, "Do you see Angie here?"
"No, which is why you just need to hold on to that crisis a bit longer." He clenches his fist and does that face you make when you're going for glory on your toilet, but I suppose he means for it to be a face of You got this! You can hold it all in until Angie comes over! I'm only here for juice! Ugh. "Just reel it in, baby."
In this moment, I've discovered West Monroe's accent is the only British accent that makes me want to crawl in a hole and never come out, but that may just be my reaction to all the audacity this man possesses for someone who barges into my house every Saturday morning to drink my cranberry juice straight from the jug, so I glare at him with all my might. "If you're going to drink my cranberry juice, you could at least listen to the problems of the person who pays for it," I chide.
"First of all, the cranberry juice is expired—"
"That's the way you like it."
"Second of all"—he burps—"me and you don't talk. I'm all like, 'Kavi, I hate you,' then you laugh in my face, then Mar slaps me over the head, then Angie yells at us to 'be nice to each other.' Whatever that means." He shrugs. "That's us."
Times like these I wish I'd become an actress. I could've whipped out the tears and just watch Wes crawl on his knees to hear everything that's going wrong in my pathetic excuse of a life.
"If Mar was here she'd threatened to throw that knife at you," I say, motioning to the butter knife on the counter.
It's a thinly-veiled threat for two reasons—it's a butter knife that can't actually do anything to this fragile man, and Mar would probably threaten him with the carving knife instead—but it seems to land enough that the poor boy actually shudders, spilling a couple drops of juice on his Nirvana t-shirt.
"Fine," he moans, shaking his head as he takes another sip. "Just know Mar only threatens me because she's in love with me, plus I'm not good at being nice to you."
"You're nice to Angie."
"Angie's an angel," he says like it's obvious. "She literally has angel in her name."
"I'm the angel. Who else is keeping expired cranberry juice in their fridge for you?"
"Angie would if I asked," he points out. "Because she's the angel."
He was definitely right to tell me to reel it in. I'm 0.000005 seconds away from launching myself towards that butter knife and carving an angel into the back of his skull, but going to prison because of this stupid man is the last thing on my to-do list. I have a vision of my loud-mouthed mother bringing the whole family to prison to see me, and that's not something I can risk, so I'm going to ignore his stupid face and just let mouth-running Kavi have her moment and tell him what I have to say.
"I'm ignoring my mom's calls because she wants us to have a family reunion, but I don't want to see my sister or that jerk's face because I'm all single and alone and my mom would force us to talk to each other," I rush out. "My mom's called me ten times since yesterday, but I haven't picked up a single one, and I'm five seconds away from blocking her."
His eyes widen. "If you'd told me this was about your mum I would've stolen your juice and run."
"Why?"
"Your mum hates me."
I scoff. "I told you not to take that personally. She hates everyone."
"And she's scary."
"Yes, she is." She'd probably chew him up, spit him out, then stomp on him if she were here, but I imagine that's the last thing he wants to hear. "Which is why I need to figure out how to get her off my back so I can live in peace."
He shakes his head violently. "You can't do that."
Music stop. That's the last thing I wanted him to say on this beautiful gloomy day. The sky's grey, the clouds are united and ready to pour, the birds have seemingly flown for cover, and he still decides to say I can't live out my dream of escaping my mother. Way to rain on my already-ruined parade. "The hell do you mean I can't do that?"
"You have to go to the reunion and show your new boyfriend off," he says, his hands moving so wildly a bit of juice falls on to the floor. "Yeah, you can't let your ex see you single."
"You want me to show off a boyfriend I don't have?" It sounds even stupider when I say it. "Are you insane?"
He shrugs. "Just find one."
Now, I wouldn't say I'm Thomas Edison (which is probably for the best considering that whole Nikola Tesla thing), but that has to be the stupidest thing to ever come out of this man's mouth. So stupid it's almost perfect. I might throw it in a little newspaper ad so no one ever finds out, or I'll start an online thing with an opening no one can resist: $500/hour to be my fake boyfriend and impress my idiot family. I'll have an alias, too, but I'm afraid those Directioners camping everywhere will find out, blast me, and I'll become the joke of the internet. I'll be forced to change my name, leave everything I know behind, and live as a penguin in Antarctica, which means I'm back to square one of thinking finding a fake boyfriend is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
"Wes, that is the worst idea you've ever had."
He cocks his brow. "Really? I thought it was pretty brilliant."
"No, no." I wave him off. "Imagine this: I show up to my reunion with someone I don't know, make up all these lies we can't even keep track of, and then we end up like one of those movies where they get exposed at the end but everyone magically doesn't hold a grudge." I'll tell you what: I'm a mouth-runner and a grudge-holder. I can't sacrifice that simply to pull off this elaborate reunion plot. It'll be like the mint chocolate chip sacrifice but 0.1 times worse. "Then my family will actually have a reason to hate me more than my sister, and that's my worst nightmare."
"I'll be your fake boyfriend," he offers. "We know each other; your mum knows me. Boom."
"No boom. Actually, that's even more of a reason not to try and do this."
He rolls his eyes. "I don't see you coming up with anything better."
"I have. I'm going to ignore her until she doesn't even remember she has another daughter."
He bursts out into laughter. "The first time I met your mum she smacked me, forced her number in my phone, and then used to send me texts saying I wasn't good enough to be your friend." Yeah, that was a terrible phase. Mostly because of it how it ended, with the usually annoying, in-your-face West rapping at my door one night to weep (which he'll deny) about how awful my mother is. I patted his head, sent her a scathing voice message, blocked her number for him, then listened to her yell at me about it every time she called until I finally pulled off the famous ignore-it-until-she-forgets-about-it. "Kavi, that woman is not going to go down without a fight."
Don't I know it.
"Well, it's either that or pretend you're my fake boyfriend."
"I'd be a great fake boyfriend, you know?" He blinks, hand slapping his chest as a hiccup escapes. "I'd get you flowers, take you on walks on the beach, take you out. I'd be so good."
I understand it seems like the perfect set-up—he's already familiar with whatever schemes my mother carries with her wherever she goes—but one, it's West; two, Mar and Angie would have my ass for agreeing to anything that comes out of West's mouth; three, my mom hates West; and four, my mom has made it clear she doesn't want me to end up with anyone making less than six-figures, which begs the question why she's okay with my sister living it up with a man who's wasting away his twenties in his mother's spare room and working odd jobs to get a couple hundred every other week, but I don't dilly-dally on that part much anymore. I'm halfway across the world for a reason.
"Wes, it's hard to take you seriously when I know you're drinking expired cranberry juice right now."
"Whoa," he balks. "You can't come at me for that when you bought it."
"I bought it because I'm a good person. Unlike you, I wouldn't risk food poisoning for that shit."
His nose scrunches, peering over at the jug. "I can get food poisoning from this?"
"I don't know!" I exclaim, throwing my hands in the air. "It's a figure of speech."
"I'm no genius"—he burps again—"but I don't think that's how it works."
"You're British." I roll my eyes. "You know nothing."
"Boom!" he yells, eyes lighting up. "We're already arguing like a couple. We could totally pull that reunion thing off."
God save me.
kala —
not how i meant this chapter to end up at all but anyways