The only person I tell about the news is my mom. She’s predictably excited but senses something’s off. I can’t bring myself to tell her about Fox. She asks about him, but I deflect, saying he’s been working a lot. There’s no doubt she senses bullshit, but bless her, she lets it slide. She avoids digging by chattering about Cam and how they’re going to therapy together. I’m proud of them both.
I feel like I should be happy. I got what I asked for. And nothing more. Nothing. In fact, I feel like I paid a hell of a price for getting what I wanted. I wish the weather would have the decency to rain to match my mood, but it doesn’t. It’s beautiful, sunny SoCal. Bastard. This feeling is what keeps me to myself and inside my apartment for a solid two weeks before I actually see another person aside from the delivery guy.
And not once have I heard from Fox.
Nora lets herself in my front door and drops her stuff on my kitchen table. I haven’t seen her since she’s been out of town visiting her dad, but we have texted. “Do you have any booze in the house?” she asks. “And hello, love, by the way.”
“I may be housing an alien presence,” I say, dragging myself off the couch—which I’ve all but been attached to for days. “But I am nothing if not an amenable hostess.” My mother would be so proud. I should probably put some lipstick on. I don’t know if it would matter, though, since I haven’t brushed my teeth today.
“Thank Christ,” she groans, heading straight for the liquor cabinet. Shelf, really. Why hide it? Oh, wait. Kids. Hmm.
“I think Simon and I are done.”
Her boss is a strange bird with assholeish tendencies. A lot of them. “What did he do now?”
“He apologized to me.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Exactly.”
“No, seriously. Tell me!” I say.
“He spilled all his beans!” she shouts, slamming each bottle in my liquor collection next to the other as she attempts to choose. “Yesterday, he comes in my office and explains that he has not in fact been on vacation for three weeks but rather in a rapid detox clinic for heroin and booze!”
“So that’s his excuse for multiple personalities?” I ask, doubtful. “Addiction?”
“Basically,” she nods. “I was just disappointed that I hadn’t called it. I mean, I used to be able to spot a junkie miles away.”
“So sad,” I groaned. “Okay, so how are you done, then?”
“He apologized, but then he told me that he sold the company.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.” She decides on the bottle of scotch, which is half empty. Mostly because she favors it when she visits.
“So did you happen to notice the part where I said I was pregnant?”
“What?!” she says, spraying scotch all over me and the coffee table between us. “You didn’t say that!”
Before I can explain, Nora lifts me off my spot on the couch and hugs me. I plan to keep it together, but hormones have other plans. Namely, sobbing. When she realizes that’s why her shoulder is suddenly soaked, she pulls away.
“What the hell?” she asks. “Is the whole nine months going to be a tearjerker?”
I snort, but it doesn’t stop the tears. “Probably.”
“Sweet. I look forward to avoiding you,” she says. When my eyes nearly pop out of my skull, she amends, “I’m kidding! God, Sophie, don’t you know me at all?”
I sniffle. It’s ugly. And snotty. “I don’t trust what I know of anyone anymore,” I say.
She stares at me, statuesque and still for a moment. “This is not the exuberance I expected once the goal was achieved.”
I sit down and she comes with me. We’re sort of sitting on each other’s laps, but not. I don’t know. We’re really close and it’s kind of weird, but not uncomfortable.
“Fox has all but disappeared,” I say. “It was almost cartoonish.”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw the smoke and vapor trails. Along with the ACME-style sound effects.”
Nora smiles briefly, but her expression shifts quickly confused. “But you guys aren’t—”
Episode Five: The Snot-Sobbing Strikes Back.
“That little shit,” she seethes. Her drink is now too far away, at the other end of the coffee table. She untangles herself from our leg lock and leans across to grab it. Once she gets a gulp in, she continues. “What the fuck?”
It doesn’t take long to tell her everything—the only thing she’s not really caught up on is the big reveal, as in, the moment where Fox ran for the goddamn hills. And maybe the part where I fell in love with him. Dammit.
“How did you let me get through my little sack of nothing news without spilling all this? No, fuck that—how have you avoided telling me about the little disease you’ve contracted?”
“What?”
“You know, the love thing.” She added the conspiratorial whisper as a bonus kick to the head. “I thought that stuff was for fairy tales.”
I’m not quite sure how to take what she’s saying. It’s not like she hasn’t been in relationships. I could have sworn she’s been in love. Right? “You—wait. What’s going on here? Why are you acting like I caught the plague?”
“You kind of did, sweetness,” she tells me. “But I think you misunderstood. There’s nothing wrong with falling in love, true love, or any of that malarkey. For you, not me. Fuck that. Sorry. Anyway, what I’m saying is, you fell in love with the unlovable. No, that’s not right. The, uh, shit. What’s a word for ‘won’t truly love you back because they’re emotionally stunted’?”
That does not help me. At all. I lose my shit for the next few minutes. Eventually Nora grabs some tissues and pretends to chloroform me with them. Luckily, I don’t suffocate but I do stop crying.
“Fucked,” I say as if no time has passed. “The word is fucked, Nor. That’s what.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You can’t fall in love with fucked.”
“Oh, who gives a shit!” I shout, shocking her silent for a moment. I get up and sort through some mail on the kitchen counter aimlessly. I’m not even looking at it really. “I got what I asked for and not an iota more.”
I throw the mail on the floor. Nora tosses a gaze at the pile of envelopes and looks back to me. “No acceptance letter to Hogwarts, eh?”
We lock eyes and I find myself laughing for the first time in two weeks. Not a gut buster, but given the level of lowness I’ve been swimming in, I’ll take it.
“Yeah,” she says, “me neither. Rip-off.”