5. Five
Five
Sara
Leaving Joe’s bed, his house, and his embrace only makes me crave to shed the girl who is afraid to love and be left behind. Instead, I am gnawed by a growing anxiety from the intensity of my feelings for him.
I tried to shake the remnants of my conditioning in learning to survive on my own by walking my dogs.
It was supposed to break the isolation I've used to survive for years, the habit of suffering silently, but the worry followed me through every single step. It wasn’t until I finally kicked off my shoes and felt the hot beach sand under my feet that I felt a bit better.
Looking up, the sight of my girlfriends, Artemis and Mimi, at the Casa Sun beach where we agreed to meet for brunch makes me smile.
I missed them. It’s already boiling hot for June, and Artemis thankfully claimed the only brunch table in the shade, right under the white and yellow striped umbrella.
The sea is turquoise and calm, with a soft breeze that reminds us we grew up in this paradise.
Artemis stirs ice into a glass of rosé, her hazel eyes lock with mine, and her smile in instant.
“You made it,” Artemis says, scooting over to make room.
“Barely.” I drop onto the bench next to her.
Her nails, painted a lethal shade of coral, click against the glass.
Her very long, light brown hair brushing in the wind, her tiny bikini and her tall legs resting against her chair.
Mimi is next to her, strands of black hair catching in the wind and sticking to her glossy, luscious lips.
She is slouched over her phone, her entire existence and big blue eyes distilled into the tiny screen.
“Hi babe!” Mimi beams at me, and her smile drops as quickly as if she’s wounded.
I feel a stab of guilt. I haven’t been hanging out much with them, and even now, I’m rehearsing apologies that don’t taste like lies.
Artemis waves to the server. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week.
A rosé for the lady, please.” We’ve grown up too fast in a village made for adults, where regrets of having a glass of wine for brunch are delusional.
Luckily, we were able to drink at eighteen, which none of us waited on either.
I wave it off. “I haven’t.”
Our shady corner in the warm sand lets filter sunlight in a way that makes me want to close my eyes and disappear. I imagine falling asleep right here, letting the conversation swirl around me like soft waves.
Artemis snaps her fingers and makes me flinch back to my existential unease. “So? you’re just going to sit there and not spill it?”
“Sorry. Long night,” I say, sitting up straight.
She raises an eyebrow, “With Joe?” Her voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper.
Mimi glances up. “God, say it already.”
I blush, which is exactly what they want. “Nothing happened.”
Artemis leans in, elbows on my knees, prowling like a feline sniffing her prey, grabs my jaw closer to inspect me and with a voice honey-sweet and dangerous as her vanilla perfume invades my senses. “You’re such a liar. If he looked at me the way he looks at you, I’d be having trouble walking.”
I roll my eyes. I wish I had trouble walking.
“I’m still a virgin if that’s what you really want to know.” I give her a look.
“And you're upset about it!” Mimi exclaims as if she cured Ebola.
“Just shut up, both of you.” I chuckle, pulling my sunglasses out of my purse and sliding them onto my face like a shield.
Artemis is still staring at me. “You know what you should do?” She lets her tongue out resting on her tooth. “Don’t text him for a day. Let him wonder.”
“Let him suffer,” Mimi says, not looking up from her phone.
I snort. “That’s not my style.”
“It should be.” Artemis stirs her drink with extra violence. “Men are like dogs. If you don’t train them early, they ruin the carpet.”
I laugh, but it comes out weirdly high. “He’s not a dog.”
Mimi puts her phone down. “No, but he’s a man. It’s like, genetic.”
I want to argue, but I’m tired and outnumbered and they’re both older than me by a year but in these girls’ world it’s a lifetime and so far, I’ve been the “good girl” of the group, dare I say the introvert. I settle for biting into the croissant that seems to stare back at me.
Artemis’s tone softens. “Seriously, though. Don’t get so wrapped up in him that you forget about the rest of us.”
I meet her gaze. There’s a warning there, and something else. A flicker of worry, perhaps?
“I won’t, you're the love of my life,” I say, and I mean it, setting the croissant down. I shove her face into my boobs, and we both hysterically laugh.
Mimi rolls her eyes. “You say that now. Wait until you guys become inseparable and you ghost us for a month from fucking too much.”
“We agreed we’d go slow, but honestly, it’s hard.” And I shake Mimi, grabbing her shoulders so she can share my frustration.
“Okay, settle down now, kitty cat. Don’t go purring on my leg, I could get used to it. You know what I did to my last cat…” Mimi imitates claws at me and purrs.
“Yes, you’re dark,” I say, petting her arm.
“Wait, what did you do?” Anne’s curiosity shines through walking to the table from wherever she was hiding since I got here.
She’s always been a little sweet devil on all our shoulders.
Anne is the most mysterious one of us, with dark hair on her light brown skin, her skinny long waist and red lipstick.
“She taxidermied her cat,” I blurt out with a straight face.
“Come again?” Anne's face falls.
“She fluffed her cat… to preserve it…when it died.” I answer for Mimi.
“Like Sara said, I’m a smidge dark, but it’s only out of love.” Mimi smiles with her perfect teeth, luscious Angelina Jolie lips, and blue eyes. The girl could melt any guy and apparently fluff pets.
“RIP Zizou…” I say, and Mimi pulls up a picture of the black cat, dark as night. We all coo.
“We wouldn’t want to hang out with you if you didn’t darken us a little, Mimi,” Artemis says.
A lull settles in. I watch the barista wipe down the bamboo tables as a couple argues quietly at the next table, their voices a soft undercurrent of threat. The town is the same as always…what lies in the audacious party hours slowly wakes.
When I’m about to leave, Artemis hugs me so tight it almost hurts. “See you tonight?” she asks.
“Definitely,” I say, half meaning it, because I’d rather stay with Joe, but I promised them I’d come out and play.
Once back home, the sky leaks gold onto the ceiling of my room this evening.
I wait patiently for my mom to kick me out like she said she would, but she just ignores me and leaves for work at the art gallery.
I’d rather feel invisible any day over her remembering her favorite child died every time she looks at me.
I miss my dad. We talk occasionally, but his absence looms over my heart.
Sometimes I hide in my mom's closet, where she still holds onto a few of his button-down shirts, and I carefully inhale his scent.
It's hard to understand that he left us after my brother died, but my mother made it really hard to stay, so I’ve crafted another little box in my head: People do unexpected things when faced with agonizing realities.
I lie back on my bed, phone clutched to my chest. My hair is damp from a shower, smelling of jasmine and vanilla, the cheap shampoo Artemis swore by.
I bunch the sheets under my knees, and I open the window wide enough to let in the neighborhood’s sounds while I decide on one of my dresses for tonight. Before I head out, a text comes.
Joe: Can you come over, baby?
I stare at the screen.
Shit.
My thumbs hover. I told him I’d come by, but…
Yes, is what I want to say. I want to run to him, let the night do its worst, and hold nothing back and skip the nightclub altogether.
I want to bury myself in his arms and never come up for air.
But then I remember I need to hang out with my girlfriends and Artemis’s voice rings back to memory, “Let him wonder.”
Me: I’m going out with the girls. Maybe After?
His answer comes immediately.
Joe: Where are you going?
I like his wondering about where I’m going.
Me: VIP room
The typing bubbles appear, vanish, and appear again.
Joe: Okay, miss you.
Me: I miss you, too.
The sweet words hit me like a dagger. I spend the next hour getting ready, pretending I didn’t check my phone every minute for another message. One that never comes.