"IT'S HOTEL ROOM" madi shouts for the twentieth time, replaying the same line of old town road by lil nas x.
"MADI" hannah shouts back "the lyrics LITERALLY say old town road, and the TITLE is old town road"
"BUT IT SOUNDS LIKE HOTEL ROOM" madi says stressfully.
"I KNOW"
"you two have literally been arguing about this for an hour" i groan, throwing my lip gloss up in the air and catching it out of boredom "can we go yet?"
"cynthia's still curling her hair" madi says, pointing at the bathroom.
"nope!" cynthia shouts through, before coming into the room "i'm ready"
"a thousand years later" hannah says in that spongebob narrator voice "let's go"
"not yet" cynthia starts "we have to wait on naomi first"
all eyes settle on me. to be fair, i'm not entirely sure what naomi thinks of me at the moment. we haven't talked at all since the fight, and i did keep the whole kendra and josh thing a secret from her.
"it's fine" i say, breaking the silence "does she know i'm here?"
"errr-" cynthia stutters "not really"
i sigh "it's fine, we need to talk at some point"
the door opens and naomi walks in.
"i have so many life regrets" naomi shuts the door behind her "creasing my airforces for a selfie was the worst-"
she stops speaking as her eyes fall on me. silence fills the room, followed by tension.
"look, naomi i'm sor-"
"don't say your sorry, i've had enough of that over the past twenty-four hours" she laughs "from literally everyone i've talked to"
"but most of them don't need to say sorry" i walk over to her to make the conversation more private, but the other three are clearly still listening "i owe you an apology. i lied to you about where josh was, i covered up for kendra when you were going to her room, i-"
"tayla, stop. whether you said anything or not, it was going to hurt just as bad. and plus, i know how uncomfortable you must've felt trying to tell me" she gives an encouraging smile "so i don't accept your apology, because you didn't need to give me one"
a smile instantly crosses my face and i throw my arms around her. an applause comes from the other three, along with cheering from madi.
"woo-woo!" she cheers "friendship goals"
we laugh as we break from our hug.
"okay, can we go now?"
----------------
a little girl around nine or ten with long, golden blonde hair runs up to me and hugs me.
"heyyy!" i say enthusiastically "what's your name?"
"karly!" she says with a cheesy grin "i made this for you"
she holds out a snow globe, but instead of snow it's glitter. i kneel down on the ground so i'm looking up at her and take it.
"wow!" i say, shaking the glitter "how did you make it?"
"i bought a snow globe making kit" she answers proudly "but look at the photo!"
i follow her instruction and peer into the globe. on the back of the globe is the photo of me and anthony with our facemasks on from a few nights ago.
my smile drops.
i would do anything to go back to that moment.
"are you okay?" karly asks, looking at me with big blue eyes.
i snap back to reality. i look up at her face from the globe and force a smile "of course" i hug her again with one arm "i love it, thankyou"
"can you maybe follow my fan account?" she asks.
"of course!" i pull out my phone and hand it to her. she starts typing and i look back at the snow globe, smiling.
she hands her phone back to me and i follow the account "there you go!" i show it to her for proof.
"yay!" she giggles excitedly "and can we take a photo?"
i nod and she hands me her phone, we take a few selfies before her mom takes a full body photo of us. i pull out my phone and take a boomerang with her for my instagram story and tag her account (she's literally so cute, i had to).
"oh my god!" she hugs me again "you're the best!"
"karly, time to go!" her mom says in a nice tone. she looks up at me and mouths thankyou. i smile and nod in return.
"bye tayla!" she waves excessively as she walks away. i wave back by wiggling my fingers.
"she's so cute, isn't she?" naomi says in awe.
"definitely" i agree "she actually reminds me of you"
"really?" naomi questions "i don't see it"
"seriously? the enthusiastic energy, the long blonde hair, the bright blue eyes?" i giggle "she's like, your clone"
naomi just laughs and pulls out her phone. i feel a tap on my shoulder.
i turn around to see kendra.
"please don't walk away" she says, her voice strained "i just wanna talk"
she has large bags under her eyes, and looks very tired. i don't say anything.
"okay" she starts "i am... so sorry. for everything. an apology can't even make up for it. i did something so wrong-" she looks around the room before looking back at me "i broke girl code. on top of that i broke bff code. i know what it feels like to be cheated on and the fact that i inflicted that pain on someone else-"
"kendra, stop. i don't have to forgive you"
"what?" she asks, confused "but i screamed and shouted at you-"
"i did the same to you. and i embarrassed you infront of everyone" i take a deep breath "but earlier, i tried apologising to naomi. she cut me off, saying there was nothing i needed to apologise for. which, to be fair, is true. so i don't want you to apologise to me, you should apologise to naomi"
she looks at me, her face still sad. she looks over my shoulder at naomi, who's sitting on her phone. her eyes move back to me. before i know it, her arms are wrapped around my shoulders.
we don't say anything, we just hug silently.
we pull away, and she's crying. she wipes her eyes and takes a deep breath.
"okay..." she starts "thankyou"
she gives me a smile which i return, before we walk over to naomi.
naomi looks up from her phone, and her eyes immediately glue to kendra. she doesn't say anything.
"can we talk?" kendra asks, her voice shaky.
naomi stays silent.
"okay" kendra starts "naomi, i am so, so, so sorry. i did something horrible to you, it's the most horrible thing i've ever done to you- well, anyone. i don't know what was going through my head, honestly i don't even know if i was fully sober, but even if i wasn't that's not an excuse. i've done something which has probably broken you, something which has probably given you trust issues... something which a bestfriend shouldn't do"
she pauses, wiping away a tear. naomi's also crying, and i'm on the edge of tears as well.
"but you're my best friend, i can't lose you. how else am i meant to survive spanish" they both laugh for the first time in a while.
naomi stands up and hugs kendra. they rock around in their hug and naomi even picks kendra up off the ground for a few seconds.
"tayla, come and join you asswipe" naomi says.
i laugh with tears still streaming down my face and join the hug.
"i love you guys" i sniffle, smiling
"love you too"
i did it.
i got my best friends back.