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"Aww," Jezebeth whined. "Which one are you leaving out? It better not be Corbus. I was rooting for him."
"You're not allowed to root for anybody now. They're on an equal playing field now. That is, once I tell them how I feel."
"I'll still be rooting for some of them." Jezebeth smirked. "I've made a bet with Dex on your sex life. You can't make me lose when I've got money on the line."
"You better be joking right now," Mykie warned her. "But speaking of sex, what the hell happened last night? You've been talking about Dexter, and then you're flirting with someone at the bar?"
Jezebeth looked anywhere but at her. "It was a lapse in judgment, which I figured out pretty quickly. I didn't go home with him, if that's what you're implying."
"Flirting with someone else shouldn't have even been anoption," Mykie hissed. "You're starting to give Dexter mixed signals again, and I can't let him let his guard down if you're going to keep playing with his heart."
"What are you talking about? He knows me, Myk. Last night wasn't serious, and he knows where my heads at."
"Does he?" Mykie murmured. "I certainly don't. Dexter's been waiting around for you for a while. It's just...if you're not interested anymore, you need to tell him. I don't want to see either of you hurt."
"I'm still interested in him," Jezebeth sighed, rubbing her temples. "I'm still trying to figure out how to transition from him being my friend and the most important person in my life, to that with extra expectations. What happens when I get serious with him, Myk? I've never been serious with someone."
"You're already serious about him, as far as I understand. He's serious about you, too. What do you think is going to be so different than it is now?"
"What if I put my heart into it...and it doesn't work out? What happensafter?" Jezebeth whispered.
"After?" Mykie repeated.
"I've always just taken what I thought I wanted. How do I know what's real and what's just a passing interest like the rest? What do I do after it ends? It always ends somehow, and I feel pretty emotionless about it. With Dex... do I just let him walk away and I forget about him? I can't do that."
"If you start thinking about the end, it's never going to begin," Mykie murmured.
"It's so hard, though! I have to think with Dexter. He and I have never felt effortless. It's not like it is with you two. You guys just...click. Nothing with him screamseasy."
"It's notsupposedto be easy. If you're willing to make the effort with him, it'll get easier, though. That's how you know you really care about someone and know you love them. Nothing's going to change between the two of you except for a title. The only difference is that you'll be able to wake up in his bed and know he's yours," Mykie murmured, pulling Jezebeth's hand away from her temples and squeezing it.
"We'll both be happy?" she asked.
"You and me? I hope so. You and Dexter might not always be happy with each other. Honestly, I'd think you're crazy if you were. It just matters whether you quit when that happens, or you try to stick around and find a way to fix it."
"When did you get so good at love advice?" Jezebeth joked after a few minutes of them sitting in silence as she contemplated Mykie's words.
"I've always been good at giving the advice. It's theapplyingpart that I struggle with usually." Mykie winked and both girls laughed.
Mykie wasn't expecting the conversation to go that direction, but she was glad that Jezebeth didn't get defensive. It would have been much harder to keep Dexter's secret if Jezebeth started asking questions or getting angry for Mykie picking sides.
She just hoped Dexter was given enough time to make his decision before Jezebeth decided to act serious about him. For all Mykie knew, Jezebeth may have already lost her chance and their conversation had been for nothing.
She let out a sigh of relief when the conversation changed towards a safer topic. That was one less stressor she had for the day. All she had to do was make it through the next day and a half, and she'd have her meeting with the Harpers. She crossed her fingers that the meeting would go just as smoothly as her conversation with Jezebeth went.
She knew that she didn't have that sort of luck, though.
The night was spent with her just relaxing, something she hadn’t done in a little while. She laid on the couch for most of the day watching TV before she moved into the bedroom. She thought about working more on preparing for the meeting with Harper Co., but she didn’t think she could find anything else that might help her. At least, nothing that would help her before an initial meeting. After, she would know what she would need to look for to help her achieve what she needed.
It was nights like these where she stared up at her ceiling on her bed that she wished she had hobbies. She never got into art beyond admiring it and she wasn’t someone that liked to read beyond a few classic series. When she was young, she was on the soccer team in elementary school before her father died. After the season was done, she stopped playing because it was something he and her used to do. She wasn’t close with her mother, and she thought back often to why that was. Would they have fought like most teenagers did with their mother? Would she have gotten closer to her after high school and called her with her problems? Would she had sat at the dinner table or in a chair in her office, talking her head off about boys in high school?
It was something she would never know. She was grateful for what Chance had done for her by taking her in, but she also wondered how hard it was for a twenty-year-old to suddenly be raising an eight-year-old after both her parents died. Was it difficult to suddenly have to care for and love a child that wasn’t yours? She knew Chance loved her now and that he did look at her as family, but how different would his life be if he never had to take care of her?
She started to think about how someone could possibly not love their child while they were still with them. Caspar told her that, in no uncertain terms, that he had nowhere where someone cared about him. He had no one making sure he stayed safe. No one who made sure he made it home. No one that had his back. He never mentioned not having his parents around, but she suspected that it was because they didn’t want him around. Caspar, though he was twenty-one, reminded her of herself when she was eighteen. His eagerness and recklessness to prove himself was exhilarating and terrifying. Would she be like that, too, if Chance never took her in? Caring about everyone else before herself?
She thought about Caspar and how he tried to check in with her. She could only imagine what he was thinking at the moment. Corbus, too. She kissed the one and almost kissed the other before running out on them both without an explanation. How was she supposed to explain herself? She told Renly that they needed to all have that talk when the time came to all be on the same page, but was that really the right idea?
She stared at the ceiling. Should she call Caspar? She and he had gone the furthest in their relationship. Didn’t he deserve an explanation for her running out the next morning? Or that her anger at Renly wasn’t directed at him?
