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“You are fucking kidding me,” I repeat my earlier statement, shaking my head and damn near crushing the plastic takeout cup of passionfruit lemonade clutched between my fingers. Not for the first time since I met Dylan Wells, I wish it was his neck straining beneath my fingertips.
Bastard.
I shouldn’t be shocked; forgetting his girlfriend’s—my best friend’s—birthday is the least offensive of a long string of misdemeanors. The guy is a pushy, controlling prick, and I knew as much as the second I met him. He always expects the most while providing the bare fucking minimum—literally the polar opposite of Amelia—and it hurts, seeing my kind, headstrong friend so frequently mistreated, so often reduced to a pretty little ornament draped over an unworthy arm. And it’s infuriating that no matter what I do, I can’t change Amelia’s mind about him because in her eyes, for some unknown reason, the man can do no wrong.
In my eyes, Dylan is a billboard ad for why a commitment-free life of meaningless sex is superior.
For months—honestly, since the moment Dylan strutted into the dorm Amelia, Kate, and I shared and introduced himself to my boobs—I’ve been searching for an intervention opportunity, and it looks like this might be it.
On cue, a door opens and closes somewhere in Kate’s vicinity, and my friend’s subtly enraged expression melts into a careful smile. A greeting sounds, followed by a request for Kate’s location, and a moment later, another face joins our video call, our trio complete for the first time in a week.
I didn’t think time apart from my roommates would be a big deal but after an entire college year practically attached at the hip, I feel like I’m missing a freaking limb.
“Hey, stranger,” my favorite little redhead greets.
“Hey, birthday girl,” I sing a reply. “You get my present?”
Green eyes shine with humorous gratitude as Amelia nods. “They’re bigger than me.”
Considering Amelia makes Thumbelina look like a giant—it would probably be harder to find sunflowers smaller than her than it was to find a jungle of potted plants almost a head taller.
Even before the murderous-rage-inducing news of Dylan’s forgetfulness reached me, I knew the bastard would fail the girlfriend he doesn’t deserve on her special day. And flowers on a birthday are what Dylan Wells is to chemical castration—obligatory.
However, when I voice that thought—that fact—the reactions are far from agreeable.
“It’s not a big deal,” Amelia defends a man who doesn’t deserve it. “He has a lot going on right now.”
Yeah, right. An unemployed, unmotivated dipshit who’s sole interest lies in the bottom of a keg has a lot going on in the middle of summer break.
Sure.
“Do something nice today, okay?” I say instead of word-vomiting the many derogatory comments brewing in my brain. Contrary to popular belief, I do know where to draw the line—I just have to squint to see it sometimes. “Go celebrate.”
Don’t sit at home and wallow over that goddamn dickhead.
“I will,” Amelia replies, her poor attempt at a lie evident in the pinkening tips of her ears.
Smile tight, my gaze finds Kate and a rapid, silent conversation occurs between the two of us—something along the lines ofmake her go out, I’ll try my best, drag her by her hair if you have to—that Amelia finds incredibly annoying, if her little huff is anything to go by. “Stop it.” She elbows Kate, and I feel the ghost of a sharp joint poke me. “I’m fine. I have coffee cake and sunflowers. That’s celebratory enough for me.”
A sad, slightly pathetic celebration unworthy of such an occasion, in my humble opinion, but I’m not one to kick someone when they’re down.
Well, not intentionally.
It takes an impressive display of self-control to keep my mouth shut and my rampant thoughts to myself. By the time the girls bid me goodbye, the poor cup in my hand is as dead as I wish, with zero shame, a certain sorry excuse for a man was.
Tossing the crumpled cup in the trash can at the bottom of my mom’s building’s stairwell, I climb the three stories to the one-bedroom apartment we shared for almost two decades, feet slapping against the so-old-they-must-be-a-health-hazard-steps with more fervor than necessary. Stomping down the hall, I wrestle my keys out of my bag and unlock the front door painted a faded shade of bubblegum pink—something Little Luna who likened Princess Peach to a god begged for and Preteen Luna who inexplicably thought pink was uncool loathed.
Shouldering the Pepto-Bismol-esque slab of wood open, my nose scrunches as a familiar, overwhelming stench engulfs me. “Ma, I’m home.”
No reply.
Unsurprising, considering the volume of the music rattling the walls has not only swallowed my words but has probably severely hindered my mother’s hearing capabilities.
Following the telling trail of colorful droplets staining the floor, I find Ma where she usually is; upstairs in the loft area I used to call a bedroom, covered in paint and haphazardly swooshing a paintbrush at a canvas.
“Ma,” I repeat louder, simultaneously reaching for the old stereo propped in the corner and quieting the melody threatening to scramble my brain. The blonde woman with her back to me jumps, spinning around and brandishing the brush in her hand like a weapon. It might as well be; paint stains are definitely something to fear.
When blue eyes, the mirror image of mine, land on me, Ma deflates. “Jesus, Lu, you scared the shit out of me.”
