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“No, and I doubt it,” I replied. “When she told me, one of the first things she said was how worried she was about telling mom.”
“Well,” Benji looked around the room, “what’s the guy like? I mean, he’s family now, so what’s his deal? And just how obnoxious are we talking here?”
“They call her Deedee,” I covered my laugh, “like it’s her little pet name. I need to shower. Go away.”
When Benji could move from the trauma of learning about Sadie’s situation, I found my phone and made it to the bathroom, with no one catching me on the way. There wasn’t time or energy in my soul to handle anyone’s problems, at least until I was clean and caffeinated. Through the steam filling the bathroom, I smelled mom and Sadie’s cookies. My stomach betrayed me and rumbled, making me wonder about the last time I ate anything.
It felt nice just to lean against the vanity in a towel, sorting through my phone for music, standing in the cloud of steam. Nice until my phone buzzed in my hands with a message from a sender I didn’t recognize.
#02079460800#020#*: Mia?
My heart pounded in my throat, wondering if, for just a second, it might’ve been Caleb contacting me from Germany, but I knew it wasn’t. Sadie installed a stupid messenger app, so whoever was contacting me was someone from London. Matty, perhaps. That nickname made me cringe, and I wasn’t sure why. Before I replied, I changed the contact info from the long series of numbers and symbols to “dontanswerthisguyisadick”. It felt right.
I scrolled through my music and found something that could drown out the Christmas music mom blasted from her record player downstairs. Staying awake was difficult in the warm shower, but I did my best and actually felt quasi-alive for the first time in two days. Pounding at the locked bathroom door interrupted my reprieve, with Sadie screeching from the other side. She wasn’t in pain or danger, just annoyed I’d been in there for so long. It felt like high school again, which made me laugh as I told my little sister to chill out.
Standing in front of the vanity, I scoured mom’s collection of lotions, potions, and pills, hoping to find something to make me smell and feel better. It was my flashing phone screen that distracted me as I stood wrapped in a towel with a bottle of ibuprofen.
dontanswerthisguyisadick: It’s Rhys. Do you have a moment?
