“Wasn’t he?” Anna asks in a high-pitched voice, but her grin resembles the Cheshire Cat’s. “Shame. Would’ve served him right for what he did. So,” she says, placing the bottle ofchampagne on her coffee table and crossing her legs. “What did Parker and Rose want?”
I fiddle with a cushion tassel. “Nothing really. Help browsing the journal database at the library.”
Anna’s shoulders drop. “Riveting.” She takes another sip of champagne and hands me the bottle, but I shake my head, craving the comfort of a warm shower, a romance novel, and her plush spare bed.
“Come on, Ella,” Anna whines. “Let’s go out. There’s a new nightclub in town that opened last week.”
A new song begins, the bass on Anna’s speaker vibrating with each incessant beat. “Sorry, I have plans with—”
“Invite Sarah.” Anna tips the neck of the champagne bottle toward my face. “I’d love to meet her.”
“I don’t think—”
“Ella,” Anna says, an uncharacteristic finality in her voice. “We’re going out.” She forces the bottle into my hand and surveys her sparkling purple nails. “And I hate to pull this card, but you owe me one.”
I owe her more thanone. I’m living in her apartment, rent free, with her clothes on my back. How many times have I turned down her requests to go out since I moved in? To join her for family dinner? I’ve lost count. I stare into Anna’s wide green eyes, the champagne bottle chilling my hand.
“One drink,” I say, and Anna squeals. Bringing the bottle to my lips, I sip before I change my mind. Before I accept that I’ve failed to be good enough for Silas, or for Parker to acknowledge kissing. Or the fact that I am a time traveler, and no matter what I study or how I change my clothes, I’ll always be different.
“Wow, slow down,” Anna says, plucking the bottle out of my hand. “I need to do your hair and makeup. And then we need to try on outfits.”
Over the next hour, Anna smooths my hair into thick waves, and applies my makeup, enhancing my eyes with a smoky, dark purple eyeshadow.
“Are you sure I should wear this?” I cross the living room, my skintight dress creeping up my thighs. Stopping at the floor-length mirror beside the front door, I tug it back down to my knees. “It shows…” I turn and crane my neck. The sparkling black fabric clings to my ass like a second skin. “Everything.”
“Exactly,” Anna calls from her bedroom. “You look hot.” She struts out of her room in a colorful, bejeweled one piece with a plunging neckline and high-rise jeans. Her face drops when she sees me slipping on my brown leather jacket. “Nowayare you wearing that jacket. It ruins my styling.”
“I’ll take it off inside the club.”If I’m there that long.“It’s freezing.”
“Fine,” she says through her pristine white teeth, and hands me a glass of champagne. Her phone dings and she pulls it from her back pocket, frowning at the screen. “Uber’s still fifteen minutes away. Should we sit?”
I nod and follow her to the sofa, my dress riding higher with each step. “How’s tongue-ring dude?” I ask.
Anna’s face breaks into a wide grin. “Who, Christiaan?Meh, he’s fun for now.” She grabs her handbag and rifles through it, tossing aside lipstick and old receipts. She pulls out a bottle of pills and shakes two into her open palm.
“You take medication?” I ask.
“Yep,” she says, throwing the pills into her mouth and washing them down with a swig of champagne. “Helps me concentrate. Or at least, it’s meant to.” She leans toward me and lowers her voice, as if she’s telling me a secret. “To be honest with you, my psychiatrist’s a bit of an idiot.”
Anna’s never seemed the type to see a psychiatrist or take medication. She’s the most put-together person I’ve ever met. And she speaks about her mental health in the same manner as the rest of her life, with unabashed confidence. I envy her. “I don’t like my psychiatrist either,” I say. The moment the words leave my mouth, I want to stuff them back in. But there’s no judgment on Anna’s face. Instead, she’s nodding, her pink glossy lips pulled to the side in a soft, understanding smile.
“Did you ever think of changing?” She laughs. “Not that I’d recommend mine.”
I shrug, twisting my champagne glass in my hand. “Silas set up the appointment, and I didn’t have the heart to see someone else.” And I’d rather suffer than voice my issues aloud toanotherstranger.
“I still don’t understand what happened with Silas,” Anna says.
Vivid, gray-blue eyes flash across my mind and the muscles in my chest seize. “Truthfully, neither do I. You know we were friends and he was weird about the age gap, but I thought we’d worked past that. He was so worried when I broke my wrist. He stayed with me for days. I thought—” I plant my elbows on my knees and slide my fingers through my hair, nails scraping along my scalp. “I don’t know.”
Anna offers me a reassuring nod, waiting for me to find the words.
“The last time I saw him, I thought he was going to ask me out. I thought that’s what we were building to.” A pit opens in my stomach. “But he didn’t. He said, ‘You don’t need me anymore,’ and he cut me out of his life, like I meant nothing to him.”
The memory’s a hazy, depressing dream.
Anna shakes her head. “Asshole. I dated a guy like that once. He came over every night. For months. Then one night, he fed me that ‘you’re too good for me, I’m doing you a favor’ bullshit.” She motions with her champagne flute as she speaks, the golden liquid sloshing against the glass. “But I told him he owed me the truth and I wasn’t leaving until I got it. He said I was too loud. Too opinionated.” She gestures to herself with a laugh. “Toome, I guess. So, I told him how tiny his dick was, and never spoke to him again.”
“Well done, Anna,” I say, but my chest stings like I’m battling a lingering cold. Was that the problem with Silas? Was I too different? Too broken, with too many problems?Too… me?I push the thought away. “You know, I’d kill to betoo you.”
