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Chapter one
Isabel
July 31st…
“Say it,” Tara Dewey, one of my best friends, demands. Needing confirmation she, and Cameron Schultz, my other bestie, were right to send me on a vacation.
“Do it,” Cameron adds.
“I don’t wanna,” I tell them, curling my lips inside as if they’re sealed shut.
“Doesn’t matter,” Cam sing-songs, “because we already know.”
Tara nods, agreeing, then holds her hand out, palm up, and waits. Laughingly, Cam withdraws a twenty and pretends to give it to her, proclaiming, “Best money I ever spent.”
“Aside from getting Izzy’s ticket.”
“This is true.”
They look so smug as we video call that I can’t help but laugh. “I love you both.”
“We know,” they simultaneously echo.
“So, what are you doing?” Tara asks, apparently done gloating. For now. Neither of them are by any means finished and we all know it.
“Sitting on the balcony, enjoying some bright thing in the sky. I think it’s called the sun?” They snicker because it seems like it’s done nothing but rain back home for the last few weeks.
“When you putting on that little polka dot bikini and hitting the beach? Or perhaps the yellow? Maybe the candy apple red?” Cam wants to know with a wink.
That, of course, makes me suspicious. I head to my suitcase, which is still sitting on the bed where I dropped it after walking in the door and coming straight out here. “You sneaky girl, you.” She giggles, not in the least ashamed she removed the more conservative one-pieces I’d packed and replaced them with her picks. “I can’t wear these,” I whisper screech.
“Au contraire, mon ami," Tara interjects. "You can, you just won’t."
"Potato, potato," I mumble.
“They are not the same thing,” she says with affectionate exasperation.
“Are, too,” I say, not realizing I stomped my foot until they crack up.
“Uh oh, Cam,” Tara quietly states, as if conspiratorially. “She means business. She’s got her teacher expression on.”
“I think I felt the vibrations of it over here.”
“You two are ridiculous.”
“And you adore us for it.”
“I do. There must be something wrong with me.”
“Nothing a little sand, sun, and se…..”
“I am not here to have sex!” I shout, not missing the twenty once again pretending to change hands, this time back into Cam’s. Bitches.
“…x can’t fix,” Cam finishes, completely ignoring my interruption. Like they’d know.
“This might be your last chance for a while,” Tara helpfully supplies. “You start your new job in a few weeks. Who knows when you’ll have time to date then?” As if I’ve had all kinds of time to do so before. I’ve been so focused on taking care of my mom, paying for what insurance wouldn’t cover – which is a lot – with numerous jobs, finishing college, and finding full-time employment that’ll utilize my new degree that dating has never been a priority.
Not that Cam and Tara are any better.
But still, I snort at her blatant subterfuge. “You’re such a truth contortionist,” I scold Tara.
