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Eleven
Imade Vegas stay withme the whole night and I think he got tired of me nervously petting him, so he went to the end of the bed and laid on my feet, but he did stay with me.
I couldn’t sleep. It was impossible to be in a bed that only hours ago I’d been fucking my best friend in. How did I see this bed for sleeping when it had been used for that? I couldn’t get comfortable and I couldn’t stop thinking about the sounds she’d made and how she tasted and how she said she’d always been in love with me.
Honestly? I was kinda pissed. How dare she keep that secret from me for this many years? I mean what thefuck. I kept searching my memories, looking for clues. So far I didn’t have any. Was it possible that I had missed all the signs? My friends hadn’t, so Emma had said. I needed to have a serious chat with all of them and ask what they were thinking when they didn’t tell me how obvious it was that Emma was in love with me.
What had I missed? And what did it mean for me? What happened now? How could I be only friends with her if she was wanting something more? That wasn’t fair to either of us. And if I decided that I was in love with her, was it real, or did I just think that because I wanted to make her happy because she was my best friend?
Too many questions and I had zero answers. So I spent most of the night turning everything over and over in my head, like socks in a dryer. I had no answers by the time I passed out, right before my alarm went off.
Today was going to fucking suck.
I needed a coffee IV to get through the day, but that wasn’t going to happen, so I just stopped and got a Venti pumpkin crème cold brew after dropping Vegas off at doggie daycare. Emma was sleeping in and mumbled goodbye to me when I left. It wasn’t like her to sleep in, so I was a little worried, but she answered when I texted her later and didn’t seem any different, so who knew.
I sucked my coffee down so fast that I swear I started vibrating on the street.
“How much coffee have you had today, my goodness,” Jessika said, when I was pouring myself another cup during my morning break. My hands were shaking, but I had to stay awake today or else I wasn’t going to make it through. Yes, I was leaving in less than three days, but I was training my replacement and she wouldn’t stop asking questions and I needed to be alert to tell her the answers. I didn’t want my employer to pull something and not pay me because I’d mentally checked out. That sounded like something they would do. My replacement, Maggie, was . . . eager. She was also young and wanted to do a really, really good job and I wanted to tell her that she needed to tone it down and also not to give this place her everything because they would chew her up and spit her out, just like it did to me. But I didn’t think she’d listen to me, so I went ahead and just took all of her questions and tried to keep the editorializing to myself.
I realized Jessika was waiting for an answer. I sucked in a mouthful of coffee before I answered. I hadn’t even added any cream or sugar or anything and it was awful but I didn’t need anything impeding the caffeine getting into my body.
“Uh, enough,” I said, in answer to her question. My lips were trembling.
“Yeah, you’re going to need to put that cup down, babe,” she said, taking it from me. I resisted for a second, but let her take the cup from me. She stepped closer and examined me.
“Your entire face is twitching. Why have you been downing the coffee today? Rough night? I hope it was fun.” Uh, that would be one word for it, I guess? The sex was fun, more than fun, but the other stuff wasn’t so great.
“Uh, just had a lot . . . on my mind and didn’t sleep and I need to keep myself peppy for the new girl and I think I ordered a coffee that was too large and drank it really fast and here we are.” Even I could tell I was speaking at a speed too fast for another human to follow.
“Water. Right now. You aren’t going to be any good at anything when you’re in hyper speed like this.” She was probably right. I poured the coffee down the sink and then took a few breaths before I went back to my desk. I told Maggie to take a break herself, but she said she didn’t want to (what?), and was at the desk reading through the employee manual again.
“Hey! You got a few calls,” she said, and I didn’t know if I could deal with much more of her enthusiasm. I was just so tired. Wired and tired at the same time. It wasn’t a fun state to be in.
I grabbed my water bottle and gulped some down while Maggie prattled away. There was a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to find Jessika looking down at me.
“Hey, can I grab you for a second? I need to ask you something.” I excused myself from Maggie, who looked like she wanted to follow me but didn’t, and walked after Jessika back to the break room.
“We didn’t finish our conversation. And you have ten more minutes for your break, so spill.” She leaned on the counter and I copied her pose.
“Uh, well . . . some things happened?” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk to her about this because I was still trying to work through it all myself. I didn’t need other input confusing me further.
“What kind of things?”
“Let’s just say a lot of things changed and now my world has been rocked and I’m struggling to deal with the fallout. And I’m confused and things are awkward and I don’t know what to do.” Jessika’s eyebrows rose.
“You going to elaborate on that?”
I shook my head.
“I can’t. Not yet. It’s still too much and I don’t even know what to say.”
“Okay, fine. I’d say just take some time away from . . . whatever is confusing you. Try to pull your emotions out of it and think if this situation were happening to your best friend, what advice would you give her? Be as kind and loving to yourself as you’d be with someone you love.” I started laughing when she mentioned the part about the best friend, and she was looking at me as if I had lost my mind. I probably had. Must be all the caffeine.
“I'm sorry. I’m fine.” It was a lot of effort to stifle the giggles and stop laughing. I took a deep breath and tried to find my center. My center was hopped up on too much caffeine. It was like I had pissed-off bees buzzing in my veins.
