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Me: Where are you?
Mackie: Front porch with Hyla.
Me: Good. Heading your way. Don’t tell anyone where I am.
Trevor and I walk out to the front porch and find Mackie and Hyla sitting on a bench in the corner.
I walk over and drop down next to them. Trevor sits in a chair across from us. Hyla gets up and sits down in his lap. To the untrained eye, it might look like Trev and Hyla are a couple or have feelings for each other, but they are more like Joel and me. Maybe like Sarah and me, actually. Hyla’s parents are awful. I don’t know the full story, but they’re mean and judgmental and controlling. Once upon a time, Trev’s mom and Hyla’s mom were best friends, but as Hyla’s mom married her dad and became more obsessed with money and power, that faded. Or the real version of it did. She’s stayed close with them simply to protect Hyla, and Hyla spends a lot of time at Trevor’s house. She and Mackie have grown closer over the last couple of years, and I kinda wonder iftheyare more than friends.
But I’m the last person who should be worried about something like that right now, given that I can’t even figure out my own love life. Or lack thereof.
“So why am I not telling them where you are?” Mackie asks.
“Cause I just broke up with Davey.”
“And I missed it? Damn.”
“It was epic,” Trevor tells her.
“Should’ve taken a video,” Hyla says with a laugh.
“I’m sure someone did. There were plenty of people around.” I shake my head. “Anyway, they all started texting me. And I love them, but—”
“You don’t want them babying you. I get it.” Mackie nods at me.
“What I need right now is fun. And a drink.”
Mackie hands me hers. I take a sip, then almost spit it out. It burns going down and not in a good way.
“Is that pure vodka?”
She shrugs.
I grab an orange soda out of a nearby cooler, open it, and chug some. Then I grab her drink again and pour some in the soda. I take a sip.
“Mm. Much better.”
Trevor takes the can from my hand and takes a swig.
“You’re brilliant. I’m gonna go find some rum, and spike some coke. I’ll be back.”
Trevor and Hyla wander off, and Mackie asks me what happened.
“I’ve been done for so long, Macks. I just didn’t want to deal with breaking up with him. Or being alone, I guess.”
“You’re never alone,” Mackie says with a laugh.
“Ain’t that the truth,” I say with a laugh. Then I more seriously say, “I wanted him to be the guy he was when we first dated. Actually, what I want is the whole true love, wish-upon-a-star thing. I want to be loved like that.”
Mackie grins at me and then, in an overly sappy voice, says, “You are always loved by all of us.”
I mock gagging at her, but then laugh. And roll my eyes.
Ugh. I love them. They are the best friends in the world. But sometimes they are suffocating. It feels like a cult. What one of us experiences we must all experience together.
“Well, you’re done with him now. That’s what matters,” Mackie says. “He was such a twat to you.”
“A twat?”
