Vivian gave me a strange look. “Is he? Are you sure about that?”
I didn’t want to think about what she was insinuating. Hope had to take a backseat to realism. My heart couldn’t handle anything else.
Vivian was looking at me with her eagle eyes and I stared back at her blankly. Give her nothing!
After a few minutes Viv sighed, clearly annoyed that I wasn’t peppering her with a million questions. “Yeah, well anyway, the whole crew was there, except you of course, because you had that thing to go to,” she said sarcastically.
We both knew my thing had involved me, our couch, and a whole lot of girlie movies.
And we both knew I was simply avoiding an awkward situation. Even though they were all my friends and I knew they’d want me there, I felt oddly out of place. Now that I didn’t have Mitch at my side, I wasn’t so sure how I fit in.
I was the poor single gal hanging with all of her coupled up friends. I’d be the loser sitting on the couch playing Candy Crush on her phone while her buddies were gettin’ it on.
No thank you.
“Yeah, well you know how things go,” I replied, shrugging.
“You know, one day you’re going to have to talk to him. I hate that there’s this big giant ball of weird whenever the two of you are in the same room. It’s uncomfortable. And uncomfortable makes my skin itch. I don’t want itchy skin. So maybe you should do something about that,” Vivian suggested.
“God forbid you have itchy skin,” I deadpanned.
“Just talk to him. Get back to that annoying Mitch and Gracie place where we can all talk behind your back about how you need to bang as you look at each other wistfully while pretending you aren’t madly in love.”
Sometimes Vivian really overstepped the line. And sometimes she was so on the money it was scary.
But I’d never, in a million years, tell her that. Her ego was out of control as it was.
I shook my head. “He hates me. End of discussion.”
“He hates you like I hate my Rockin’ Rabbit vibrator,” Vivian chastised.
And everyone knew how much Vivian loved her Rockin’ Rabbit vibrator. They had a special thing going on.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I muttered.
Vivian put her phone down again and ignored it when it dinged. She must be about to say something profound if she was ignoring Cole’s dick pic.
“Gracie, I love you. I’ve seen you at your best and I’ve seen you at your worst. And I’d prefer to see either of those than this person you’ve been for the past year.”
I grimaced. “Thanks a lot. I thought I was kicking some ass,” I huffed, trying to make light of her very serious statement. But her words hurt. A lot.
“Do you define kicking ass as days consumed with working and bad TV while pining for a man that you love? Because I think you need to work on re-defining ass kicking.”
Like I said, Vivian could be so on the money. I wanted to hate her for it.
“I’m sober. I’m not bat-shit crazy. I think I’m doing pretty well.” I hated how small I sounded.
Vivian grabbed my hand. “Sweetheart, you’re my sista from another mista, I get you. More than you’d probably like me to. And I know you miss him. That doesn’t negate all the super awesome things you’ve done to get yourself on track. But Mitch is a huge part of your life. Even when he’s not in it.”
“He has a—”
“This isn’t about Sophie. This is about you and that hottie bassist that you used to spend every waking hour with. This about how you would watch that stupid show together and quote the dialogue.”
“Don’t hate on the Fresh Prince,” I warned.