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I blink. “What?”
She glances side to side, then leans forward and narrows her eyes on me as if that was supposed to be an answer.
“What?” I ask, straining the word with a laugh.
“Phoebe. You’re going to make me cry.”
My brow furrows for a moment, but then I laugh in recognition, understanding what she’s getting at. “Yes, Casey. Finally being able to live with you is abigpositive. I thought that went without saying.”
Casey takes a sip of her wine. “No, no. It can go with saying. In fact, you should say it. Every day. Maybe three or four times a day.Casey, it’s sooo great living with you!”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say with a laugh. After another sip of wine I ask, “Okay, what’s another non-Casey positive?”
Casey purses her lips, pondering for a moment. “Oh, here’s one. You can find a new guy who can actually make you come.”
I almost spit out the sip of wine that just passed my lips. “Casey!” I yell after managing to swallow it instead.
Casey smiles at my blushing cheeks. “What? Having a guy who knows how to actually get you off is pretty great. Take my word for it.”
I’ll have to, because it’s an experience I’ve never had.
Not with Blake, my ex and former skating partner who I met when I was paired with him freshman year, who become my first and, so far, only boyfriend.
Blake was cute, and nice. Well, most of the time, at least. But in bed he was … let’s say, restrained.
Or, actually, I think I’ve had enough sips of this wine to dispense with the euphemisms. He was lazy. Lame and lazy. We never really did anything other than vanilla missionary, and he never quite got the hang of foreplay.
“Seriously, Phoebe,” Casey cuts into my recollections, “you should put that at the top of your to-do list. No?—”
I cut her off. “No pun intended,” I finish her next sentence for her. “Although I’m positive the pun was intended.”
“You’re right. It was. But really. Make it a goal for this weekend even. Let’s go to a party, find you a cute guy who looks like he knows what he’s doing—which I’m pretty good at spotting from a distance, by the way—and bring him back to your room.”
Party. My stomach dips at the word.
It was a party I was driving back from with a group of friends from the skating team when the car slammed into us.
None of us in the car had even had a single drink at the party, since we were all in training for an upcoming competition.
But the asshole who slammed his car right into the side of ours had had plenty.
Everyone else in the car walked away with nothing worse than a couple cuts and bruises. I, on the other hand, had the luck of a career-ending knee injury.
Besides preferring to avoid cars after that, I’ve also developed an aversion to parties.
I was at one over the summer, thrown by an old high school friend. I only lasted about twenty minutes before I had to get out of there. It triggered a trauma response, and I felt like the walls were closing in around me.
When someone dropped a glass in the kitchen and the shattering sound reminded me of the way the window next to me cracked during the car accident, I had to get out of there.
But I don’t want to give in to that feeling.
I don’t want to never be able to comfortably ride in a car, or go to a party, ever again. I want to overcome these feelings and take back control of every aspect of my life, to be able to live and enjoy it like a normal person.
Just because I do want that, though, doesn’t mean I’m eager to face my fears as soon as possible.
“We’ll see,” I say.
“Or, if you don’t just want a hookup, find a boyfriend. Believe me, it won’t be hard to do better than Blake.”
