My head hurts.
My head hurts really bad.
I sit up slowly, untangling my limbs from the blankets and taking inventory of all my sore spots. How did I end up here again?
Oh right.
I reach over to my nightstand and grab my phone. There’s a text from Nick asking if I’m okay, but nothing from Seeley. I start to text Nick back, but that feels a little weird, like I’m going behind Seeley’s back or something. I lean against my pillow, stare up at my Black Widow poster, and try to tease apart this giant knot in my head. The only thing is, Seeley gave me this poster, and we hung it together, so staring at it kind of gives me this awful feeling all over, because what did I do?
I mean, when she said she was done with everything, she couldn’t have really meant everything, right? Like she didn’t mean being best friends, or hanging out all the time, or whatever. There’s no way. What would that even look like?
I kind of want to shoot her a text that says something like “Define everything, please.” But I’m scared that would piss her off even more. I need to come up with something clever, something sweet, something that will make her forgive me right on the spot. I pick up my phone again, totally determined to type out something so charming and delightful that it will immediately fix everything, make her happy, and/or create world peace, all at the same time, but instead I write:
Me: Can I come over?
I can see that she read it, and that she started to reply, but the little dots disappear just as quickly as they appeared. I’m left staring at this useless hunk of glass and metal in my hand—and what good is it anyway if it can’t get me my best friend back? I stay like this, perfectly still and ridiculously hungover, until my phone vibrates in my hand.
Seeley: I’ll stop by this afternoon. I need to get my stuff anyway.
Me: What stuff???
Seeley: Don’t make this harder, please.
Me: . . . ???
Seeley: I have to go.
I sit up all numb and dumbstruck because what is she doing? I mean, what stuff is she even talking about? After ten years of hanging out on the daily, we don’t really have our own stuff—we just have stuff we share. Where does she think she ends and I begin? How can she even tell?
My walls are literally covered in her drawings, and most of the pens on my desk are those expensive Copic markers she always insists on using, not to mention like half the stuff in my closet is technically hers and half the stuff in hers is technically mine. I wouldn’t even begin to know how to separate it all. I wouldn’t want to. I don’t want to. I won’t.
I roll over to my side, burying my face in the pillow she always uses. I pull it into a hug, but it’s cold and fake and I liked it better when we were lying shoulder to shoulder with our arms barely touching, and better still when we had the most phenomenal kiss of my life. I mean, wow, thanks for holding out on me, Seeley. If I’d known she could kiss like that, I would have been doing that all along with her.
I mean, wait, no. What am I talking about?
My phone buzzes, and I flip it around to check who it is. Please let it be Seeley, please let it be Seeley, please let it be—
It’s not, because of course it isn’t. It’s Nick. The same Nick I have a crush on, I remind myself. The same Nick that I have been scheming and plotting to win over all summer. The same Nick that I booped on the nose last night—I still can’t believe I did that. But that’s beside the point.
His text sounds concerned. He wants to know if I’m okay, wants to know if I need to talk, wants to be there for me, it looks like, exactly as planned. Exactly on schedule. Exactly everything I ever wanted.
And there’s that word again: everything.
I hate it.
I should be jumping for joy right now. I should be over the moon. I should be doing a happy dance on the way to my diving pirate wedding . . . but I’m not. I’m sitting here freaking out because my best friend wants to take her stuff back and keep her lips to herself. What the hell is the matter with me?
I take a deep breath and slide my fingers over the letters on my screen. I swear to god I mean to text Nick, I swear to god I do, but something happens and my finger slips and whoops, look at that, I’m texting Seeley instead.
Me: Please don’t bring my stuff back.
Me: Like if you were going to when you get yours, I mean.
Me: And if you didn’t think about that yet, then like, don’t.
Me: And pretend I didn’t say anything.
Me: Don’t let this give you any ideas.
Me: Just keep not thinking about it.
Me: Because . . . just because, okay?
Seeley doesn’t write back to any of my messages. She doesn’t even open them, but I stare at the screen until I can’t anymore, until my eyes are burning out of my head. I don’t blink and she doesn’t write back. She doesn’t. And my head is spinning out at a million miles per hour because it just hit me that I might have feelings for my fake girlfriend slash best-friend-forever, who I’m pretty sure dumped me on both accounts last night.
I’m definitely . . . something . . . with her. Something more than friends. Something more than friends that definitely should involve more kissing.
But here’s the thing.
Nick is around, and Nick is the easier choice. Even with Jessa still in the picture, Nick would be ten thousand times less complicated than trying to win over Seeley. But even thinking about Nick feels messed up, and strange, and twenty-five kinds of wrong because my brain is inside out over this girl, this girl who’s been standing right in front of me for almost my whole entire life, and I feel like I’m finally seeing her right now, for the first time, and she’s—
She’s done.
She’s coming over here to get her stuff.
She dumping me as a girlfriend and a friend-friend, and I don’t know if I can stop her and I don’t know if I should. Maybe I deserve it. Maybe I’m just the kind of person you leave. Maybe it’s better this way, without her knowing how I really feel.
Oh god, I can’t. What if I’m just still drunk or something? I mean I’m not, but like what if my judgment is eternally impaired from kissing Seeley while under the influence? What if these aren’t real feelings, what if these are vodka feelings that somehow got permanently imprinted in my brain? Is that possible? Oh god, I am never drinking again.
I run to my laptop and google “vodka feelings” because I feel like that’s a thing that the internet would know about and talk about with each other, but all that comes up is people talking about whether different types of alcohol cause different types of moods, and dammit, guys, who even cares when I’m trying to figure out if I have real feelings for the girl who is planning to totally gut me by taking back every single shred of my life that she ever touched.
YOU ARE NOT HELPING, PEOPLE OF GOOGLE.
I squeeze my eyes shut and count backward from ten, the way my dad used to make me do when I was all little and irrational and whatnot. So, okay. Calm down, Lou, focus on counting, because we need to stop this line of thinking. It’s no good for anybody. I need to be worrying about fixing this friendship, not falling in love.
Okay, deep breath. Let’s be logical about this.
I mean, I’m definitely not in love with my best friend. That would be bananas. So no, I am definitely, definitely not.
Definitely not.
Just so we’re clear.