AllFreeNovel
Share Us
On her way back through the back room, she swung by the shelf where Darcy put the mail. On top of the usual stack of flyers and bills was a postcard: white, with the famous square I-heart-NY in the center. The heart was rainbow striped.
Petra had quite a few friends in New York City; some of her dance and theater buddies from both high school and college had given the city a try, and a few of those had actually made it, at least well enough to be earning their living with their talent. She didn’t get many postcards, though—who did?—and she figured she knew who’d sent this one.
She set the swizzle sticks on the staff table and stared at the pile of mail and the cheerful rainbow heart atop it.
Dre had not been in contact since the funeral. Petra had texted them three times since. She pulled her phone to double-check now, and yep, those three were the last texts in their years-long thread. Left on read.
Returning her phone to her back pocket—the costume was pretty tight, so that wasn’t easy—she reached out and picked up the piece of cardstock. She flipped it over. Dre’s angry handwriting—large letters, pressed into the paper, slanting strongly forward like an attack—covered the back. One side was Petra’s name and the bar’s address. On the other side was a fairly long paragraph crammed into the small space and barely legible, like a bloody war had taken place, on the tiny field of a postcard, between Dre’s emphatic handwriting and all the things they wanted to say.
Got a job and a place. Doing good.
I’m glad I left Tulsa. That place fucked my head
for my whole life. I’m glad I left you, too. You couldn’t
love me like I needed, and that fucked my head, too.
I was trying to be someone you wanted. But I finally
see that was never going to be me.
Don’t text anymore, okay? Let’s just be done.
I hope you’re happy, Pet. I’m going to try to be, too.
D.
Petra didn’t realize she was crying until a teardrop landed on her hand.
It broke her heart to lose her friend. But Dre wasn’t wrong. Petra thought they’d both been trying too hard to keep a friendship together long past the time when their connection was a strength for them. Petra had forgiven and forgotten, had excused, some terrible treatment because she knew the details of Dre’s traumatic childhood and understood where their dark moods and desperate acts came from. Dre had allowed themself to be hurt over and over as Petra loved other people because they’d held out hope that she would love them in that way again.
None of that had been healthy, but they’d both been trying so hard tomakeit good they hadn’t seen how far from good it really was.
It was right that they went their separate ways. But it still broke her already wounded heart.
Love, even toxic love, was hard to let go.
––––––––
~oOo~
––––––––
Petra came up to Jakeand rocked her hip into his leg. “Hey.”
He turned from Duncan and gave her a happy grin as he pulled her close. “Hey. This place is wild tonight!”
“Happy Gay Christmas!” she said and threw her arms around his neck. She’d had a few cups of Max’s Fireball punch and was feeling more relaxed than she had since ... well, she wasn’t going to think about that right now. She felt good, was the point, and she wanted to hold onto it. Her job tonight was host. She had staff doing the actual feeding and serving. So she got to play a little, and it was the first time all fall that she’d felt even a glimmer of playfulness.
“I love you, Drummer,” Jake said and kissed her, nipping temptingly at her bottom lip as he pulled back.
“And I love you, Miller,” she answered and plucked the porkpie hat that was Jake’s entire costume from his head and dropped it onto hers.
Detective Miller was a character fromThe Expanseas well, known for his porkpie hat.
The negotiation to get Jake to wear any kind of costume at all had been pretty intense. Not angry, but both sides had definitely been entrenched. She had the porkpie from a dance routine she and Keisha had done for the Tok, choreographed for Billie Eilish’s ‘Bad Guy.’ It had been big on her, which had worked for the routine. It was a little small on Jake but worked well enough.
Attending the Gertrude’s Halloween party with no costume at all would have been a major scandal. The hat was their compromise.
