Two
Bri
When I wake up, sunlight feels like forks stabbing my eyes. I slowly open them, trying to let the death rays in bit by barely tolerable bit while I try to remember where I am and why I’m here.
David. The second I remember, I wish I could forget all over again.
When he called me and said he needed to “do something in person,” sending me a one-way ticket and putting me up in a swanky hotel, it couldn’t have been clearer that he was going to propose.
Then he dumped me. What the—and I cannot emphasize this enough—literal fuck was that?
The blanket is hot and feels like it weighs one hundred pounds. When I push it off, it groans. My eyes dart open. Who—?
The man from last night lies beside me on the bed, splayed out on top of the sheets like a starfish, fully clothed down to the socks, same as me.
“Hey . . .” I say timidly. “You awake?”
“Mostly.” His eyes are red with exhaustion and dehydrated tear ducts. “Looks like I made it through the night. Damn it.” The man has jokes.
My hangover is too thick to remember most of last night, or the series of events that ended with us in bed together. Maybe “in bed” is a bit strong. Being adjacently horizontal on furniture is a more apt description.
Sitting up is a battle I unwillingly fight. “Good god. How much did we drink last night?”
“All of it.”
I look around the room for the remnants. “All of what?”
“The alcohol in the world.”
Judging by the struggle it takes not to lie back down and go to sleep, his explanation seems correct.
Memories of wine, our stories, and crying—the wining and whining, I should call it—come back to me, hazy but there.
Closing out the bar, taking our remaining bottle of wine to my room and sharing the contents of the mini fridge on the balcony while dissecting all the mistakes we may have made leading up to the breakups, coming to the agreement that we are perfect in every way, not an underachieving, emotionally stunted viper and a co-dependent, socially inept nerd.
For a night, we were each other’s greatest support system, as tight and pure a bond as two drunk women in a nightclub bathroom. But those relationships never continue into the daylight.
I peer down at him, watching him make no move to leave.
He’s younger than me—maybe early twenties—with so much life and trauma to look forward to.
An aura of innocence radiates from him, not only because of his youth but also his appearance.
He has an effortless style only Gen Z can pull off, rocking a nerdy glasses-hoodie combo while having a modish haircut that perfectly frames a face I could only describe as . . . stunning.
Bone structure a model would die for—strong jaw, pointed chin, cheekbones reaching for heaven—flattered by genetic influences I can’t pin down.
His curls, full lips, and brown skin are obviously Black, but I have never seen hooded hazel eyes like his before.
He’s easy to look at, which is probably why I keep gawking at him.
Besides being an absolute delicacy for my eyes, his presence doesn’t bother me the way a male stranger in my hotel room should. He feels comfortable and familiar. Unfortunately, I cannot for the life of me remember his name.
“Did we . . . ?” I ask without asking.
He sits up and grips his head with a groan. Relatable. “Did we what?”
“Did we . . . you know.” His blank look tells me he doesn’t know. He’s pretty, he doesn’t need to think. “Did we have sex.” I spell it out for him.
His eyes widen. “Oh! No. God, no.” The disgust in his tone is so flattering.
“Don’t protect my ego or anything.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. You’re great, I just don’t . . . I’m not . . .”
“It’s cool.” I’ve had enough It’s not you, it’s me bullshit for one weekend. “You have your own room, right?” My poor attempt at kindly asking him to leave.
“Yes. Sorry, I’m not sure how we ended up here.” He moves to the edge of the bed to stand up and tumbles onto the floor with an almost cartoonish sound.
Trying not to laugh, I lean over to check on him. “You okay?”
“I’m good. Just . . . drunk.”
He climbs to his feet, checking his balance. Once confident in his footing, he straightens the round wire frames on his nose, looking at me expectantly, as if there’s something else I should say. There aren’t enough functioning brain cells left in my head to proffer parting sentiments.
“See you downstairs for breakfast?” he asks.
God, no. “Sure.”
“Cool. Bye, Bri.”
“Bye, um . . .”
He waits patiently for an ending to my sentence that will never come. “Liem.”
That’s what it is! I kill my excitement when I see the letdown on his face. “Bye, Liem.”
He ambles to the door and lets himself out. I lose my battle with gravity.
Eyes closed, too sober to quiet my mind, I’m back to last night, sitting across from David, watching him sweat with nervousness in the candlelight, thinking he was starting his proposal when he thanked me for my support over the last year. Then he hit me with the truth wrapped in a fuckboy bow.
I’m a man, I have needs.
The red flags were waving inches in front of my face, and still, I thought, He’s going to ask me to move in with him. Do I have a functioning brain? Real question.
When he finally admitted he’d slept with someone else, I blacked out and started yelling who knows what kind of obscenities until he walked out. Then it happened to Liem. Then we came back here. Then we got very drunk. And now . . . what the hell am I supposed to do?
My phone vibrates me back into consciousness. I dig it out from underneath me. “Hello?”
“Um, hi. Is Liem there?”
Why is someone calling me about a guy I met last night? “Sorry, wrong number.”
I end the call and find a different background on my lock screen. A picture of a random woman smiles back at me. I hold the phone out, turning it over to see the same model and black case. It takes me entirely too long to figure out this isn’t my phone.
Looks like I will have to see Liem at breakfast.
~
After involuntarily emptying my body of last night’s poisons, the last thing I want to do is eat, but I need my phone. My friends are probably itching for an update or already asking for pictures of
the ring. Recounting what really happened last night sounds as pleasant as prying a molar from my own mouth. I need to send them proof of life to buy me some more time to wallow.
“Bri!” I turn to find Liem, his hair wet, hands tucked into his hoodie pockets, an attempt at a smile on his lips.
“There you are. I think I have your phone.”
“You do,” he says. “We switched last night so we wouldn’t call the—”
Exes. “Oh yeah, I remember now.”
“Here.” He digs into his back pocket and hands me my phone.
“Thanks. Here’s yours.”
His gaze falls to the phone, but he makes no move to take it, deflating at the mere thought. I get it. I’m afraid I’ll see a notification that reopens my wound and with it, the floodgate of tears. Or worse, see nothing and feel as tossed aside as I did last night. Until I met Liem.
“I can hang on to it for you for a while longer, if you want,” I offer.
A little bit of life returns to him. “You will?”
There is no reason for me to eat breakfast with him.
I’m not hungry, not wearing a stitch of makeup, and my hair is thrown into a bun with zero attention paid to my edges, but still, the thought of leaving him alone saddens me.
It’s that innocence of his again. He’s almost a foot taller than me, trim not thin under that hoodie, but he makes me want to take him in like a lost puppy.
“I will. Want to get some br—” The word makes me gag. “Some coffee?”
He perks up like he’s the new kid in school and I just invited him to sit at my lunch table. “I love coffee.”
There is a reason this breakfast costs forty-five dollars. An all-you-can-eat buffet of decadence with muffins of different flavors, bagels with an assortment of spreads, eggs in every style, and bacon. The greasy goodness is the only food calling to me right now.
We find a booth shielded from the sun. Liem’s pretty eyes are still puffy and red like he spent his morning crying and mourning his lack of sleep, same as me.
I’m compelled to ask, “How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay.”
Please. A squirrel trying to cross a busy highway is more okay than we are right now. “You can be completely real with me. What am I going to do? Judge you? We won’t even know each other after today.” He searches my eyes, accepting the permission I give him. “So. How are you really feeling?”
“Dead inside.”
His quick response catches me off guard and makes me laugh. “You cried all morning, didn’t you?”
“No,” he says with the emphasis of a bad liar. “Okay, yes, but only in the shower, so that barely counts.”
“Barely.” I mimic his tone.
A grin twitches at the corners of his lips. “How are you feeling?”
“Dead inside and hungover.”
“It’s not a competition.”
Stop. Why is he so easy to talk to? We have the same sense of humor, the same phone, the same oddly specific villain origin story . . . He’s little more than a stranger, but I’m glad he’s beside me. If only for a day.
“What are you going to do now?” I ask.
“Today?”
“Yes. Or life in general, now that all this happened.”
“I was thinking about bringing the hair dryer into the bath with me, but that would be mean to the housekeeping staff, and they’ve been really nice.”
“Liem!” The darkest of dark jokes. A giggle bubbles from me. He makes me laugh when I least expect it. And often.
“What are you going to do?” he asks. “Are you going to fly back to LA?”
Huh? “How do you know where I live?”
“You told me last night.” Oh. “You said you’ll have to figure out a flight back because your ex only paid for a flight here—which is fucking weird, by the way—and a place to stay when you get home because you were living with your ex, and you’re mad at your friend who has the big house.”
Oh, that’s not— “I told you every-damn-thing last night, huh?”
“Probably not everything. But enough to know leaving here is going to be messy for both of us.”
He’s right. I came here thinking I wouldn’t be going back, quit my sham of a job, and spent what little money I had on hair, nails, and a new dress, leaving me with less than fifty dollars in my checking account.
My best friend, Keisha, would fly me home and let me stay with her in a heartbeat, but considering her husband is David’s best friend and there is no chance in hell he didn’t see this coming . . .
Now that I consider it, I am mad at her for marrying the friend of my enemy, even though that happened six years before this.
With the help of another sip of espresso, the balcony conversation returns bit by bit.
He’s from the West Coast too, no apartment to return to if he goes back, and he doesn’t want to have to move back in with his family.
Half of last night was us trying to find our differences in a sea of commonalities.
“Are you going to go back to Seattle?” I ask.
“I don’t see another option. I’d book a flight for tomorrow, but all my stuff is in Natalie’s apartment, and I don’t have a key because . . .” He trails off, releasing a shaky breath through pursed lips.
“Don’t you dare cry,” I say, emotion pinching my voice. His chin quivers with his ridiculous pout. “If you cry, I’m gonna cry, then people are going to think we’re in crisis, and I can’t commit the murder I want if I’m literally committed.”
Liem coughs out a laugh, replacing his tears, except one that sneaks out. He brushes it away quickly, both of us pretending it was never there.
“We’re gonna be okay,” I tell him, though I’m not sure I believe that’s true.
He eyes me through his slutty little glasses. “You promise?”
My chest aches after his question. There is no way in hell I will ever forgive David’s betrayal.
Cutting people out of my life when they irreparably hurt me is my superpower—I am my mother’s daughter in that way—but .
. . I’m having a hard time cutting off the part of myself that is still in love with him. That might take me a minute.
Until then, if I can’t promise him we’ll be okay, I’ll put my energy into getting us as close to okay as possible.
I pick up Liem’s phone from the table. “Unlock this.”
He presses his thumb against the screen, blindly trusting me. “What are you doing?”
Finding “Natalie” at the top of his contacts, I tap it, then answer his question. “I’m calling your ex.”
“What?” he says, fear covering his face in a pale veil.
Natalie answers on the fourth ring. “Liem, please. I don’t—”
“Hey, this isn’t Liem. It’s his friend Bri.”
“Um, hi?”
“His suitcases are still at your place. Could I come get those from you?”
“Oh, uh, sure. You can stop by whenever.”
“Would this afternoon work?”
“Uh . . .” She pauses, as thrown off as Liem is by my request. “Sure, that’s fine.”
“Great. See you soon!” I end the call.
Liem stares at me, stupefied, while I tuck his phone into my pocket. “You’re going to get my stuff back for me?”
“You need it, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but . . . you’d do that for me?”
Liem needs his suitcase so he can go home, and I need to stay busy while I’m emotionally compromised and at risk of making poor decisions.
Though, tracking down David’s side piece and showing up at her door sounds pretty good right now.
So does setting fire to all of his belongings. Ooh, or his car.
Let me go and do a good deed before I catch a case.
“I would,” I say. “Let’s go.”