Chapter 12 It’s Wednesday
twelve
it’s wednesday
Victory’s hands are covered in dry paint when she finds me picking orders in the shop the next day. I know she’s doing a mural for a restaurant a couple blocks over; I feel guilty for texting her earlier, like she felt obligated to come check on me when she took a break.
But I’m freaking out a little.
I almost drop the basket full of pens and notebooks in my arms so that I can hug her, but I restrain myself. I’ve never been more grateful to see her glowing smile than I am today.
I didn’t sleep well last night, so I am certain I look less angelic, but she doesn’t seem to mind as she puts her arms around me, careful to keep me away from a splotch of wet paint on her t-shirt.
“I got your message,” she says when she takes a step back, giving me a sympathetic head tilt. “How’s it going?”
“Uhhhhh, weird.” I look down at the list pad in my hand and continue along the shelf to pick the last couple of items. “Very weird.”
“Good weird?”
I purse my lips, not sure how to answer that. “Maybe? But probably not.”
“Well, I’m intrigued.” She takes the basket from my hands and nods towards the back of the shop so we can speak privately.
I quickly grab the last item as we pass it on a display and then lead Victory to the back room where I pack up orders. I start to sort the items into piles, but she puts her hands over mine to stop me and urges me towards a couple of stools to take a seat.
“I’m here for you no matter what, Audrey,” she says, still holding my hands between hers.
I take a deep breath. “Okay, so… You know how I went for coffee with Damien yesterday?”
She nods but doesn’t say anything.
“Well, uh, we ended up going to my apartment to watch Frozen afterwards,” I say, and she stares at me blankly for a moment.
“That is not what I thought you were going to say,” she says with a small laugh. “I mean, I can’t imagine you being friends with someone and not inflicting that upon them, so I don’t know what’s weird about that.”
“That’s not the weird part.” I grimace as I try to gather the nerve to tell her the rest. “When we were sitting there, after the movie, we were just talking or whatever, and I… I sort of wanted to kiss him.”
Victory’s eyebrows shoot up. “You kissed him?”
“No, I wanted to,” I tell her with emphasis. “Just, like, the thought crossed my mind.”
“Okay…” she says slowly. “And that’s bad?”
“Well, it’s weird,” I scoff. “I almost never want to kiss people.”
“But you have wanted to sometimes,” she points out. “And you like him, so it makes sense, I guess.”
“But not like that,” I reply defensively, and she gives me a skeptical look.
“Kissing isn’t inherently sexual, anyway.” She gives my hand a squeeze before letting go. “You can want to kiss someone and still not be interested in sex.”
I sigh impatiently. “I know that. But it’s not just that.”
This piques her interest again, but she doesn’t say anything.
I look across the tiny storeroom as I internally debate whether or not I want to share this with my best friend, but ultimately, I know I will.
I share (almost) everything with her. “I had a dream last night,” I say, and she watches me like she’s waiting for me to continue, even though I thought I’d made my point. “A dream, Vic.”
She looks confused. “Okay?”
“Like…a sex dream,” I add in a harsh whisper after making sure there’s no one within earshot.
“About Damien?” Her eyebrows nearly disappear into her hairline.
I cover my face with both hands and groan in agony. “Something is wrong with me.”
“Well, first of all, dreams don’t always mean anything,” she says reassuringly. “But also, there’s nothing wrong with you for being interested in someone. Even if you usually don’t feel that way.”
“Okay, but last time I wanted to kiss a guy who was my friend, it was bad,” I remind her. “Like eternal humiliation bad.”
“You said yourself that Damien is nothing like Cameron. And you’re not going to lose your only friend if you tell him. I’ll always be here.”
“I’m not going to tell him!” I squawk. “I don’t even know what any of this means. I had a goddamn sex dream”—the words come out in a hiss—“and I enjoyed it.”
She laughs lightly. “Okay.”
“That’s weird, right?”
“Pretty sure it’s normal to enjoy them, Audrey.”
“But I don’t,” I say firmly. “I don’t enjoy sex dreams because I don’t enjoy sex. It’s simple.”
“Never?” Victory asks, looking concerned. “Not even alone?”
“Oh my god.” I cover my face again, wishing I could undo this entire conversation.
“Please don’t tell me you’ve never had an orgasm, Audrey—”
“I literally just told you that I did!” I say through my clenched teeth.
“No, you said—” Her eyes widen when my meaning hits her. “Holy crap, you actually came from a sex dream?”
I scrunch my eyes shut. “Kill me.”
“Wow, I’m so jealous,” she adds with a laugh.
“It’s not funny.”
“No, it’s awesome.”
“I just don’t know how I can face someone who I just dreamt was—” I pinch my mouth shut; I can’t even say it.
Besides, sex isn’t even like that. At best, it’s mildly unpleasant, if not downright painful.
I only ever did with Shawn because I knew he wanted to, and I wanted to be a good girlfriend.
I didn’t think it mattered if I enjoyed it or not—although I was terrible at all of it anyway, as it turned out.
Enjoying it is a solitary activity, as far as I’m concerned, and not one I particularly want to keep discussing with anyone, not even my best friend.
The dream was entirely a fabrication, anyway.
Probably just hodge-podged together from various Hadley fanfics I’ve read over the years.
While I mostly read Hadley/Sammy, because I prefer feeling more detached from those scenes, I’ve read a few Hadley/Mona fics and that’s where my brain must have gotten the idea—because my ex certainly never did that.
Those types of scenes always seemed unrealistic to me, that people could actually want to do these things so much—although it’s not like I’ve never enjoyed reading any of them. But that is so different from this.
From imagining my gaming friend, with his—And my—And we—
I can’t handle this.
“It’s not like I want to have sex with him in real life!” I blurt out defensively, unprompted, but Victory is no longer looking at me, instead staring past my shoulder. I turn my head slowly until a familiar figure comes into view.
“Hey, Audrey.”
“H-Hi, Marie.”
Mom strong-arms me into joining family dinner tonight, despite it being a Wednesday, now that Marie is (unexpectedly) home. Apparently, she didn’t bother telling any of us that she was coming home for Thanksgiving this weekend—or that she was coming home several days early.
It’s not Saturday, so we have to eat Mom’s cooking tonight, which means Kraft Dinner with a side of boiled broccoli. My bowl of cereal for dinner is sounding more appealing by the minute. The upside is watching Gram trying to eat those slippery little noodles with chopsticks.
“So, Josh is going to see his family this weekend, then?” Mom asks as we’re sitting around the table in awkward silence.
“Yeah,” Marie says, stirring her fork through her macaroni with disinterest. “And I figure since my work is all remote now, I might as well come home a few days early. Spend more time with you guys.”
I offer her a polite smile when she looks at me, but it’s clear that she’d rather not be here either.
“Tell Josh we miss him,” Gram says after a macaroni slips between her chopsticks and lands on top of her broccoli. “He fills out a t-shirt nicely.”
“Grandma!” Marie says indignantly. As if this is in any way surprising behaviour.
“What? I’m just saying you have good taste,” Gram replies, oblivious to everyone else’s disinterest. “My sister always went for the skinny boys, but not me. Wall of muscle, that’s what I want in a man.”
“No one cares what you want in a man, Gram,” I say, picking at my sad broccoli.
“And what do you want in a man, dear?” she asks me, and I’m taken aback by the directness of the question. “Or woman. It’s the twentieth century, after all.”
Marie and I exchange a look of disbelief—with a mix of bemused horror and thinly veiled mirth—across the table, and for a minute it feels like we’re actually sisters again. I almost laugh out loud as she pinches her mouth tight to keep from smiling, and I wish it could always be like this.
We’ve only ever had snippets like this, though—there was never a time when I felt like I could turn to her, no matter what. Audrey Grace and Marie Wagner-Grace were only half-sisters after all, which apparently wasn’t enough for Marie. Especially not when she was so perfect and I was anything but.
“Probably someone who spends all his time playing video games,” Mom says offhand, and I’m immediately reminded of the fact that Damien says he doesn’t date much because he’d rather be playing video games—or chatting with me while playing video games.
“Are you still obsessed with that one game?” Marie asks, a hint of condescension in her voice. “With the magic rocks and that guy—the one with the hair? He sort of looks like a jacked-up, forty-something, alternate universe Harry Styles.”
“Hadley,” I reply flatly, although that’s not at all how I would describe him. “And yeah, I still play sometimes. Though a new one in the series just came out.”
“She has a new gamer friend, too,” Mom supplies, and I don’t think she’s mocking me but there is a teasing lilt in her voice that sets me on edge. “They chat while they play separate games. Did you know N64 is vintage now?”
Marie blinks at her, clearly puzzled by the sudden topic change, and then returns her attention to me. “Not the one in Sweden?”
“Finland,” I correct her impatiently. “And no. A new friend, she said.”
Her lip juts out in a pout, like she’s considering this for a moment, and then she shrugs. “That’s cool.”
“It’s a he-friend,” Mom adds, barely able to contain her giddiness at the chance to make fun of me in front of someone else for a change.
“A what?”
“A friend who happens to be a guy,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Which doesn’t mean anything, but Mom won’t let it go.”
Marie’s gaze intensifies on me, and I can feel her scrutinizing my face before her eyelids flare. “Is this the guy you want to have sex with?”
I suddenly find myself a beacon for Mom’s attention, while Gram continues to ignore the rest of us as she struggles to get a single bite of macaroni.
“What’s all this about?” Mom asks eagerly.
“Nothing.” I shovel a forkful of neon orange noodles into my mouth, grimacing.
“She was talking to Victory earlier,” Marie explains to her smugly. “And I overheard her saying that she wants to have sex with some guy—”
“I specifically said that I do not want to have sex with him!” A noodle flies out of my mouth in my outrage.
Marie smirks at me, like she’s won some sort of competition I didn’t know we were in. “In real life,” she says, quoting me. “Is this what you ‘chat’ about, then? While ‘playing games’—”
“Why are you here?” I spit at her, longing for that moment, mere minutes ago, when we were sharing a conspiratorial look, like the sisters I always wished we could be.
Her expression goes blank. “It’s Thanksgiving.”
“It’s Wednesday.”
“I thought you’d be happy to see me,” she says, and there’s a quiver in her voice that tells me I’ve somehow hurt her without meaning to.
I stare down at the mess of orange goop on my plate that I’ve been stirring around this whole time. “I am,” I mutter, though I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it.
“We always love when you visit,” Mom says to her, putting a hand on her arm. “Maybe we can all watch a movie tonight—”
“Not Enola Holmes again,” Marie groans, and I almost want to laugh. Sometimes we can be so alike, but most of the time…
“I can’t tonight,” I say, setting down my fork. “I have a stream.”