Maddening beeping from my cell woke me up. My alarm was set extra early because I assumed Brooks woke up early—he gave off that studying-before-school vibe. I folded my blanket, smoothed the couch cushions, and washed our mugs, which he’d left in the sink, before I tiptoed to the front door.
Boden didn’t appear when I started stirring. That either meant I was just that quiet, or that he slept behind Brooks’s closed door. I knew he closed his door because I stealthily climbed halfway up the steps to check. If there was a medal out there for fighting the urge to snoop around an alluring stranger’s house and winning, it would’ve been given to me.
After I scanned the house for any lingering signs that I’d been there, I triple checked that the door was unlocked before I shut it. I wanted to be able to return to his place if I couldn’t get into Sadie’s.
The plan was good in theory, I just wasn’t positive I knew where her hide-a-key was. Making my way from one pristine yard to another in the predawn hours, I prayed Sadie was asleep. Just as I was picking through rocks lining the flower bed, looking for the fake one, Sadie opened the door wearing a sleep shirt and a just-woke-up expression.
Damn.
“You slut, you!” she squealed and my clean getaway vanished. “Enjoying your very short walk of shame?”
“I was until you showed up.”
Her jaw dropped, exposing her perfectly capped teeth. She grabbed my arms and pulled me inside with more strength than any twiggy girl ought to have. I scooped up my keys from the stand by the door, but Sadie wrenched them from my hand and put them right back down.
“I need details.”
“There’s nothing to tell.” There was nothing I would tell.
“Oh come on, Ollie. You slept there and he’s so damn hot. We’re adults here.” She shut the door, making the entryway even darker, and pressed me close against it.
“Exactly, he’s practically perfect. He’s got his shit together and a real life while I’m finding it difficult to just live mine. It’s not like that at all. At. All.” Heat spread across my cheeks and my fists clenched. She lied to me about Aaron, then had the nerve to ask about how I spent my night because she ruined it.
She rolled her eyes, accepting defeat. For now. “Aaron’s pissed at you.”
“How can that be?”
“Um, well, you ditched me for starters, he brought over your favorite liquor and that weird stuff his dad makes, and he went out to look for you and couldn’t find you. Then I told him you were probably across the street at your boyfriend’s and he wasn’t happy he wasted all that time.” She was so pleased with herself you would’ve thought she set me up with Brooks on purpose. I wanted to punch her.
“You didn’t.”
“I did, I did. And keep your voice down; he’s still sleeping like most sane people at this hour.”
I wanted to scream. Now I remembered why I was avoiding her in the first place. Then I wanted to run back to Brooks’s so I could pretend I never left.
“Well, you shouldn’t have told Aaron anything about where I was, and you shouldn’t have lied to me about him coming over, either.”
“I don’t think it should matter. He’s my fiancé and you’re my best friend. Why can’t you just hang out with him?”
My eyes went to the floor. “It’s the principle of the thing.”
She laughed at that like I wouldn’t have principles or something—like I wanted to be around Aaron. “Ollie, stop being jealous for two minutes and just be normal.”
I didn’t have anything to say to her after that. I brushed past her to retrieve my overnight bag, gathered my keys back up, and left.
***
I didn’t do well with confrontation and Sadie knew that. She knew all the things I wasn’t good at. We both knew we wouldn’t speak for a couple days, then one of us would cave and everything would go back to normal.
That was our pattern and I could never seem to break it, but then again neither could she. Even if Sadie would never admit to it, she was always just as eager to have me back in her life after a fight as I was to return. I knew I wasn’t good at keeping friends and I owned up to it. Sadie was just as bad with her thick outer wall made of shallow comments and selfishness, but somehow together we weren’t so bad.
At least I hoped not.
I refused to call her and I couldn’t put my finger on why exactly. When you’re angry at someone for twenty-seven reasons, sometimes one doesn’t stand out more than the others.
I was too scared to leave my apartment for fear of who I would run into, while simultaneously thinking of a million reasons to not be home. The idea of hiding out till work on Monday was pretty tempting, especially after my interesting Friday, but I was a masochist and knew I wouldn’t stay away much longer.
As Val, my mom, pointed out every chance she got, my apartment was reason enough to cause a depression. The square footage in total was smaller than the bedroom I’d have if I lived with her and her new husband, Karl, at his house. Or I guess I should say their house. My interior design skills are seriously lacking, but that’s mostly because of my insufficient funds.
Apprenticing at the tattoo shop, while essential to my happiness, didn’t keep me flush with cash.
But, as a twenty-year-old in my second year of art school, even if that school was only forty minutes away from Val’s house, I thought I deserved an away-from-home experience.
Well, that and the fact that I liked my mom about as much as Batman liked the Joker. Sure, she gave me life and proved to be a worthy adversary, but I didn’t want to live with her.
I just couldn’t get in a better mood. The more I tried to avoid a situation, a place, a person, the more I thought about it. Constantly trying to not think of it only brought it to the front of my mind and my mind was already clouded enough.
When picturing a tiny wooden box to put my bad mood in didn’t work, I decided I would put on my saddest music and think as much as I wanted for a full hour. By the time fifteen minutes passed I would be so sick of myself I’d be over it and not think anymore.
I had a whole fifty-four song playlist created for just these kinds of situations, so I wrapped myself in my fluffiest blanket—which wasn’t as nice as the one at Brooks’s—and burrowed into my tiny ancient floral loveseat. With my thumb and pointer finger firmly grasping the fake lashes on my right eye, I gave myself the don’t-do-it pep talk.
The lashes weren’t just part of my aesthetic, they were my way of life.
Ripping the lashes off my eye would sting a little, and would be a waste of a pair since I only had them on a few hours, but I tore them off anyway. When the last globule of adhesive was removed it was my cue to cry. I don’t know how it happened—maybe magic, maybe complete mental trickery—but those lashes kept the tears in my eyes, and now that they were sitting on my thigh, mocking me like deformed caterpillars, I cried.
Before I knew it two hours had passed and I was nowhere near over it, but I was sick of myself and dehydrated.
My music stopped playing when my phone rang. The screen said it was an unknown caller. I had that small internal battle of whether to answer or not.
Probably a wrong number. Could be Aaron with a new number. Did I not pay a bill? What if it’s an emergency? Maybe it’s Brooks?
I answered. “Hello?”
“Ollie?” It was Val, but I only called her that behind her back.
“Hi, Mom.”
“I called you several times over the last few days; I just knew you’d answer if I called from a number you didn’t know. Why didn’t you ever call back? You never want to talk to me.”
I pulled the phone away from my mouth so I could sigh. In the last week she called me exactly once, and I did call her back, but she was the one who didn’t answer. I couldn’t tell her that, though. “I was listening to music.” Even though I was never in the mood to speak with her, I really wasn’t in the mood.
“What’re you doing today?”
Not seeing you, I thought. “I have some running around to do. You know, errands and ink shopping.” I lied. I don’t buy ink, and why would I do that on a Saturday?
“Oh, good. We can run around together.”
No no no no. “I guess, but I wanted to be in bed early.” I had to practice having a backbone.
“You can stand to see your mother for a few hours. I’m picking you up in twenty minutes.”
“I’m tired and I have stuff to do. Can’t we schedule for next week?” When you’re over wanting to see me.
“No, I’m your mother and I said now.”
“Fine, whatever,” I mumbled like the small child she always managed to reduce me to.
I quickly showered in an attempt to wash my foul mood off. It didn’t work. Wretched emotions don’t fit down tiny little drain holes. Dripping water all over my scratched-up wood floor and searching in the back of my closet, I found the hideous pastel dress Val bought me for my last birthday, which I saved for just this occasion.
In my last mother-pleasing effort, I completely pulled my long, messy curls off my face. When I glanced in the mirror before I went outside to wait for her, I hated everything I saw. I looked perfect.
Standing in the cold was infinitely preferable to my mother coming up. My bed was never made, I only ever had peanut butter and Mountain Dew in the fridge, and books, clothes, makeup, and magazines occupied every available surface. Not to mention the lack of space in general. I loved everything about my apartment, so she hated it by default.
Val rolled to a stop at the curb forty minutes later instead of twenty.
“Fix the time on my dash, will you?” my mother said as soon as I plopped my cold butt down on the new seat of her Lexus.
“That didn’t sound like an apology or a hello to me.”
“Apologize? For what now, Ollie?” She sighed, making me feel like she was already exhausted with me.
“Nothing.”
I began adjusting the time as she applied more powder to her overly done-up face. Val thought the more makeup she wore, the younger she looked. I tried to convince her the pancake look wasn’t fooling anyone, but she didn’t listen. Instead she applied layer after layer of foundation and powder until she was more makeup than woman.
“Isn’t a floral dress out of season right now?”
I had absolutely nothing to say to that; besides, I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. We sat in silence until she put the compact down and finally looked at me.
“You do look lovely in that dress, though. I have marvelous taste, it’s just the wrong season.” She brushed the nonexistent dark hair out of my eyes purely out of habit, frowned at my fake lashes, and then pulled away from the curb.
“Where exactly are we going?” I finally thought to ask.
“You said you had errands to run.” She barely took her foot off the gas at a stop sign.
The only place I had to go was the supermarket. I could always use groceries, but there was about a zero percent chance she’d want to shop for food.
“Oh, I don’t know. Whatever. Don’t you have things to do?”
“We could do a little shopping, then lunch.” She was already headed in the direction of the mall and I was already regretting saying she could pick.
Shopping with my mother usually meant being dragged from dressing room to dressing room while she asked how she looked in her questionable clothing choices. She was always buying me clothes too, but I would only occasionally like them. That’s not to say they went unappreciated. Whenever I had trouble making ends meet, Val somehow always knew. She’d send me a card with some money in it or randomly drop off dinner. Those were the things that meant so much to me, but the gifts got shoved in the back of my closet or balled up in a drawer and only made me feel guilty.
This time was no different.
We walked through the juniors section of the department store, even though I told her I hadn’t worn juniors clothes for ages. Val piled clothing of every style and color over her arm.
“Oh, what do you think of this?” She held up a white shirt covered in gold and silver sequins.
“I’d never wear that.”
She laughed. “Not for you. For me.”
It was a crop top and made from that stretchy material that clung to everything. Val was tiny, but not in good enough shape to bare her belly in sequins.
“It’s really young, don’t you think?”
She draped the shirt over her arm. “I’m not old. I’m trying it on.”
In a move that made me cringe, Val snapped her fingers until the saleswoman came over. “We both need fitting rooms, hun. Right next to each other and without other people’s leftover clothes in them still.”
“Sure.” The woman smiled and I mouthed, “Sorry.”
“Here.” Val dumped half the clothes she’d gathered in my arms. “Try these on. Start with the floral dress.”
I shut myself in the small room and took a deep breath. With all the clothes hanging on the hooks I could tell I wasn’t going to like any of them. There were lacy, bright colors and shiny fabric galore. The dress I was supposed to put on was the worst. I avoided the mirror as I slipped the dress over my head. The long sleeves were too tight and too long. The slit on the side went up to my thigh and probably looked awful, and the dark flowers looked more suitable for curtains than to wear. The price wasn’t too bad. Maybe if she insisted I buy it I could return it later.
“What’s the hold up?” Val asked from the other side of the door.
I pushed out of the room, still wearing my boots, to see her wearing the exact same dress.
“We look darling!”
She pulled me beside her in front of the large mirror in the hall. She looked okay. I guess. The dress at least fit her. I looked…like a sausage.
“I look awful.” I turned away from the mirror.
“You know,” she said, ignoring me, “we almost look like sisters.”
“Yeah.” I only agreed because it was easier than pointing out how wrong she was. Her hair was short and blonde, her legs were long and thin, and her eyes were a light blue. I had the opposite of all those things. But yeah, we looked like twins.
I prayed, wished, hoped, and dreamed that I would never grow into her. Most choices I made were purely based on what I thought my mother would do and then doing the opposite. She was overtly emotional, and honestly, I was too. But Val wore her emotions on the outside for all to see. She didn’t mind crying in public. She never shied away from confrontation. Val loved an audience. Which led me to keep my emotional expression level with that of a coma patient, no matter what I was feeling on the inside. She was pushy, loud, and outgoing. I was none of those things, oftentimes to an extreme fault.
A couple hours and several hundred snide comments from Val later, I had enough.
“Can we please go eat now? I’m starved.”
“Sure. I could use a bite or two.” And she probably really meant one or two. My mom would always leave a restaurant with a to-go box and devour the contents as soon as she was behind closed doors. Val was all about the illusions in life.
She pulled out her phone as we got into the car and I searched my bag for my headphones. They, of course, weren’t in there.
“Hey, babe,” she gushed when Karl picked up.
She went into detail with him about every piece of clothing she tried on and then bought, while I wondered how anyone could pretend to care that much. Then the startling thought hit me: what if he actually cared that much? Did my dad ever care that much? I bet he didn’t. I bet that was the problem. How did he ever fall for her?
My phone buzzed with a text from Sadie, but I didn’t read it. I was too busy thinking about my parents’ doomed relationship.
When we got in the booth at Eat’n Park, I knew the finish line of the gagworthy mother-daughter day was in sight. A quick Breakfast Smile for lunch and then I’d be back home to sulk.
“I heard you’re fighting with Sadie,” my mother said.
I shrugged but didn’t look up from the water I’d ordered so she wouldn’t lecture me on the horrors of Mountain Dew. “Not really.”
“She’s worried about you.”
“Well, she needs to worry about herself.”
“Sounds like there are things we need to talk about.” She made circles with the tip of her finger on the speckled tabletop.
“Sounds like you already had a talk with Sadie.”
“Ollie, I hate when you do that.” She was talking so loudly I wanted to hide.
“Do what?” Breathe, she probably hated it when I breathed.
“Just say what I say but turn it around. I can’t help it if I have to talk to Sadie because you won’t talk to me. She even offered to get lunch with me…”
“I’m sitting here with you right now.” What did she want from me?
“Yes, you’re sitting here, but you hardly speak unless I drag it out of you, and you always act so miserable. Look, she told me she’s worried about…” She pursed her lips while she tested her words in her mind first. “What this time of year is a reminder of.”
“What?” My stomach flopped uncomfortably and I pulled my hands into the sleeves of my sweater.
Sadie was the one who brought my dad up in the first place, Sadie was the one who reminded me it was the anniversary, and Sadie was the one talking about him to my mother. Maybe she was the one with the problem.
“She told me the whole story of Friday night.” My eyes widened as I waited for her to mention my escape to Brooks’s, but she didn’t. At least Sadie had that much sense. “She said she was devastated you ran out on your little get-together.”
“Well, if she wanted to see me she shouldn’t have lied to me.” I began ripping my paper napkin to shreds.
“Is this really about you and Aaron?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “I knew it, and you were doing so well. The three of you would get along if you were with someone. Maybe you should try online dating.”
She truly believed what she’d just said. I just had the worst year of my life and she said I was doing well? I’d stopped eating and speaking. I moved out of her home because I couldn’t stand the sight of her, and then there were the more pressing, and much darker issues I tried to never think of.
She casually dumped seven Splenda packets into her iced tea like we were talking about the weather. Could she be more of a hypocrite? I can’t drink Mountain Dew but she can shovel in Splenda like she owns stock.
“I don’t think that will be something that’ll ever happen.” I willed the cook to prepare my eggs as quickly as possible.
Online dating was fine for normal people. People who only have your standard past traumas, possess the ability to be semi-charming, and at the very least don’t believe in magical fake eyelashes.
“You’re still single, so that’s why I’m concerned.”
“I hardly think being single is a cause for concern. There’re plenty of worse things in life.”
“That might be true, but with your past”—she whispered the last part—“being single isn’t a good idea. Boyfriends make girls happy and you need to do everything you can to keep happy.”
Val was still working under the delusion that I had only one trigger for my problem.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You need to talk about this. Sadie is a very good friend to you, and if you keep acting like this, you’ll push her right out of your life. And besides, what will my friends think if my daughter is not only single, but friendless? Doesn’t Aaron have any single friends?”
The warmth in my mom’s voice at just the mention of Aaron’s name made me irate. How could she still like him so much? And maybe I didn’t have many friends, but there were always the guys at the shop. They were quickly becoming my friends. But I couldn’t bring them up because she’d probably use that as a jumping point for a lecture about respectable career paths.
I chose that moment to check my text.
Sadie: Come over ASAP!!!
That was it. Nothing more. I wasn’t about to fall into that trap. It could mean a million things. I didn’t answer her.
I navigated my remaining time with my mother with a fake smile and fake interest. It was that easy. When she dropped me off, I promised to call Sadie and set up a date with one of Aaron’s friends. Appeasing her was that easy too.