50. Haven
Chapter 50
Haven
I know it’s a mistake the instant I crawl into bed and pull the covers up. I’ve been here for an hour, and I’m too miserable to even go to the bathroom and pee.
How the hell did this day get so fucked?
Was I being punished for enjoying that shopping spree? I’m not religious, but maybe there’s something to this whole God thing, because this feels personal.
I let myself relax for one minute. Stop to smell the flowers one time . Then the Almighty slaps me on the knuckles with a ruler. The worst part? I’m hungry again, but I’m feeling too sorry for myself to raid the fridge.
“You know, I used to do that.”
“Raid the fridge?” I mutter into my pillow.
Melissa scoffs, her bed creaking as she drops into it. “Please. I’ve been counting calories since I was twelve.” There’s a thump as she drops a shoe onto the carpet. Which just makes me think of those gorgeous stilettos I couldn’t even walk in. Which makes me think about Bastian, which?—
“Ugh!”
Melissa carries on like I didn’t even groan in frustration. “Pre-game napping. If I didn’t have so much shit to do, I’d join you.”
“Not like I’m napping anymore anyway,” I complain, rolling onto my back and rubbing my hands over my face. “And I wasn’t pre-gaming anything. I’m not going.”
Melissa was busy kicking off her other mule, but stops to give me a forceful, wide-eyed glare. “Weird. Almost sounded like you said you’re not going.”
“I’m not.” I stare up at the ceiling, shaking my head. “Had some bad tacos for lunch.”
Then some good shopping, then some weird talking, then some awful fighting.
Why can’t Bastian just be normal? I’m not an expert on the subject, but I really don’t think my professor had any right to quit my job for me. Even though what he says makes sense.
How am I supposed to go to classes, study, and work at the diner? And I guess I don’t really need to if I’m being fed and housed here. But what about, I dunno, clothes? Tampons? Shampoo?
Fine, I still have a box of tampons, and I’ve never had an issue using soap as shampoo…but that’s beside the point.
“Lunch? They’ll be out of your system soon.”
I roll onto my side so I can glare at Melissa. “I’m not going.”
She’s on her phone, not even bothering to acknowledge my scowl. “You’ll be fine. Got pills you can take to stop the cramps.”
“Melissa!”
She sighs, puts down her phone. Props herself up on an elbow and stares me down. “You’re not sick. You’re having boy trouble. I knew the moment I walked in.”
“You’re a relationship guru now?”
“See? You’re not denying it.” She falls back and starts texting on her phone again. “You got a dress?”
“No, because I’m not going!”
“I might have something that’ll fit.”
“Jesus…”
“Then there’s always the toga-dress. We have nice sheets. Do you look good in white?”
Fuck this. If I can’t bury my head under my pillow and try to phase out of this reality until a better one comes along, then I’m going to raid the fridge.
“Are you going to shower? Good idea. It’ll be swarming in there in an hour.”
Melissa follows me into the kitchen, because I guess it’s her life mission to terrorize me.
I’ve never had this effect on people before. Back at Ashwood High, I was invisible. Just another nameless face in a sea of kids. Now it’s like everyone I come into contact with has a secret agenda to mess with my shit.
“Know what helps with boy problems?” Melissa says, leaning her hip against the counter as she watches me rummage inside the fridge. This thing is stocked. A veritable feast…if you like vegetables and low fat dairy.
“Junk food?” I mutter, swiveling a yogurt carton around so I can see the label. Fat-free. Yuck.
“No. This.”
I roll my eyes when she doesn’t elaborate, my curiosity forcing me to turn to her. “Is that…a joint?”
“It’s not, not a joint.” She flashes me a smile and wriggles her fingers over the joint and stage-whispers, “Boy problems be gone!”
“You’ve discovered the cure,” I tell her, shaking my head. “I can’t believe it, but you’ve fucking discovered the cure.”
“Told ya.” She passes me the last of the joint, but I shake my head and my hand, just in case she missed the head shaking. “We take them too seriously. This?” She holds out the last of the joint before pinching it in her fingertips and hitting it. “Perspective.”
I hold up a finger. “Clarity.”
She opens her mouth, but then closes again, shrugging. “Yeah. Those.”
We’re at the table under the gazebo, in GAZ’s backyard. Sitting on it, because I’m guessing that’s how the cool kids do it. With such heavy, gray clouds above, all the colors are muted, shadows darker.
It’s gloomy, chilly, and I love it.
Why hadn’t I stayed here the whole day instead of going to lunch with Bastian?
Melissa keeps brushing her hair out of her face when the wind blows it, then looking up at the sky like it’s got beef with her.
“So what did Kai do? He cheat on you? Guys do that. You just gotta move on. Or learn to deal with it.” Melissa stretches out her arms, fingers laced, cracking her knuckles. Then she props her elbow on her knee and turns to look at me. “I don’t. I move on.”
“It’s not…” But I trail off, because what the hell am I supposed to say? I can’t tell Melissa what happened today.
She wouldn’t understand.
Fuck, I don’t even understand what’s happening between me and Professor Rooke. Especially when he keeps telling me I don’t get it.
“What does it mean if a guy says a relationship isn’t transactional ?” I put it in air quotes, because it sounds so stupid when I say it out loud.
“That he’s an asshole.”
I turn to her, my arms dangling over my knees. “Do you even like guys? I haven’t heard you say a single nice thing about them.”
“I like guys.” She gives me a coy smile, then flattens her lips. “But only if they know what a clit is.” She holds up a finger. “And where to find it.”
“But only if they know what to do with it, when they find it.”
We both burst out laughing, and wow, I haven’t laughed like this in a long, long time. Was it that time Kai made me laugh so hard milkshake came out of my nose? God, that was almost a decade ago. And it was the same diner I’m working?—
Used to work at.
“Okay, okay.” It says a lot that, despite the weed, it only takes me a second to sober up enough to talk again. “What if, what if a guy does something so fucking outrageously fucked up, that, that, you want to gauge out his eyes with your bare fucking hands?”
Melissa stares at me with wide eyes. She lifts her hands to her face, slowly mimicking a gentle clawing motion. Nodding.
We both burst out laughing again. It’s so bad this time that we hold on to each other so we don’t fall off the table.
“Please can I watch?” she wheezes.
I’m wiping away tears. “Watch what?”
She waves at me. “It doesn’t have to be in person. You can record it!” She breaks into gales of laughter.
“What?” I shake her.
“You and Kai hate fucking!” she wheezes, thumping her fist into my upper arm.
“Fuck you.” I slide off the table, my mouth squirming as I try to control my laughter.
“Wait, please, Haven!” Melissa yells, but then starts laughing again.
I give her the finger over my shoulder, and hear her thundering after me in big floppy steps. “Wait, wait! Please. I’m sorry.”
“You okay there?” I ask dryly as she clings to me and tries to walk and breathe and laugh at the same time. “Need an ambulance?”
“Just the video,” she whispers, her lips rolling into a line as she tries—and fails—not to giggle.
“Fuck off!” I shove her away, but now I’m giggling too, and my arms are too weak.
“Argh!” She drags out a stool from the kitchen counter and snatches me as I pass, forcing me to sit. “I’m gonna make you the best snack ever. It’s so good, you’ll be hitting that record button?—“
“Enough!” I hold up a finger. “I’m warning you.”
She covers her hand with her mouth, turns to the fridge.
“Didn’t figure you for a closet slut,” she says, her head buried inside.
“I’m not any kind of slut.” Weird how she can call me that, and I barely blink. But Kai? Hearing him say that is like a burning knife to the gut every time.
As if thinking about him reminds me, the cut on my side aches. I found a band aid large enough to cover it in the first aid kit in the kitchen this morning. The only other time it hurt today was when I was struggling in and out of those pretty dresses at the boutique.
“Please. You paraded that notepad around like a pink flag.” She takes out some low-fat yogurt. Blerk. Blueberries. Mmm.
“Notebook?”
She glances at me over her shoulder as she takes out a pair of bowls from the cabinet. “Seriously. You’re gonna deny that, too?”
“Deny what?”
“Oh my God.” She rolls her eyes and storms out of the kitchen.
“Wow.” I lean over the counter, cracking open the blueberry container and popping a few in my mouth. “Mmm.”
I almost swallow one whole when Melissa reappears a moment later, slamming her ereader face down on the table in front of me. She points at one of many stickers covering the back of the device.
A long sticker, just a bunch of random letters, that runs the entire length of the e-reader.
“What?”
“Come on. Say it with me.” She points at the first letter. “Shut…?”
STFU
“Shut the fuck up.” I roll my eyes up at her. “And?”
“Take…?”
I stare down at the letters. “Take?”
She points at the next letter. “That.”
“That.”
“Come on, Haven, you know this.” She starts tapping on the D.
“Down? Dog?” Because apparently I’m fluent in yoga.
“Dick!” she yells, tapping harder. “Dick!”
“Dick?”
“Oh my God.” She runs her hand along the sticker, rambling off the acronym like a word champion speed reader. “Shut the fuck up and take that dick like a good girl!”
She slaps the countertop. “Like a good girl, Haven! Like a good girl!”
I laugh so hard that blueberries almost come out of my nose. I can’t breathe. “That’s what it says?” I’m surprised Melissa can even understand me, because I can hardly force the words past my constricting lungs.
“You didn’t know?” she wheezes.
“I didn’t know,” I wheeze back, shaking my head as tears stream out of my eyes.
Melissa slaps the countertop, then she’s holding on as her body slides to the floor, legs incapacitated by laughter. “Oh my fucking God…”
If the doorbell hadn’t rung right then, I think we’d both have passed out from lack of oxygen. Since I’m not the one sprawled on the floor like a dead person, I go answer the door.
I didn’t even stop to think who might be on the other side. It could have been Bastian, trying to apologize by making things worse somehow.
Or Kai. With a knife.
Thank God it’s neither.
“Delivery for Miss Lee?” the courier says, giving my tear-stained face a concerned look. “You okay, ma’am?”
“Yessir.” I haul a breath through my lungs, dragging my finger over the touch screen of his delivery machine thing and taking the parcel from him. “Too much weed.”
I slam the door in his face, leaning my back against it as I savor the feeling of air in my lungs.
God, my stomach hurts.
“Who was it?” Melissa comes out of the kitchen using the heels of both hands to wipe her face. “Oh my God, was that Amazon?”
“No, I think it’s for me.”
“What did you get?” She brightens up so much, you’d swear this was her delivery.
“I’m not sure…” But as I say it, my brain finally catches up. “Oh fuck.”
“What? What?” She plucks the parcel out of my hands and holds it over her head as she charges back into the kitchen. “I’m opening it!”
“Melissa!” I run after her. “Hey, that’s mine!”
“Oh come on! It’s been days since I’ve gotten something. I need a hit, man.” She’s got my parcel under her arm, trying to open a drawer without dropping it.
“Well it’s been years for me, so give!” I come up behind her and grab it, tearing it out from her arm.
She spins around, eyes round. “Years?”
“I’m exaggerating for dramatic effect,” I lie, turning my back on her. Then I turn back and hold out my hand. “Knife?”
“Ew, no. You’ll cut yourself and get blood everywhere.” She hands me a box cutter. Because, of course, everyone just has one of those in their kitchen drawer.
Mine had needles and drug pipes.
Melissa goes back to fixing our snack, adding bananas and honey to the mix, and I struggle to open the package without cutting myself. I’m kinda grateful she didn’t give me the knife.
There are two boxes inside the larger one. As soon as I see the shoe-box shape of one of them, my suspicions are confirmed.
Melissa comes around the counter and slides one of the bowls over to me, picking up the delivery note that had been attached to the outer packaging.
“Ooh, all the way from Ashwood Crossing,” she says. “What did you get from…” She slaps the paper down on the counter. “Laramie? Are you fucking kidding me?”
I quickly close the box flaps. “This is a big mix up. It shouldn’t have?—“
“I swear to God, open that box or I’m fetching a knife.” There’s a feral look in her red-rimmed eyes that I don’t have the moxie to challenge right now.
“I’m still not goin?—“
“Shut the fuck up and take that dress out of there like a good girl.”
I press a hand to the back of my mouth to suppress a giggle as I take out the shoe box and set it on the counter. Melissa doesn’t seem interested in that at all. Her eyes are glued to the large, flat parcel.
She claps her hands over her mouth. “Fuck me, it’s an Elie Saab.” She gives me a frantic look, nodding her head and whimpering.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, widening my eyes as I take out the box and pull off the ribbon. “It’s just a fucking?—“
She squeals when I lift the gorgeous blue fabric out of the tissue paper. “It’s so pretty!” Then her eyes jump back to me. “We don’t have enough time! We’ve still got to do hair and makeup. Do you need to shower? Of course you need to shower. How else are you gonna fucking shave? I need to shave.”
She pushes my hands down, closes the lid, and shoves my bowl into my chest. “Food in hole. Now. You’re gonna need the calories.”