Page 20 of His Good Girl

Me:

I'll be there in 20 minutes.

Alexis:

LOL it takes at least forty minutes to drive here.

Me:

Not with how I’ll be driving.

Alexis:

Hmmm, I guess I could find something to keep myself busy for that long…

Another image is loading, no, it’s a video. I click impatiently, trying to get it to load faster. Finally, it plays and she stares right into the camera as she slides a hand under the sheet. The sheet moves as she spreads her thighs. The thin fabric is barely covering her now as it slips lower and lower.

“Fuuuuck.” The video cuts off just before her breasts are exposed. Fucking siren, she’s going to kill me. I run out the front door and nearly collide with someone coming through the gate.

“Dad,” Marcee calls before tears break free and she drops the bag she’s carrying. My world stops and panic grips my heart. She knows.

“Marcee, sweetie?”

“He broke up with me!” I wrap her in my arms, holding her as she sobs, before leading her into the house and to the couch. I pull up my messages and shoot off a quick text.

Me:

Sorry Lex, Marcee came home early and I can’t come.

A weight settles in my chest, looks like the universe is giving me a message, and saving me from making a huge mistake.

26

ALEXIS

It’s been over a month since the night at the club with Finn.

We text some but he’s been distant. The night he was going to come over, I had let myself believe things would work out, then when he cancelled, I was crushed. Now that I know why, I get it, but something also changed after that. Deep down, I know it’s that he had enough time to really think about it and realized, like everyone else, that I'm not worth the hassle. And really, it’s probably for the best. I would never want to do anything to hurt Marcee, but you can’t help who your heart says is the one. Finn has ruined me, and I don’t even want to go out, or go on dates, or anything.

I try to let go of the fantasy of Finn and me as I pour myself into school, focus on finals, and apply to internships. Marcee came back to our place for the last few days of spring break, and we binged Netflix and ate all the junk food we could get our hands on. Tanner had been her first real relationship and the first person she had sex with, making the breakup a rough one. He hadn’t even given her a reason; he just said that he wasn’t ready for the commitment and wanted to be single. If you ask me, he wanted to hook up with randoms on spring break and didn’t want to feel guilty about it. Boys can be such pigs.

After four years of living together, we decided to get our own places for our last year here. Marcee is doing her student teaching, I’m taking on more classes at the gym and hopefully interning, so we thought having our own places would allow us to focus better. But because we’re co-dependent, we got single bedroom apartments in the same building. So, after my last final, I'm boxing up my room when Marcee walks in with two red solo cups and in the tiniest dress I have ever seen on her.

“Daaaaamn girl, where have you been hiding those things? Those legs go on forever! Better watch out, get a couple drinks in me, and I’ll be hitting on your fine ass,” I squeal as I check her out.

“I'm over crying and missing Tanner. I want to have some fun.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Well, I met a girl in my statistics class, and she was telling me about this club up near my dad’s place where they have go-go dancing cages.” She bites her lip as a blush creeps across her cheeks.

I blink slowly at her. “Ummmm, hello. Who are you, and what have you done with my best friend?” She laughs but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

“Lexie, I have spent my whole life being the “good girl.” Following every rule and even staying a virgin until I was fucking twenty years old!” My shoulders drop at the desperation in her voice.

“No. Screw that look of pity, Lexie. I'm not doing this to get back at Tanner or something stupid like that. I just want to really live. To stop being so fucking scared of what everyone else will think. Sometimes, I wonder if I'll look back on this time and realize I wasted my youth being too scared to try anything.”

I tear up looking at my friend. The rock in my life. When the world had done nothing but kick me and I wore my sexuality as body armor, she stood by me. She was the designated driver. She was the one with condoms in her purse because I always forgot. She held my hair while I puked. While I lived it up, she held down the fort, and I realize now that it’s my turn.