Chapter 47
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
ONE MONTH
Iris
Sitting on the floor next to Cell in my living room, I bump my shoulder into this insane woman.
She folds over, covers her face, and howls with laughter.
I try not to join in, I truly do, but Kali, on the opposite side of me, follows suit like the traitor she is, and I hate her for it.
I hate them both. Okay. Not really. But come on, you cannot tell me that Jack Black isn’t hot.
He is. Isn’t it universally known? It seems like it should be.
We’re watching the first Jumanji with him in it after the OG with Robin Williams. I’d never seen either of them before.
I’m a little behind in the movie-watching department on account of not growing up with a television.
Though our local library did show PBS shows in a media room, and anytime I visited to pick out my month's worth of books, I may have snuck a peek or two, even though Dad forbade it.
I’m making up for lost time, and my friends are here to make sure I don’t miss out.
It also gives us a reason to spend time together, eat greasy pizza, and forget that it’s been exactly one month and four days since Dark and Sunshine went missing.
We don’t talk about it much. Sure, the undercurrent is always there, the waiting, the pain.
I still check my doorstep every morning, hoping my breakfast is there. It’s not.
Since I have nothing to do, I’ve taken to visiting Dark Delicacies most days after forcing myself out of bed.
I’ve stopped wearing wigs altogether. Not that I won’t wear them ever again.
I just don’t have the energy for the prep and care right now.
The most I can muster is putting on some fake lashes and painting my eyebrows.
This keeps stares to a minimum. Most people either assume I’m protesting something by rocking a bald head or that I’m a cancer patient.
The truth is, I don’t owe anyone an explanation. I am who I am.
“Jack Black is hot, in his own way,” the blonde, curly-headed bitch beside me forces out through a fit of roiling laughter, her red eyes and equally red face fixed on me. She blows out a breath to calm down. It doesn’t help. Cell snorts by accident, like a pig.
Fake insulted by her poking fun, I cross both arms over my chest, and my ankles too, and harrumph an overly exaggerated, deep breath in, chest expanding, grumpy exhale out.
Kali snickers.
Cell rolls her eyes, grinning from ear to ear as she shoves my leg. “Don’t be such a baby. I agreed with you.”
“After you laughed,” I point out, lip twitching, feeling lighter than I have in almost a week.
“How many times do I comment on hot men, and you completely ignore me?” Cell cocks her head to the side, waiting for me to answer, but I have nothing to add, so she continues. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you, outside of a certain someone, say anyone is hot.”
That’s true. I don’t.
“Is Jack your Hall Pass celebrity crush?” Cell waggles her brows with hearts swimming in her eyes, then looks past me to Kali. “How about you, Boss Lady?”
“Idris,” our friend says without missing a single beat.
Grasping her heart with one hand, Cell fans her face with the other and swoons. Toppling to the floor in over-the-top Cell fashion, she rolls onto her back and whispers in reverent awe, “Oh. Yeah. Now that man is fine. Really fine. Sell your soul to the devil, fine.”
I bark a laugh and poke the side of Cell’s hip with my bare toe. “Am I the only one here thinking Cell needs to get laid?” Really laid. All the way laid. She puts the “t” in thirsty.
She swats at my foot. “We’ve already been over this. I don’t do sex.”
“But you love men,” Kali points out, and I nod in agreement.
“The look of men. Yes,” Cell explains, turning onto her side and propping a hand under her head.
“The idea of men. Absolutely. The reality of them? Ew. No.” She shivers in revulsion.
“Dirty socks on the floor? No thanks.” Her nose scrunches.
“Can’t find the ketchup in the fridge when it’s right in front of their face?
” She gags, shaking her head. “Nope. No way.”
Keeping a straight face, even though it’s difficult, I hum. “Those are oddly specific.”
“Very,” Kali agrees with a low, amused chuckle and reaches into her pizza box for another slice. Just like the first time, we each have our own.
Cell pokes my calf. “What can I say? I spend a lot of time doomscrolling through the women’s sphere.”
“What does that even mean?” What is a woman’s sphere? Women’s sphere?
“Women talk about their relationships and lives…”
Ah.
“And you live vicariously through them?” Kali asks as she swallows a bite of pizza and cracks open a fresh water bottle.
“I guess. It’s not like most of the women I surround myself with have good experience with men, beyond you.” Cell stares pointedly at Kali. “Even then… some of it was bad. Lies. Cheating. Stalking.” She wrinkles her nose as if she just smelled a skunk. “Ew. No thanks.”
As someone who has next to no real experience with men outside of setting them up for death, which doesn’t count, I’m with Cell. Ew. No thanks.
Crying myself to sleep every night over a man I fell for in such a short time is tragic enough.
This is my one-and-done in life. I have no desire to go through it again.
Losing someone. Trying to date. Not to mention the thirty-year-old virgin thing I’d have to explain. Nobody would get it. Not like… him.
And if it’s not him…
It’s no one.
Smashing my lips together, I try not to think about it.
Any of it.
Not when he kissed me goodbye, right before we left for the resort. He swatted my ass and wished me good luck.
Ugh. No. Not going there.
Unfortunately, my stupid brain doesn’t care that a silly, hot, chubby Jack Black is doing silly, hot things on the flat screen, in a jungle with a big, beefy man. My nose does that awful burning thing when I try my damnedest not to cry.
To rein this in, I ball my hands on my lap and push those feelings down. Deep down. Deep. Deep. Deep. Marianna trench deep.
No more crying.
I can’t do it.
This is supposed to be girls’ night. They started twice a week since we returned with Tarek and Fog from Texas. We trade off. One time here, the next at Kali’s. Sometimes Cell joins, sometimes she doesn’t. Till even came by once.
This is my life.
It’s new, and I’m adjusting. Heartbroken but still alive and working through shit. I’m always working through something, it seems.
Kali and Cell read my melancholy, but they don’t say anything as Cell sits up and smashes up against me. Their hips hug either side of mine, and their heads rest on each of my shoulders.
Their quiet strength means everything. I just wish I could express how much.
I pat their laps in silent appreciation, and it doesn’t take long for the emotional ball to loosen in my gut as Bethany, a.k.a. Jack Black, talks about his penis and we all crack up.