Kara
Six Months Later…
“Oooh yeah! Harder…faster…right there, that’s the spot.”
Just another day in our house. I grabbed my laptop and headphones, taking a mug of steaming coffee outside to the small back garden. I sat on our patio and chose a Spotify playlist to suit my mood. I was pissed off and it was only getting worse. I was right that sharing a house with Zoey and the man in her life would be bad, but I hadn’t realised it would be like this. Your best friend’s sex noises are hardly the alarm clock you desire waking up to every morning, nor are they the lullaby you want to drift off to sleep to. Unfortunately for me, our house had paper-thin walls, and if this didn’t stop soon, I would have to find a new place to live. I’d thought she’d be impossible to live with once she was having regular sex, but this is different; it’s regular sex but with different men, and I’m finding it impossible to keep track of all their names. If she’d just married Reid like she was supposed to, I wouldn’t have to wake up to see a different guy in a half-undressed state every few days. But then, I’m glad she didn’t marry Reid, considering the man I have feelings for would then be my best friend’s husband.
“Hey,” Zoey seemed to be saying, judging by what little lip-reading I knew. She was waving from our patio door, wearing nothing but a t-shirt that was likely his, not her own.
I pulled off my headphones and looked up at her.
“I was wondering if you wanted to go shopping after I freshen up. We haven’t done something together in aaaaages,” she drew out the word to emphasize her point.
The reason we hadn’t been shopping or done anything together in ages is the fact that she had either been out partying, or she’d been confined to that bedroom—judging by the noises, you’d think she’d got a zoo in there—and so she hadn’t made any time for me recently. Which was okay with me, if I was being perfectly honest.
“Nah, I have coursework to catch up on,” I said as I nodded at my laptop. I didn’t have a shred of coursework, I’d been to the library so much recently they should have started charging me rent. With the constant distractions at home, I desired the absolute silence of the library.
“Oh,” she sounded disappointed.
“Sorry, maybe when I’ve had chance to hand this piece in by the deadline…” I trailed off, hoping she’d be placated.
“It’s just, well…I miss my best friend, Kara. I know we haven’t spent any time together and I want to rectify that. Please?” She sounded hopeful, and I didn’t want to burst her bubble. If I did, it would be to my detriment as well as hers because she’d only go out and hook up with some random stranger like she had been doing the last several months.
“Okay,” I agreed, taking pity on her and hoping to get a night off from the noises that haunt me.
I went inside and grabbed a towel from the linen cupboard.
“I’ll just take a quick shower while you say goodbye to whatshisface from last night.”
I smiled and went upstairs, taking them two at a time.
“Derek!” she shouted up the stairs behind me. “And he’s already gone.”
I should have known. They were never around long enough for coffee the next morning. Not that I wanted them to be, but I was getting a bit fed up with random men coming in and out of what was partly my house, my home, where I should feel most comfortable. But just recently, I’d found more solace in the walls of the local library because of their rule about silence and spending time with a friend who was taking the same course I was.
I took my shower and went to my room to pick out what to wear. I was hardly a girly girl, but whenever I was out with Zoey, she didn’t like me ‘showing her up,’ as she had so kindly put it. I only owned any girly clothes because she made me. She took me shopping and found me dresses that I wouldn’t normally be caught dead in. She also liked me to wear those horrible, crippling pointy-toed high heels which made my feet all kinds of sore. Left to my own devices, I’d go out in jeans and a t-shirt with a pair of Converse or Doc Martens. But Zoey would only make a scene and make me go back to my room and change if I went downstairs in anything like that now. So I dressed in a light blue maxi-dress with a pair of silver sandals. I’d conceded to wearing sandals occasionally as long as they were flat, not a heel in sight.
Walking into the lounge, Zoey rolled her eyes when she saw my outfit. I wondered what the hell I’d done wrong now.
“Flat shoes aren’t meant to be worn with a maxi-dress. You should wear wedges, or at least a pair of sling-back kitten heels.”
“If we’re going shopping, I’m going to be on my feet. The Louboutins would kill me with the height of the heel and the Blahniks would cripple me with their pointy toes. They are like the devil in shoe form.”
Zoey sighed and then looked over the dress and the over-sized bag I had decided to pair with it.
“Okay. I concede. You can wear flats because there’ll be plenty of walking in the foreseeable future. I have my mind set on a lot of retail therapy.”
I sighed. I wasn’t going to have fun today. I was going to be dragged round as many shops as she could possibly fit into one day. Retail therapy was her second favourite form of blowing off steam, casual hook-ups being her first.
***
I was right. Shopping had been a form of torture. I was sure it could be used to make anyone confess their crimes just to get the person dragging them round to get off their case. Zoey had taken me into only the best designer shops. She loved labels. That’s another thing we differed on. I didn’t care if my clothes were by some top named designer, if they came from second-hand shops, or anywhere between the two. I’d found some of my favourite music tees in second-hand shops. Music was a passion of mine and I loved finding vintage band t-shirts. It didn’t matter if they were in mint condition or if they had the odd little hole in, that was just a sign that the person before me had loved it. Zoey would screw any time I wore one. I do it on purpose sometimes, but I’m only ever allowed to dress like that around the house or if I’m out without her.
You’d think I’d hate dressing to please her. You’d think I’d just tell her to mind her own business and dress how I was comfortable. But after Reid broke off their engagement and moved out of town, I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of her. She was like a woman possessed. If she wasn’t shopping, she was in a bar somewhere, and if she wasn’t doing either of those things, she was either back at the house of that night’s hook-up or he was here in her room. Other than that, she could be found crying in the shower or ranting about how he shouldn’t have been the one to break it off. Zoey was of the belief that if anyone had broken it off, it should have been her, and she spent hours going from one end of the spectrum to the other. She’d be miserable and crying her eyes out or she’d be angry and spitting fire. I got caught in the crossfire many times, so I’d been learning to tread carefully and not do anything to piss her off.
Shopping was a nightmare because my feet felt like they were on fire and because Zoey had bought me yet more dresses and ‘appropriate attire.’ She’d spent far more than she should, but wouldn’t be told no. She put it all on her plastic, which was her way of just dealing with it later.
I was of a mind to phone her parents and tell them just how this break-up was making her act, but that would make me a grass and that is one thing I have never been.
***
A couple of hours later, Zoey was watching a film with a tub of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie. I was tidying up in the kitchen. She could hardly be bothered to clean up after herself. The cutlery and crockery were all just discarded as though some housework fairy would come along and do it all for her. Which I guess, was true, although I was hardly a fairy. Just a fed-up best friend who didn’t like living in a tip. Normally it was Zoey who was the OCD freak, a speck of dust and she was on it like it was a stain on her soul or something. But the last six months had seen her turn into more of a slob. Reid leaving changed her in more than one way. In fact, I was surprised to see her in front of the television instead of having to hear her sex noises. Maybe she was taking the night off. I could only hope. Maybe I’d get a good night’s sleep for once. I was sick of having to take Nytol and using ear plugs, topped off with a pillow over my head.
After tidying the kitchen, I went to check on Zoey. I found her asleep on the couch, so I grabbed the light blanket we kept draped over the back of it and pulled it up to her chin. I turned off the television and crept out of the room. I made my way to my bedroom and got ready for bed. Out of curiosity, I pulled out my Mac and logged into Facebook. I checked Reid’s profile, but it didn’t say anything of any particular interest. His relationship status still said single and there were no photos of him with someone else. So why had he told Zoey there was someone else and he wasn’t being fair to either of them by continuing their relationship?