AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When I repeated Mo’s words to me from the night of Charlie’s funeral, their holds on me tightened. “I know you’ve got some sort of weird love-hate thing with Murray, but don’t go anywhere near him tonight. He’s been through enough, and if you mess with him, you’ll likely ruin him. Just leave him alone and get your kicks with someone who isn’t already devastated.”His words had stuck to me like glue.
“Y’all had sex and it was his first time?” Maeve asked gently.
I nodded. “I had...a lot of feelings for him. I always have. So yes, we did have sex, and it was the most tender moment I’ve had in my life. I don’t know if I ruined him. I hope I didn’t.”
“He’s clearly not ruined. The man is a rock icon,” Haven said.
Unconvinced, I went on with my story, telling them the rest of it. The stolen moments, the pining, the confusion, the hate. And finally,finallyforgiving each other.
“I just don’t know what to think. I’m angry, but I’m also heartbroken for him because I know he’s hurting.” I pressed the heel of my hand against my eye, stymying more tears from falling.
“Murray’s one of my best friends in the world, but what he’s done, shuttin’ everyone out like this, it isn’t him. He’s obviously not thinkin’ straight,” Maeve said.
“I don’t know what he’s thinking.” I tipped my chin in the direction of my front door. “Even when we were at our worst, I could count on seeing him daily. He harassed me in the hall every chance he got. I don’t know how to handle him not being here.”
Even if he had truly decided the drama of our relationship was too much to handle, I still wished he’d come home. He could go back to annoying me, and I could go back to flaying him with my eyes, and I’d feel better than I did now. That sounded too pathetic to utter aloud, though.
“I have something that will make you feel better, if only temporarily.” Haven produced a small, square Tupperware container from her bag beside her. “Are you in?”
She popped the lid, revealing three perfect brownies. They smelled good, but I couldn’t get it up for them. “I’m not hungry.”
“Girl, do you think I’d bring you justanybrownies?” Haven waggled her blue eyebrows and winked like a fly had just landed in her eye.
“They’re special brownies.” Maeve nudged me, doing her best impression of a pothead, which only made her seem more like a narc.
I had no choice but to laugh. These women were trying so hard and taking such good care of me, I couldn’t help myself. “Oooh, special brownies.” I picked one up and shoved half of it in my face like the monster Alex always called me. “Will you be partaking?”
Haven covered my mouth, cringing away from me. “Please, I do not need to see you masticating. And yeah, I’m partaking. No fun to get high on your own, right?”
Haven and Maeve ate their brownies with more refinement than me, but the result was the same. We got stoned and curled up in my bed together, watching Maeve’s favorite horror flicks—one of which Scott Porter happened to have a bit part in as “Brutally Painful Death #3” —and ignoring the world.
Day shifted to night, and Haven snored softly beside me while Maeve’s murder movies played on. Maeve had turned on her side to face me, stroking my hair with such gentleness, no one would ever guess she was a hard-rocking drummer who thrashed her heart out on stage.
“You doin’ okay?”
“No. It’s been five days now, and nothing. What is he doing?” I whispered.
“I am as perplexed as you. I’m goin’ to keep houndin’ him to see if he won’t talk to me. Just to make sure he’s okay. And once we know he is, we can burn him in effigy or sell his number to the tabloids or send him a singin’ dick-o-gram.”
I snorted as my eyes threatened to well again. “I would like to be the one who dresses up as a dick to sing to him about what a dick he is. Then I’ll throw glitter dicks at him which will never wash off as long as he lives.”
Maeve pinched my cheek with a soft grin. “Deal, baby. And I’ll disband the Cupid Crips. No way I can be in a gang with someone who hurts my girl. That’s not how I roll.”
Just as sudden as it came, my brief levity fell into melancholy like a bag of bricks. With a shuddering breath, I met Maeve’s shiny green eyes in the dark of my bedroom.
“He just left. After everything, he left.”
She cupped my cheeks, nodding, but not attempting to deny what I’d said. “I know he did, sugar. I know. You were so afraid to put yourself on the line, and then when you did, you got knocked right down. The thing of it is, you’re still here. You’re still livin’ and breathin’ and it doesn’t feel like it, but if this thing with Murray doesn’t work itself out, then you will move on. I promise you that. I won’t have it any other way.”
That night, I fell asleep surrounded by my two best girls, knowing, for maybe the first time in my life, I was understood and loved and cared about by someone without a familial obligation. It didn’t mend my broken heart or staunch the steady flow of anger bleeding from my veins, but I slept easy that night anyway.
