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He collapses on top of me, and I realize at some point the music shut off, and nothing but the sound of water lapping against the side of the boat and our heavy breathing fills the room. I want to keep my arms and legs wrapped around him and never let this moment end, but Eric slides away from me, having no clue what’s going on in my head right now. I watch him walk around the room blowing out the candles and shrouding the room in darkness, and then he comes back to bed, pulling back the covers for both of us before getting in behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me back against him.
“If we’re really quiet and don’t move, I think Derrick might actually go to sleep without licking his balls tonight,” Eric whispers in my ear.
I laugh quietly as he kisses the back of my neck and burrows down into the pillows behind me. Closing my eyes, I replay everything that just happened between us, just to hold onto it for a little bit longer because tomorrow . . . tomorrow is going to suck.
Chapter 26: You Are Goals, Dude
“I left under the cover of night while he was sleeping, like a gutless coward. Like a ninja, quietly packing my things while he was passed out, probably happily dreaming about the amazing sex we’d just had. And not even a cool ninja. A ninja who cries while she makes five trips out to her car with all of her things, stubs her toe on three different tables, and has to rewrite the goodbye note seventeen times because trying to spell the word unfortunately at three in the morning was hard,” I ramble, shoving another spoonful of ice cream into my mouth.
“Look at this. LOOK AT IT! It’s called a capybara and I want one. It’s like hamster and a groundhog had a baby. Tell Mom to get me one.”
Ice cream dribbles down my chin as I hold another spoonful suspended by my mouth, glaring at Cindy’s daughter, Anastasia, when she shows me a photo on her phone.
“I’m having a monumental crisis here and you’re talking to me about a damn rat? You are useless as an advice giver,” I complain.
“I’m fourteen, and I’m distracted by shiny things. Besides, you’ve been on our couch, eating all of our food, crying, for two days. You’re boring me. At least change it up a little. Do some screaming, throw some things, light something on fire,” she says with a shrug. “I could get on board with that.”
Grabbing the canister of Pringles on the couch next to me, I crush up a handful and dump them right into my ice cream, staring at Anastasia the entire time I do it.
“We’re back, and we brought booze!”
I hold my spoon up in the air and twirl it around, hearing the rustle of bags as Cindy and Belle walk through the door behind me.
“Just dump it right in here. I’ll have a chip-booze-shake,” I announce.
Belle comes around the couch and snatches the ice cream container out of my hand.
“Hey!” I shout in frustration.
Cindy then grabs the five empty cans of Pringles as well as the one I just opened and shoves them under her arms. She starts to walk away, then circles back and grabs the spoon out of my hand.
“No more eating your feelings,” she informs me, pointing the spoon at me. “Look at you. Just look at you. There’s ice cream all down the front of your shirt. And chip crumbs in your crotch. Jesus Christ, is that cream cheese in your hair? You promised you’d take a shower and start to become human again while we were at the store. This isn’t you, Ariel. You don’t get sad, you get mad.”
Belle nods in agreement, snatching the spoon out of Cindy’s hand and digging into my potato chip ice cream, the fucking traitor.
“According to an article in the New York Times, women oftentimes choose sadness over anger because it seems more refined and also more selfless, as if you were holding the pain inside yourself rather than making someone else deal with its blunt-force trauma,” Belle states around a mouthful of food.
“Oooooh, did someone say blunt-force trauma?” Anastasia perks up from the loveseat across from me. “If she’s going to hit someone with a heavy object, I get to watch. It’s only fair after you made me babysit her.”
I snarl at the teenage asshole, but the idea of grabbing a tire iron and doing some damage to someone’s face does start to perk me up.
“What Belle is trying to say is, you are not the type of person who sits around wallowing in misery because you don’t want to offend someone by getting pissed off,” Cindy says. “You have a right to be pissed off. We’re all pissed off about this situation. We’ve given you a few days to be miserable because, honestly, you needed that, and we don’t blame you. But time’s up. No more crying. It’s time to get pissed off, and it’s time to get even.”
