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“I look sad?” she asked, taking a long step to move out the way of the door that she tossed into its frame behind her.
“Yeah, what happened?”
“Well, I got fired, but—”
“You got fired?” Gwen asked, dropping the bag to hurry over and hug her. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Why did you get fired? They can’t fire you! You’re the best employee they have.”
“As my friend, that’s what you’re supposed to say,” she said, easing out of her friend’s embrace. “But what’s going on with you? Don’t tell me nothing because I know it’s something.”
And if two of them were without jobs, rent would be impossible to come up with.
Gwen didn’t even disguise it. Her friend stepped back and breathed in, raising her arms. “I’m moving out.”
With that, Gwen spun on the spot to go back to her bag. She couldn’t… moving out? Why would she move out? Why would…?
Gwen was in the bathroom, tossing bottles in the bag, when she got with it enough to chase after her.
“You can’t move out. You’re not moving out. What is this? I didn’t even know you were dating anyone. Who are you moving in with?” Had she been a horrible friend? “I know I’ve been caught up in this Alex stuff and I went to New York without you, but—”
“It’s not you. I just don’t want to live here.”
“Because?”
On a mission, her roommate grabbed the last of her things from the vanity and zipped up her bag. “Because I don’t want to live with Bryan.”
“Bryan?” she said in disbelief.
Gwen squeezed past her, but she stayed hot on her heels this time and followed her into her bedroom. A suitcase was open on the bed, already half full.
“It’s Tia’s choice, I get it, but I just can’t. I can’t live with him. He’ll start throwing his weight around, think he’s in charge. And you know he’ll use Tia against us. He’ll upset her and we’ll want to make her feel better… It just won’t work; I can’t see how it ever could.”
“I don’t want to live with Bryan either. Tia wants to move him in here? How did that happen? She hasn’t mentioned it to me.”
“She doesn’t want him to live here, he already does. They showed up with a bunch of his stuff yesterday.”
“They can’t do that,” she said. “They can’t just make a unilateral decision—”
“Her bedroom, her rules.”
“And does he plan to pay his fair share of rent?”
“Tia said they’d split her share, that it should be by room.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Nothing we can do to stop it. We could try, but it would be a mess. We say no, he stays anyway. What are we going to do? We can’t manhandle him off the premises. Even if we did or the cops removed him, changing the locks won’t make any difference if Tia just lets him back in.”
“Why can’t they move to his place?”
“He doesn’t have a place. Him and his idiot roommate got evicted.”
“For?”
Moving around the room, Gwen tossed things in her suitcase. “Non-payment of rent… and weed, I’ll bet, but who knows? I just know I can’t put up with it. I already talked to the landlord. I’m going down there to sign myself off the lease. We only have a couple of months left on it anyway. Tia and Bryan can play happy families as much as they like. I don’t want to live with the drama.”
Their entire relationship was drama. “You can’t abandon me to it. You want me to live here with them alone?”
“You have Alex.”
