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CHAPTER NINE
GIGI
Full carpet
I’M STILL ENGULFED BY A DARK THUNDERCLOUD WHEN I GET HOME a couple of hours later. Then I spot the two huge suitcases in the middle of the common area, and my spirits lift.
“Oh my God,” I shriek. “Are you home?”
Mya Bell appears in the doorway flashing her brilliant white smile.
“I have arrived!” she yells in very dramatic, Diana-esque fashion.
And then we’re throwing our arms around each other in one of those dorky hugs where you’re also kind of dancing and wobbling so hard you almost fall over.
“What are you doing here?” I ask happily. “I wasn’t expecting you until Sunday.”
“I got bored in Manhattan. Plus my mother was driving me crazy. I needed some peace and quiet.”
“Damn, she must’ve been extra insufferable if you, of all people, are craving silence.”
Mya is not, and I repeat, not a quiet person. This isn’t to say she’s obnoxiously loud. She’s just talkative.
“Mom decided she wants to find me a husband or a wife, and I have no say in the matter,” Mya explains, rolling her eyes.
“Really? How are you supposed to get married and become an OR superstar at the same time? I feel like it can only be one or the other right now.” Mya’s a biology major on the med-school track. She wants to be a surgeon.
“Exactly. I can’t focus on a stupid spouse when I’m staying awake for thirty-six hours straight on my surgical residency. But you try telling my mother that. She spent half the summer grilling every diplomat we ran into about whether they had any single children. She’s even compiling a dossier of candidates.”
“At least she’s come around to the wife part.”
When Mya came out as bisexual to her parents our freshman year of college, it took her mom a while to wrap her head around it. Mostly because she thought that meant she’d never have grandchildren to buy ponies for. Mya finally had to sit her mother down and explain that if she did end up with a woman, there were plenty of reproductive options available to same-sex couples these days. That seemed to appease Mrs. Bell.
“True,” Mya answers. “But I swear to God, I don’t need my mother setting me up with anyone. Have you met her? She’s the biggest snob on the planet. She’ll marry me off to some uptight heiress or a prince who wears pinkie rings.”
Mya proceeds to regale me with stories from her family’s summer travels. We crack open a bottle of red wine and sit on the couch to catch up. At first I’m entertained, but soon my mind returns to the events of this evening, until I’m preoccupied and feeling hostile again.
Fuck Brad Fairlee and fuck Luke Ryder. So what if my pass was intercepted tonight? And so what if—
“What,” Mya says in amusement, jolting me from my thoughts, “my story about this nude Greek dinner party isn’t doing it for you?”
“No, it’s hilarious. Sorry. My mind drifted for a second, and I started stewing again. I was in the worst mood before I saw your gorgeous face.”
“One, I need you to keep the compliments coming because my mother basically reduced my self-esteem to ashes this summer. And two, what are we stewing about?”
“Emma Fairlee. My old friend from high school.”
“Ahh, the betrayer.”
“Yes.” I laugh at her phrasing, but there’s a twinge of pain there too, because if you told me senior year of high school that Emma and I wouldn’t be friends come graduation, I would’ve said you were crazy.
Mya stretches her impossibly long legs and rests them on the coffee table. “So why are we thinking about Evil Emma?”
“Well, actually, I’m thinking more about her dad. I found out tonight that Mr. Fairlee is Team USA’s new head coach.”
“Oh shit. And she poisoned Daddy against you?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her or anyone in that family, really, since graduation. But I can’t imagine she would have anything nice to say about me. She’s been slandering me on social media for three years now.”
At first it was overtly aggressive posts about how awful, selfish, and evil my entire family and I were. Eventually it became veiled “thoughts” and ambiguous quotes that were clearly directed at me and my various personality flaws.
Which is juvenile as fuck, but the problem with Emma is she hates being ignored. She always has to be the center of attention, which is great when you’re a teenager and partying, and you have this fun, vivacious friend who throws herself headfirst into adventure and drags you along for the ride.
But the moment you’re not serving her and feeding her ego, she turns on you.
“Anyway, I’m worried he’s not going to give me a fair shot,” I admit, chugging nearly half my glass. The wine sluices to the pit of my stomach and swirls there uneasily. “They’re still selecting players and finalizing the roster and…” I lick a drop off my bottom lip. “I don’t know, I’m nervous. I have a bad feeling about this.”
