Chapter 43 Shithead McCrapFace
Shithead McCrapFace
Zoey
Iwoke up to a growl, a hiss, and a strange weight on my feet. On a grumble, I shoved my eye mask up and blinked to clear the blurriness. Then I blinked some more because there was no way what I was seeing at the foot of Hazel’s bed was actually there.
But the more I blinked, the clearer it became that I was sharing a bed with a dog, a fat cat, and a disgruntled raccoon. Buttercup let out a squeaky growl that ended in a whimper like she wasn’t sure how big a threat the visitors were.
“Ugh. Bertha, seriously? You’re a woodland animal. Go back to the woodland!” I grumbled. All three animals looked at me for guidance, but I was in no shape to be the adult in this situation. “Hazel!”
I heard bare feet in the hallway, and then the door flew open.
Hazel, in a pair of her favorite “I’m on a deadline” pajama pants and a Bishop Brothers Construction T-shirt, padded inside.
Her glasses were on crooked, and her bangs looked as if they’d been involved in a leaf blowing accident.
She had a Wild Cherry Pepsi in her hand.
“Well, shit. I leave you alone for five minutes, and you Dr. Dolittle my bed.”
“Only one of these animals is supposed to be here,” I complained, patting the mattress.
Buttercup abandoned her new fur acquaintances and belly crawled up to me. DeWalt the cat and Bertha the raccoon seemed to think the gesture was meant for them as well and tried to follow suit.
“No! All cats and raccoons must vacate this room immediately,” Hazel said, pointing to the hallway.
Miraculously, both cat and raccoon complied. Though it probably had more to do with the smell of bacon wafting up from downstairs than Hazel’s verbal instructions.
When the intruders left, she shut the door and climbed back into bed. “How are you feeling?”
My face hurt, my arm and leg stung, my wrist throbbed, and the rest of my body ached like I had a mutant case of the flu. But it was my heart that hurt the most.
“Like my heart has a hangover.”
Buttercup gave my armpit a generous lick.
“What the fuck? Bertha!” Cam’s bellow from downstairs rattled the crystal light fixture over the bed.
Hazel stacked her hands under her head and stared up at the ceiling. “I’m going to kill him,” she announced.
“Who? Cam?”
“No, Gage.”
His name was like a barbed arrow to the chest. “Can we not use his name for a decade or two?”
“That’s a good idea. We’ll call him…Shithead McCrapFace,” she decided.
Hazel was much better with insults on the page than off. “I like it. Really paints a picture.”
She perked up. “Hey! Maybe this isn’t a real ending. Maybe this is your third-act breakup?”
“This is not a third-act breakup. He showed me who he is. And who he is is someone who enthusiastically reopens every one of my emotional scars. I need to face facts. I’m the girl eagles throw other, grosser animals at. Not the girl who gets the guy.”
“No. You’re the girl who gets to be the heroine of her own story.”
“Then this heroine is going to live off takeout with her shy pit bull for the rest of her life and never date again.”
Hazel drew in a long breath and then blew it out slowly. “I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I think I’m going to squash him with the prize-winning pumpkin at the Fall Festival.”
“We don’t have a pumpkin contest at the Fall Festival,” I pointed out.
Except there was no we anymore. I wasn’t really a part of Story Lake.
I’d been a we by association. But this was his town.
These were his neighbors. They weren’t mine.
God, how had I gotten so caught up in this disaster?
For a disillusioned, hard-hearted realist, I’d fallen headfirst into a vat of toxic hope. And I was pissed as hell about it.
“I meant on the page. I’m going to murder him on the page. But I’m open to discussing a real-life homicide. We’ll need a tarp.”
“If anyone’s doing any murdering, it’s gonna be me,” Cam announced from the doorway. He was holding a tray with a plate of bacon and a cup of coffee. Meetcute was on his heels, sniffing the air.
“Did you just bring me breakfast in bed?” I asked.
“It’s not a full breakfast because we’re out of eggs. So here’s your meat and caffeine. Figured you wouldn’t want to go to Reader Weekend brunch with your face looking like that.”
“Cam!” Hazel chastised.
“What? I’m not being an asshole. She looks like she got punched in the face.”
“I did get punched in the face and the heart,” I said, prodding my cheek with my fingers. Yep. Still hurt.
“If only some older, wiser, too-handsome-for-real-life genius had warned you,” Cam said, dropping the tray unceremoniously on my lap.
“You were right,” I sighed.
“No shit,” Cam said, pausing to ruffle Buttercup’s ears. “Maybe someday your mommy and your aunt will learn to listen to wise Uncle Cam.”
The dog dissolved into delirium every time someone was nice to her, and it just kept breaking my stupid broken heart over and over again. I would make it my life’s mission to make sure that no one was ever mean to Buttercup again.
“Maybe,” I agreed.
“But probably not,” Hazel teased.
He pointed at me. “You, eat your breakfast meat. I’m going to feed your dog and let her out in hopes she’ll chase that goddamn raccoon off the picnic table. And you need to get ready to go,” he said, pointing to Hazel.
She pouted. “Fine. But if your brother Shithead McCrapFace is there, I get to throw a drink in his face.”
“Before or after I punch him?”
“Let’s play it by ear,” Hazel mused.
“Deal.” Cam looked at me. “He’ll get his head out of his ass and apologize.”
“He dumped me in front of the entire town. There’s no apologizing for that.”
“He didn’t dump you. He was a stupid asshole and picked a dumb fight. There’s a big difference.”
“I said maybe it was a third-act breakup too,” Hazel said chipperly.
“I know neither of you is telling me to stay with a man who calls me stupid and selfish and yells at me in front of half of Story Lake’s population,” I said coolly.
Cam and Hazel shared a look.
“Come on, Buttercup. Let’s go fight a raccoon.” With that, Hazel’s hero hightailed it out of the room with my dog.
I sighed and poked at a piece of bacon. “Besides his misreading of the situation, Cam is awesome. I can’t believe he slept in the guest room so we could shit talk his own brother and cry over Pride and Prejudice last night.”
“He’s the best. Which means his brother should have been at least half as good for DNA reasons. I mean, they basically have the same penis, you know?”
“Hazel, I’m not talking about the man’s penis ever again.” This was why I didn’t date. There were fewer memories to erase after a one-night stand.
She sighed. “I just can’t believe he’d end things for no reason like that.”
“It wasn’t for no reason. It was because once again, I was too much.”
Hazel rolled to her side and propped herself up on one elbow. “That’s bullshit.”
“That’s my life.”
“What are we going to do with that pile of Shithead McCrapFace’s clothing?
” Hazel asked, jerking her chin toward the small mountain on the floor.
Before I’d shown up at her front door with my second stab wound of the day and all the pieces of my broken heart, I’d swung by my apartment and grabbed every article of clothing I’d liberated from Gage’s wardrobe.
“I was thinking fire, but I’m open to suggestions,” I said.
“I like fire. Or maybe we can put them in the pigpen on the farm?” Hazel suggested.
The farm. I felt another pinch in my chest. Frank and Pep were going to get their farm sanctuary up and running. Frank was going to grow their social media. And Pepe the donkey would find a new love. They’d all forget about me. They’d all move on as if I’d never been here.
“This whole thing was one huge mistake. You know the worst part? He stood there yelling insults at me last night, and I didn’t defend myself. I didn’t say a damn thing back. My brain was just frozen.”
“Ugh,” Hazel groaned. “I hate that! The nice thing about being an author is I can at least put all the belated insults I come up with to use on the page. But regular people just spend their lives walking around with a list of comebacks they should have said bouncing around in their brains.”
“Yeah. Maybe I should have said something like ‘You think you’re Mr. Perfect? You wouldn’t know a good time if it slapped you in the face with its tits.’”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, that’s pretty good. You definitely should have said that. Maybe you can put it in a note? Or we can print posters and hang them outside his office?”
“The New and Improved Medicated Zoey says I should probably just take the high road.”
Hazel blew a raspberry.
“Ugh. The only silver lining is I didn’t tell him I was planning to stay,” I said.
“Why are you saying that in past tense?”
I looked pityingly at my friend. “Haze, you know there’s no way I could stay now. It’s going to be bad enough seeing him on the holidays you invite me to. I can’t handle running into him and his perfect future wife at the general store or on the lake with his six perfect children.”
Everything sucked and hurt and was awful. Hope was the worst, most dastardly thing in the world. And I blamed Gage Bishop for making me believe the impossible.
“I’m going to actually for real kill him,” Hazel announced, throwing the covers off and stomping out of the room.
“Aren’t you going to change for brunch?” I called after her.
“I don’t want to get blood and internal organs on a nice brunch outfit,” she yelled back as she thundered down the stairs.
I waited until I heard the door downstairs close and the rumble of Cam’s truck as it left the driveway before rolling over to check my phone.
Not that I’d been expecting a groveling text or voice mail, but it still felt like another volley of pointy arrows when I saw Gage hadn’t tried to contact me since last night.
That didn’t happen in real life. This entire thing had been a mistake, and I’d known better.
And now he’d get away with it because I was too mature to make him pay. This whole “being less impulsive” thing was stupid.
I heard the tip-tap of dog nails on the hardwood and felt the mattress dip as Buttercup rejoined me.
“Looks like it’s just us two from now on, Buttercup.”
Her skinny, whiplike tail thumped lightly on the duvet as she sprawled out next to me.
My phone vibrated in my hand. It was a text from Hazel’s editor.
Editor Susan: First day sales were astronomical. We’re thrilled! Are you sure we can’t convince Hazel to do an event or five?