She stared at the blinking cursor a second longer before hitting send.
The question hung heavier than she meant it to.
The phone buzzed in her palm.
GoGatorsESQ
Right now? I believe in it about as much as I believe that a quarter will keep me from spending eternity as an aimless ghost.
Alix huffed a laugh, low in her throat. Dark humor. Melodramatic. Exactly her kind of bait.
The front door creaked open behind her. Phyllis poked her head out, silver hair sticking up in tufts, glasses sliding down her nose. “Did you get locked out again?”
Alix smiled faintly. “No. Just… relaxing.”
Phyllis gave her a long, skeptical once-over, then waved her inside with the imperiousness of a queen dismissing a subject. “Well, come on. It’s past midnight, and you’ll wake up with a crick in your neck.”
Alix followed her in, boots clomping against the worn wood floor before she toed them off by the door. The bungalow smelled faintly of lavender and old books. She mumbled a good night and walked to her room, the quiet pressing close once Phyllis’s door clicked shut.
The next morning, she woke tangled in yesterday’s clothes, her phone glowing dully beside her on the sheets. The unsent quip she’d drafted —Then I guess it’s a good thing I’ve got pockets full of change— blinked back at her like a dare.
She sighed, deleted it, and opened the chat fresh. She’d been a little looser than normal with a few beers in her system the night before, and Breakup Buddies wasn’t a hookup app. Lolaand Oscar had given her plenty of shit for having the app at all, but they’d also given her way more grief hearing about Kirstin, and before her, Nicki. Breakup Buddies had been a lifeline in a dark time when she’d had no one else to help her out of the deep, dark hole of heartbreak. And after Kirstin’s unanswered text from last night — and the resounding jolt just seeing Kirstin’s name had sent through her — it seemed she wasn’t as far enough away from heartbreak as she’d once thought.
Alix used to think she just didn’t have the wiring for love. Not in some tragic way, just the practical truth of it. She always found herself with people who saw her steadiness as a service. They leaned, she held. They drifted, she steadied. Kirstin was the clearest example of that: sharp as glass, magnetic, and allergic to being known. The kind of woman who drew a crowd without trying, who made ordinary things feel curated just by standing near them. Alix had been proud to be one of hers until she realized she’d stopped being a person and become a prop.
Kirstin’s apartment always smelled like Diptyque candles and takeout. The walls were white, the furniture minimal. Everything about Kirstin had been curated. Alix would come by after a long day at the salon, hands still faintly sticky with hairspray, thoroughly wrecked and tired, to find Kirstin cross-legged on the couch with her laptop open. “You’re so good with people,” Kirstin would say, eyes still on the screen. It always sounded like a compliment until the next part came: “It’s almost like you’re desperate for everyone’s approval.” The remark landed like a bruise. By the time they argued, it was never about what was wrong, it was about how Alix had said it. Kirstin had a way of making her feel dramatic for wanting things that were, by any measure, human.
Alix kept trying to be the version of herself that Kirstin might actually stay for, less earnest, less soft. Every time Kirstin called her sentimental, Alix learned to laugh. Every time she swallowedwhat she wanted to say, she told herself it was maturity. Kirstin gave affection like tips at a restaurant: small, inconsistent, always enough to keep Alix hoping. That kind of slow hunger did strange things to a person. It made you mistake survival for devotion.
Scissorsaurus
Morning, Gator. Has the new day brought more clarity? Or are we still like Sisyphus, rolling the same damn rock uphill?
The reply came fast.
GoGatorsESQ
Depends. Is it clarity if you say the boulder’s just part of the décor?
Alix smirked, thumbs moving before her brain could catch up.
Scissorsaurus
Only if you’re into tragic interior design.
She hit send, rolled out of bed, and stumbled toward the blessed smell of coffee.
The day unraveled in flashes, Alix moving on autopilot through the salon’s chaos while her phone kept tugging at her like a second heartbeat.
Mid-morning, as she angled her razor through a client’s shaggy layers, her phone buzzed in her back pocket. She smiled to herself, all anticipation and intrigue, but waited to check her phone until the woman left with a fresh cut, giving her a generous tip.
GoGatorsESQ
What’s worse: heartbreak hangover or martini hangover?
Scissorsaurus
Trick question. They’re the same thing. Except one doesn’t come with pizza at 2 a.m.
