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It’s just one of the many, many reasons I adore her. Or would adore her if she would just stop trying to fix me. As it is, all this pixie dust and do-gooding is getting on my nerves. Especially since Tori has always been the prickly one in this relationship, the one who wears multi-layered damage on her sleeve—literally and figuratively, thanks to the wild tattoos she’s got. Which begs the question—in how bad shape does she think I am if she’s pulling out all the stops to make me feel better?
Maybe I’ve been wallowing more than I think I have.
Still, it’s not like it’s a conscious decision on my part. And it’s sure as hell not like I want to feel like this. Because I don’t. I hate the fact that I worked so hard to banish Brandon from my life and my thoughts, and now he’s back, lurking around every corner in my mind just waiting to jump out at me like my own personal boogeyman.
I hate even more the fact that I can’t stop thinking about Ethan. Can’t stop wondering what he’s doing or if he’s okay or if he’s thinking about me. Can’t stop remembering what it was like when we were together and I was happy, truly happy, for the first time since I was a child. Maybe for the first time in my life.
Not that that matters. Not that any of it matters. Not when everything about my life—even my work—is a shambles. Most days it’s all I can do to drag myself out of bed and to the seven building oceanfront campus that houses Frost Industries. And once I’m there, I try to focus on the research, on my job, but everything about the place screams Ethan’s name and more than once I’ve ended up curled up on the bathroom floor trying to get my head together. Trying to pretend that I’m all right, that any part of this is all right.
“You know shopping isn’t going to fix me, right?” I hiss at Tori as she drags me toward the entrance to Nordstrom. “Besides, I can’t afford to buy anything from here. I’m a lowly unpaid intern at Frost Industries, remember?”
She snorts. “Another reason to think he’s a douche. He makes how much money every year and he can’t send a little of it over toward his interns, who work all hours of the day and night for him? That’s the mark of a total loser.”
“The experience and being able to put it on our resumes is more than enough. Besides, it’s only the first year interns that don’t get paid. Anyone who comes back a second year gets a pretty generous stipend.”
“Will you stop defending him, please?”
“I wasn’t defending him.”
“You so totally were.” She rolls her eyes at me as she picks up a scarf that costs almost as much as my entire wardrobe and loops it several times around my shoulders. “You look beautiful, daaaaaaahling.”
“Anyone would look beautiful in a three thousand dollar scarf.”
“You’d be surprised.” She gives me a push and I spin around like a top in an effort to unwind myself from the pashmina. “If you’d seen what I’ve seen through the years, you would know just how false that last statement was.” She mock shudders. “Some people should never be allowed out of the house without a fashion consult. Just saying.”
She jumps over to the hats, which are against the wall, and picks up the biggest, most ridiculous one she can find. It’s hot pink with purple flowers, and though it’s almost as big as she is, Tori somehow manages to carry it off with the kind of panache I can only dream of.
“How do I look?” she demands.
“Like you should be walking the red carpet. In Ireland.”
“Oh, good. That’s just the look I was going for.” She flips me off before picking up a black and white hat and plopping it down on my head.
“How does it look?” I ask, resigned.
She just shakes her head and laughs. Of course. Tori has a gift for carrying off hats, no matter how beautiful or bizarre they are. She even looks good in the ridiculous cardboard hats you find at party stores. I once talked her into trying on a jester’s hat and I swear if she’d worn it out of the store, she would have started a new fashion trend.
I, on the other hand, am headwear challenged, to put it politely. I look absolutely ridiculous in everything from snapbacks to fedoras to the beautiful feathered and floral Easter hats that fill the stores up once a year. Which is why Tori insists on trying hats on everywhere we go. It’s a quest of hers. One of these days, she swears, we’re going to find a hat that looks good on me. I’m not nearly as optimistic, but with Tori, the path of least resistance is often the only one available.
Despite the laughter that signals this isn’t the hat that will change my life, I turn toward the nearest mirror. And then wish I hadn’t. The hat is elegant, gorgeous, really, and yet, somehow, I manage to make it look like a clown hat. And not even a very nice clown hat.
“Here, try this one instead,” she says, switching the black and white one out for a wide-brimmed red one.
I do and, of course, it looks even worse than the first one did. The fact that Tori is now wearing the first hat I tried on—and looking like she belongs on the cover of British Vogue while she’s at it—doesn’t make me bitter at all. The bitch.
We spend the next hour trying on one ridiculous hat after the other, all to no avail. Tori has a pile of about twenty that look great on her, while I decide a scarf just might be the way to go, after all. Tori only laughs at my pouting, then pulls me toward the makeup counters on the other side of the store.
“What you need is a new lipstick,” she tells me with all the authority of a woman who has spent her life believing in the veracity of retail therapy. “Something bright and fun and gorgeous.”
“I don’t need another lipstick,” I tell her. “I’ve got like ten.” Besides, I feel about as far from bright and fun and gorgeous as I can get.
Gasping, she puts a hand to her heart in her best Scarlett O’Hara impersonation. “Blasphemy,” she all but shouts. “No one ever has enough lipsticks. Besides, no one can be sad at the MAC counter. It’s against the rules.”
“What rules?”
“All the rules. Everywhere. I think it might even be an amendment to the Constitution,” she tells me with a totally straight face. Then she reaches over and pokes at the corners of my mouth. “Smile. It’s good for you.”
