"Phoebe, I have to tell you something." I wasted no words. The truth had been building up like bile in my throat, and I felt that it was bound to come out any moment.
"Good morning to you too, Rylin." My friend smiled, but her eyes quickly went to a chair next to the door. A girl our age was sitting there. Oh, a client. Abort mission. But when I looked again, I saw it was someone I knew from way back when. "Mindy! What are you doing here?"
A tall, black-haired woman got to her feet. "I was in the neighbourhood, and decided to come say hi."
I wrapped my arms around my old friend, pulling her in somewhat of an awkward hug. "I thought you moved to Brighton?"
Mindy let go of me and took a step back. "Yeah, let's not talk about that. Not many people wanted permanent makeup done there. Or at least, not by me. So I decided to come back home." She stopped talking for a second, shooting a quick glance at Phoebe. Something was going on. "But how are you, Rylin?"
"I'm doing great," I said, even if it wasn't true.
"Well, I have to go now, but I will probably see you around!" And with those words, Mindy left, leaving me and Phoebe in an uncomfortable silence. I fled past her, into the break room, my head filling up with worries again. I could vaguely hear Phoebe greet an incoming client.
"Coffee," I muttered, grabbing my pink mug, and choosing a cappuccino this time. No more espressos for me.
"Hey," Phoebe whispered as she walked into the room, "are you really doing okay?"
I nodded, faking a smile. Anyone could smell from a mile away that this would be the worst time, to tell the truth. "These days off really... put some things into perspective for me." It wasn't all the truth, but it wasn't a lie either. Nerves rushed through my body, but I quickly added: "And Phoebes, there is something I need to talk to you about."
My friend did not seem surprised. Did she know? "Okay, now?"
Well, if she knew she had been hiding it extremely well. "No, I think we need to have some time just to sit down."
Phoebe nodded. "Okay. But I don't think I have time until the end of the day." She glanced at her phone, "No, I don't. I moved my lunch break because someone is coming in for a check-up on their lunch break."
I took a deep breath. "Okay, that's okay. End of the day, then."
Phoebe stepped closer, wrapping her arms around me for a few seconds. "I don't know what's going on, but you really do seem better today." She let go of me, a warm smile on her face. "And you can talk to me about anything, Rylin. I know work has been difficult for you lately, but I'm not just your business partner, I'm your friend."
It took all I had to keep a straight face when the dark, heavy guilt dripped into my blood again. I should have told her days, weeks ago. Judging by the way she looked at me now, the way she had looked at me before, she thought that my mental health was plummeting again. Well, she wasn't all that wrong, but it was plummeting because the pressure of my own lies, my own shitty decisions, had pushed it into a freefall.
A deep sigh left my lips as Phoebe walked out of the room, welcoming the client into her tattooing room. One more day, I had to survive one more day with the guilt of lying, and then I had to live god knows how many days with the anger of my best friend.
***
The day went by fast, way faster than I had hoped. Before I knew it, I had seen a bunch of clients, tattooed, done some checkups, and had two intake appointments. I went to the nearby bakery for lunch, because my fridge was still empty, and took just a few smoke breaks. My phone was awfully quiet, but that was because for the first time ever, I had forgotten to charge my phone last night, and it had run out of battery playing the podcast of some guy reading me an entire Wikipedia page. I had no clue where my charger went, and Phoebe had a Samsung. I cursed Apple for having such an annoying charger hole.
But part of me also loved the quiet. I could not worry about what to text Remington if he sent me a cheeky picture of him in a mirror next to a bed or some insanely hot outfit he was planning on wearing tonight at his show if I did not even get those texts at all. I could not get into my head about what to say if my screen stayed black no matter how frantically I pushed the on button.
It did feel weird, though. Could one have withdrawal symptoms from a person?
I had no clue. All I knew was that I needed a plan to come clean to my best friend about the most gut-wrenching lies I had ever told, and thinking about Remington was not helping my cause.
***
Before I knew it, I was out of time. Our working day had ended, the front door of Inner Beauty was locked, and the lights in the front room dimmed.
We sat in the break room, two best friends turned strangers. I had not spoken to her in weeks, except about being on time, clients, and other business-related things. I missed being her friend, but I was terrified of the road I had to walk to get there.
I made the both of us tea, and I took a sip of mine before taking a deep breath. "Phoebe," I said, nerves clawing around my heart. This really was the moment I would tell her. Everything would be out, now, and my mind might finally know peace again. Except for the dark-haired boy that was still hanging around in there.
I knew Phoebe, and how explosive her anger could be. But I was willing to live through that. I deserved her wraith, after how much I had lied.
"Calm down," Phoebe smiled, "what is this? An intervention?"
"No, it's not."
"I mean," Phoebe also took a sip of her tea, "I think I know why I'm here. And it's nothing to be ashamed of, Ry."
I looked at her, lips still curled into a smile, eyes full of trust and peace. Confusion ripped through me. How would she know what I was going to say? And how, in God's name, was she so calm, even if she knew I had lied to her for at least a month, pushed her out so she would not figure it out? I knew Phoebe's tolerance policy on lying: zero.
I had no idea what Phoebe thought she knew, but I was 99 per cent sure it was not that I was still involved with Remington.
"Did you know..." I started, Phoebe's eyes getting darker with worry as she heard the tone of my voice. But my body froze, my brain not able to send the command to my mouth, to tell the truth. "Did you know that all dinosaur species are united by twenty-one traits in their skulls and skeletons?"
Phoebe frowned. "What?" She started getting up. "I don't have time for useless dinosaur facts."
"Don't go..." I sighed, "What I actually want to say is terrifying me."
She nodded, sitting back down.
I looked at my best friend once more, knowing that this would be the last moment of peace between us for a while, and let the truth spill out of me. "I lied to you. A lot." I started with the worst thing. "Do you remember that guy I met when I went to London? The musician?"
I watched the colour drain from Phoebe's face, and I wanted to take back all my words. I'd leave Inner Beauty, move to another city, country, whatever, and start a new life, all so I wouldn't have to be confronted with my best friend's anger, and even worse, her disappointment.
"That famous guy?" Phoebe spat out the words.
I nodded, even if it felt wrong. It felt like ages ago when Remington was just some famous guy I had sex with once. It seemed centuries ago when my life wasn't fully intertwined with his. But now, I could not imagine being happy, or even content, with the silly little life I had lived before him. Maybe he had finally made me realise how unhappy I had been.
Phoebe's eyes narrowed, and I could see she was piecing it all together. "So, what about him?" Her voice was tense.
"I knew you told me not to message him, but I still did." I wasn't ashamed of that part. "I should have told you before, but I knew what you would tell me."
"That he would fucking break your heart?"
I nodded. "But he hasn't. Yet." I looked Phoebe in the eyes, hoping she would see my shame, my regret. "But that's not all I lied about."
My best friend's nostrils flared.
"I lied to you about being sick. When I said I had food poisoning, I actually was in Oslo with him." There it was, the truth, finally free, and now my mouth was overflowing with everything that had happened, these past few weeks. "Last week, he was back in England again, and I went to London to visit him. And Wolverhampton, yesterday. I knew you were worried about me. I should just have told you the truth, immediately. I fucked up."
"So there were no nightmares?" Phoebe said, jaw tense.
I shook my head, face down.
"And now you and mister rockstar are in love?"
A warmth shot through my chest, but my head shook again.
A tense silence and I could see the gears turning in Phoebe's head, her lips pursing, swallowing what seemed like a lot of bad words.
"I don't even really care that you lied to me as your friend." Phoebe finally said, fire in her voice. "I know what I said about him, that first day. All to protect you. But it still is your decision what you do with it. I just think it's crazy that you would bring everything that we have built up together, everything that we have worked so fucking hard for, in danger, just because you wanted to fuck some guy?" Phoebe stood up, the chair scraping the floor. "You are extremely lucky that you did not mess up anything while you were exhausted and starving, because newsflash, these tattoos are permanent! You are extremely lucky that I was there to take over for you all those times. You are lucky in general with how many of your messes I clean up on a daily fucking basis!"
Her words stung, right in my heart, but she was right. "I know, I'm sorry."
"And You know what the funniest thing is?" Phoebe's hands clashed with the table, before leaning forward, to me. "I wanted to help you. I found out Mindy was back and looking for a job, so I offered her one here. Temporarily."
My chest started to feel tighter and tighter, the claw of guilt grabbing straight into my chest, and tightening around my heart. No. She did not.
"She was going to work here for you, giving half of everything she'd make to you! Because fuck, Rylin, I saw you get paler and more exhausted every day and the only thing I could see was the sad and broken girl I met six years ago!" She snarled, her eyes suddenly seeming red instead of the usual dark brown.
I had no words, did not want to say anything. Because Phoebe was completely right. And I knew if I talked, all of the heaviness, and the blood from my heart, would come out. Judging by the look in Phoebe's eyes, she would not be happy with that.
Phoebe sat down, a deep sigh rolling from her lips. "Piss off, Rylin. And don't come back. You are a shit business partner. And a terrible fucking friend."
"I'm sorry," I mustered to say, before grabbing my things and leaving Inner Beauty, tears glistening in my eyes.
The heaviness in my chest had only gotten worse, with what I had just learned. But that was not all. An itch had appeared in my brain, my heart. There was something brewing in the words Phoebe had told me, something that I could not place yet.
On the bus, all I wanted to do was to be home. Leaning my head against the window, everything really sank in. I ruined one of my closest friendships today and had no clue how to get it back. Tears pricked in my eyes, but I managed to keep them at bay.
When I finally arrived home, I got once again confronted with loneliness, the echo of life that spread through the place. It was not very lived in, recently. No dirty mugs on the coffee table, no dishes in the sink. No piles of clothes on the dresser in my bedroom. It was weird, but I felt a creepy distance from the flat that I used to love so much.
Tears now started rolling down my face freely. I had fucked up, I had fucked it all up. My life was a mess, my house did not feel like a home anymore. My best friend hated me. And my heart, my stupid heart, only yearned for someone it could never have.
I grabbed my phone from my pocket, overcome with the desire to speak to one certain man, only to violently throw it on my sofa when I realised the fucking battery was dead and I did not know where my charger was. Besides, I knew I shouldn't.
I sank down to the floor in the middle of my cold, empty living room.
I had felt alone yesterday night, but the feeling that blossomed in my chest at this moment took the cake.
I missed him, I needed him, right now. But of course, when I reached into my pocket to grab my phone, all I held was the useless black screened brick.
I let myself fall down on the sofa, dropping my work bag in the same motion.
My eyes were closed, but somehow the tears found their way out.
"Fuck." My life was really, undeniably, spiralling out of control.
***a/n***
sorry guys i forgot to post a chapter last week! i'll update twice this week to make it up to you :)