[Dedicated to the victims of the horrible attacks in Paris yesterday, November 13th. My thoughts are with them and the nation of France. #PrayforParis]
"Hey, do you have any lemonade?" Dacey called over my shoulder into the kitchen, where Cara currently had her head buried in her refrigerator. "With every second you stall, my mouth is dying and shriveling up — hey!"
I'd elbowed her (and not even with that much force), and when she sent a look that would shrivel my face, I raised my hands up defensively. "What? You can't order someone around in her own house."
Dacey pouted. "I'm a guest here, and besides, I'm gonna make the most of my dominance over Cara because that bitch" — there was a muffled protest from the kitchen — "owes me a ton." Dacey crossed her arms over her chest. "Also, I almost never win bets with Cara, so basically, I'm going to have the time of my life."
No one ever won bets with Cara (except when she wasn't in the right state of mind, or, in simpler terms, drunk), so I really had no idea why Dacey kept insisting on betting against her and moaning about her losses every single time she got her ass whooped. I patted Dacey's shoulder. "Kudos to you for finally toppling the aristocracy," I said, eliciting the most self-satisfied smirk I'd ever seen in my life from Dacey, "but you're stupid."
Dacey's expression dropped. "I so am not!" she spluttered, scooting away from me. It wasn't like she could get far anyway since the couch wasn't exactly the longest piece of furniture that I'd ever seen. "I have a perfect right to feel like the overlord of the world!"
Well, Dacey was right in that she had a reason to feel good about herself since Cara was kind of undefeatable when it came to bets...but she really was getting annoying. "Shut up," I told her again.
"Stop bickering, children," said Cara, who came into the living room with two glasses of pink lemonade, presumably, and set them down on the coffee table. "You're both giving me a massive migraine, and I don't think I can stand any more shouting this week."
I sat up immediately, claimed a glass before Dacey could even sit up properly, and sent Cara a honey-sweet smile. "How was the internship? Aren't you, like, super glad that you're almost done with getting people their coffees?"
Cara rolled her eyes at me and plopped herself down right in the middle of me and Dacey. "That wasn't all I did all day, you know." She grabbed the other lemonade glass, leaving Dacey to pout on her other side. "I learned a lot, and I'm glad I got the opportunity to learn everything that I did, such as —"
"I hate it when you start sounding like you're quoting straight out of a brochure," Dacey whined. "And why didn't you get a third glass for me?"
"Because I couldn't hold it," Cara responded flatly. She turned back to me. "But anyway, you really should do an internship next summer." She wiggled her eyebrows. "You'll have a life-changing experience."
"Wait," interrupted Dacey before I could even open my mouth to say something. "Lottie already had a life-changing experience."
When I turned my head to regard her expression, I knew immediately that she was going to say something snarky, stupid, annoying, and totally irrelevant. I held up a finger, opened my mouth, and prepared to shoot out a Guys and Dolls quote (because Guys and Dolls applied to everything, of course)—but of course, Dacey was a fast talker.
"Someone finally had the guts to tell her to shut the fuck up about Guys and Dolls!" Dacey continued, her expression devilish, like she knew that even the most indirect reference to...Dom would send me into a furious blush.
"You're rude!" I protested, completely aware of how my cheeks practically felt like furnaces. "And he never told me to shut up; he just didn't understand how important the musical was and thus kept trying to distract me from the topic."
"That's basically her way of saying that he did tell her to shut up several times, and she just wants to preserve her pride," whispered Dacey loudly to Cara, who snickered and took a sip from her lemonade glass.
"Shut up!" I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest, completely disregarding how the condensation from the glass was soaking into my otherwise pristine shirt. "You all are pieces of shit who can't understand culture, no matter what more educated and insightful individuals say."
"I think she told Dom something along those lines," Cara said in a stage whisper back to Dacey. She shot a glance at me, confirming that, indeed, my cheeks were so bright that I could have been considered the replacement for Rudolph and his very shiny nose. Actually, I could probably act as a street lamp if anyone wanted me to do so...
After a second of an awkward silence in which Dacey struggled to find a witty comment to make about me and my relationship, Cara cleared her throat and stood up. "I'll just...get Dacey her drink," she said to no one in particular and disappeared back into the kitchen.
Dacey and I exchanged a look and burst out into full laughter immediately.
Yeah, it was fun to chill with my best friends sometimes, especially when I could make a fool of myself without worrying about what a certain dark-eyed soccer player had to think about me.
But again, that didn't really matter, did it? Dom liked me.
I never really would be able to get over that.
↔
And now, since the sun wasn't in a mood to reveal itself today and preferred a game of hide-and-seek behind the clouds, Dacey, Cara, and I lounged around in her basement. I had no objections to that, really. The wind was howling mightily outside, and if I was right (Dacey insisted that I wasn't, and in fact, we had a bet going on), it was going to storm soon.
I frowned. Dom was having one of his soccer practices for our school team today, and if it thundered or anything, it wouldn't be safe for him...
And of course, I hadn't really considered how I'd look once his name popped up in my head. What sort of a relationship was I in? I was such a doofus.
Cara caught my expression and laughed out loud, completely shattering the silence in the basement. I didn't have much of an objection to that — in fact, the three of us had been sitting down here in complete tranquility, fiddling with our smartphones, for much too long.
"Dom again?" She raised an eyebrow and laughed again when she caught my eyes. "God, you're so hideously transparent; I don't get why Dom didn't just put one and one together."
Dacey shrugged, still texting away. I actually had no idea what she was doing. For all I knew, she was either organizing a ridiculously complicated get-together for the hundred kids in our grade or sexting my brother. I felt my cheeks warm even more with the mention of my brother.
(Those two always managed to make me incredibly embarrassed. However, Dom did it in a good way, while Carter, who seemed to like to humiliate me every opportunity he got, didn't even have to act differently. My brother's very existence made me pity the human race.)
Dacey and my brother made...an interesting couple.
The aforementioned best friend must have looked up at some point because she burst out into her famous squeals—and she didn't stop. Really, after three years of friendship with her, I still hadn't gotten used to that particular mode of her laughter. By the time she looked like she was going to puke from how much she was laughing, I really had enough of it — my ears were fucking ringing.
"I think I just caught Lottie having dirty thoughts about Dom," she spluttered out after many stern stares from me (and a couple from Cara, but she was having too much fun at my expense to keep her face straight). "Oh my God."
I wasn't in a mood to hear Dacey go on about my brother's charm and charisma (I had a certain limit, of course) so I didn't correct her. "Well," I dragged out, "Dom is...certainly gifted."
This was the first time I'd ever had to deliberately brainstorm any particular great qualities about Dom, and it felt rather strange.
Cara couldn't take it anymore, and she snorted out loud, sending a spray of saliva in front of her. I had no time to send her my most disgusted look because she said immediately, "Oh yeah, and we know exactly how gifted he is with his lips."
If Cara's wiggling eyebrows weren't so disturbing, I would have burst out hacking and probably swoon while I was at it. Good God, Dom was a great kisser...my cheeks heated, and, a little self-consciously, I tugged at the light scarf around my neck.
Dacey joined Cara's laughter. Through some giggles, she cackled, "And the hickey too! Oh my God!"
After the incident (in which Cara and Dacey totally caught me and Dom going at it in the woodsy patch next to the beach), I'd severely admonished Dom for having the fucking nerve to plant a hickey on my neck in the summer, when one was expected to wear a bikini everywhere. I doubted that he took me that seriously anyway because his dark eyes had glinted with barely restrained humor.
And yeah, he'd shut me up (I'd somehow gone down the path of how Nathan Detroit respected Adelaide enough to not go against her wishes) by pinning me to the closest surface, which happened to be a picnic table, and kissing me with the most ferocity I'd ever felt in my life.
(We probably tainted the minds of children from several families before Cara, who'd turned back to see why the two of us were taking so long to follow them, practically yanked us apart and kept us at least five feet apart for the rest of the day.)
But for whatever reason, I kind of liked the hickey. Like a resilient pimple, it had grown on me, and today, I almost felt reluctant to cover it up with a scarf. (Also, I wasn't in the mood to cover up my neck when it was so humid today.) Now that Dacey and Cara were openly laughing at me, though, I totally appreciated my decision to stick with the scarf.
(Besides, the scarf was pretty.)
"Shut up!" I said once again, feeling a little like a broken tape recorder. "Who were you texting anyway?" I asked Dacey hurriedly in an attempt to take the scrutiny off me. "Someone special?"
My words were stated too quickly to have quite the same effect on Dacey as the mention of Dom did to me. However, Dacey did stop laughing instantly, and Cara clammed up, resting her chin on her hands as her eyes moved back and forth between me and Dacey.
"Carter..." started Dacey slowly, licking her lips. Good God. "Well, he's doing just fine."
"I know that!" I cut in. "I live with him, remember? I don't really need you to —"
"We've been texting," Dacey said quickly. Her cheeks were slowly becoming tinged with red. However, she never turned quite as red as I did (my genetics were rather unfortunate), so the humorous effect was never that dramatic. She added after catching Cara's raised eyebrows, "And he just asked me to grab some ice cream with him."
I stood up despite myself, kicking the couch, and whooped, just resisting the urge to start fist-pumping like a movie star out of the '80s — go Dacey! "Woah, that's great!" I hooted, instead resorting to a sort of dance move that made it look like I was punching several mannequins in the nuts. "You go girl!"
Dacey and Cara just sat there, blinking.
Eventually, my enthusiasm waned after five seconds of looking at my best friends' faces, and I plopped myself back on the couch. Sighing, I said slowly, like I was talking to little kids, "Carter loves ice cream. Ice cream is the love of his life." I paused and raised my eyebrows expectantly at the two of them. When I met the same blank expressions, I rolled my eyes and continued, "Basically, he doesn't just invite anyone to get ice cream with him. He gets someone who he knows won't judge him whenever he goes ballistic over mint chocolate chip ice cream."
"Mint chocolate chip?" Dacey's expression brightened. "Thanks for that, Lottie," she added, almost like a side note. Dreamily, she continued, "Well...now I know what to get..."
Cara shot me a look, like she was horrified that I'd revealed something like that Dacey. Knowing Dacey, she seemed to say, she would take over the world with that knowledge. I rolled her eyes at her. Cara really was a killjoy sometimes.
We three sat in some more silence (in which Dacey was probably planning her wedding to my brother and I contemplated the future of my senior year—I'd completely bombed my summer homework because of a stupid Guys and Dolls disbeliever who'd somehow managed to take over all of my time). But then, just as that peace was settling in my mind and I relaxed into Cara's couch, Cara spoke up abruptly.
"I have a problem."
Lazily, I turned my head to face her. She had probably mixed up two pieces of paper and was currently feeling extremely remorseful about that. Dacey didn't even bother to move, eyes still vaguely focused on the ceiling.
But Cara wasn't kidding, which I could tell from the way her dark eyes focused unwaveringly on me and how she was completely still. So I sat up, meeting her eyes, and met her eyes. "What's up, Cara?"
Dacey was fully aware of how horrible of an actress I was, so after hearing my low voice, she turned to Cara as well and frowned. "Yeah, tell us, Car."
After a pause, Cara burst out, "It's just not fair!"
Dacey and I must have blinked or done something in sync because Cara sighed loudly and wrung her hands, then running a hand through her loose, dark, pretty hair. (I really did wish I had her hair. It was so low-maintenance, and she never had a bad hair day, as far as I knew). "You two," she started slowly, "you two are having the time of your lives" — she threw her hands up — "with your perfect relationships progressing...and I'm just feeling guilty!"
"Guilty?" repeated Dacey.
I hadn't told Dacey about what Cara had confessed to me the other day about her relationship problems with her boyfriend, with whom she hadn't been close for a while. It was common courtesy anyway, and I had reasoned that if Cara wanted Dacey to know, she would have told her face-to-face.
"My boyfriend and I..." Cara shook her head. "Do you guys even know his name?"
And embarrassingly enough, Dacey and I exchanged a glance and shook her heads at the same time.
How had we gone for an entire year without figuring out the name of the guy Cara was dating? Perhaps we were too oblivious — or simply too concerned with our own matters to pay attention to our best friend. And really, what sort of best friends were we now?
Cara shrugged. "Well, I guess I never really told you the important parts about him."
That lifted some weight off my chest even though it was true that I should have enquired about him, or dug in a little deeper, or did some background research by myself to protect my best friend. But really, what were the things that Cara ever mention about him anyway? I remembered how she kept going on and on about how he took six AP courses and was a stellar golf player (or something along those lines) — and I'd thought that their relationship involved a lot more competition than affection, and that wasn't right.
"True," Dacey jumped in, as if she'd completely skipped my thought process. Well, I couldn't blame her for that. Dacey had a thing for acting before she forgot what she was thinking. "Wow, Cara, we don't even know your boyfriend's name." She slapped Cara's shoulder so hard that Cara gasped for air and rubbed the spot, wincing.
Of course, Dacey didn't notice. She went on, "What's his name?"
"Julio," answered Cara a little wheezily. After taking a couple moments to compose herself, she went on, "I don't think it's right to stay with him. I mean, I haven't been feeling right with him for a while, and I've been deceiving myself by saying that we're taking a break and that we're gonna be okay." She broke off to take a breath. "And then the two of you keep going on about your respective boyfriends..."
Dom so wasn't my boyfriend. Well, not officially. At this point, we were at that awkward status between "just friends" and "in a relationship", so we settled for something like "very close friends who returned each other's feelings and made out a lot whenever they hung out". And that was totally all right with me. However, I didn't really feel like correcting Cara because I wouldn't be helping anyway, so I just listened.
Sometimes, I was an okay friend.
Dacey had her arm slung around Cara's shoulders in an instant. "Do what you feel is right," she said in a soft voice, one she would use on people about whom she was genuinely distressed. "You're very smart and intuitive, Cara, and you're a great girl — I have no doubt you'll do the right thing to make you happy."
"I'll see." Cara shrugged. She looked up to me. "You have any inspirational words to say?" She lifted an eyebrow.
I opened my mouth, racked my brains for something intelligent or empathetic to say, and blurted out, "You've just gotta sit down so that you're not rocking the boat and go with what good people are advising you. Or else the devil will throw you out of the boat."
Both of my best friends blinked at me, a little too thrown off-guard to react. Dacey almost spluttered out a protest...but it seemed like her mouth forgot how to move.
So I just went on, because when it came to Guys and Dolls, I had no filter. "And that's what gambler Nicely-Nicely Johnson said about going on a boat ride to heaven with other moral people, and he was protesting about how he had accidentally brought along his bad habits, but then the people were like, 'Yo, just go with the flow, man, and let things be until you figure them out.'"
I took a really deep breath. "And yeah, Cara," I said to her. "Just chill and see how things go and..." I trailed off once I realized that I was basically echoing everything that Dacey had said. "Just be your awesome self and, like, figure stuff out!" I finished explosively.
There was a moment of silence. And then Dacey, wincing, said with forced cheer, "Ditto to everything Lottie just said! Don't worry about your man, Cara — girl power all the way."
She threw her arm over my shoulder as well, and the three of us just sat there in Dacey's tight hug. Sometimes, it was enough to be with good friends. And this was the time.
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Hi everyone! I actually uploaded a chapter on time today, so you guys have got to give me some credit for that, right?
I'm going to keep this author's note nice and short, but what did you guys think of the chapter?
I would like to honor the victims of the attacks in Paris yesterday. I truly have no words for what happened, but I hope the picture I have attached above (drawn by artist Jean Jullien) should suffice.
(The song of the chapter will be in the external link and the comments section, if you're wondering. This song really is the best once you get the context of everything.)
As usual, thank you for reading, and see you next week!
Anne xo