“It’s not wine, is it?” I asked. That was one drink I’d be forced to swear off forever. Only beer would wash my freedom fries down now and forever.
“No, we made the mistake of checking out the vodka.” Ava held up a clanking bag.
“What have you done?” I was astonished at the number of bottles residing in there.
“Look, there are a lot of interesting flavors. We just thought it wouldn’t be right if we bought salted watermelon and you were in more of a salted caramel mood.” Scarlet had a point, although I noted the bag contained Birthday Cake, Cucumber, and Orange Dreamsicle as well.
“Can we drink in the living room, though? Your room smells like despair and unwashed hair, my friend.” Ava was always honest. And in this case, correct.
“No. I can never face Marc again.”
“Oh, didn’t he tell you? He’s staying with his mom until he goes to France. Have you been hiding in here this whole time?” The girls exchanged concerned looks.
“Well, obviously! Gosh, he’s really with his mom? He must truly hate me to go stay with her.” I tossed back the covers and stood up.
“Why would you say that? Do they not get along?” Lizzie asked.
“They do, she just prefers his brother and makes no secret of it. He’s bitter.” I jammed my feet into my favorite Hulk foot slippers and put the offending hair into a messy bun.
“Hah! That old song and dance?” Ava looked surprised. “Aunt Dee Dee is like, obsessed with Marc. She just feels sorry for Paul because he’s such a derp. She hoped if she gave him extra attention he wouldn’t grow up with an inferiority complex and become a criminal.”
We looked at each other.
“That didn’t work out so well, did it?” I asked.
“You know what they say about the road to hell,” Ava replied. “Sheesh, I really thought if anyone could talk some sense into him about his mother, it’d be you. It’s so obvious from the outside.” It was not obvious from the outside. But then again, I wasn’t exactly the poster child for intuition these days.
We proceeded to the kitchen, where I mixed myself a reasonably weak cucumber vodka Bloody Mary.
“I’m not sitting on that couch,” I said.
Scarlet sprang off it like it was hot. “Sweet Jesus!” she yelped.
“We didn’t bang on it!” I said. “It just reminds me too much of him.”
“I think it’s time to explain yourself,” said Lizzie, carrying my drink to the kitchen table. I considered protesting, because we’d once shared a lovely candlelit dinner here, but they were going to draw the line somewhere and honestly that left us about nowhere else to go but his bedroom, and that for sure wasn’t happening. I sat down heavily.
“Well, firstly, I have a confession to make. One that I should have made a long time ago. And I’m sorry in advance for not letting you in on this earlier, I was just scared and weird, and you guys know me, and—”
“Spit it out already,” Lizzie ordered.
“I started the sitcomic. And I called it Screwmates, just like we talked about that day. And, well, it kind of took off.” I hung my head and waited for more punishment to fall upon me.
“Oh, we knew that.” Ava sounded disappointed.
“I thought this was going to be juicy, too. Refill?” Lizzie asked Scarlet, who shook her head. She must have been on another sobriety kick. Scarlet had issues. Drinks weren’t actually one of them. But that wasn’t the revelation here. They knew? They’d known all along?
“How did—? Why didn’t anyone say anything?” I was so confused.
“We figured if you weren’t ready to discuss it, no big deal.” Lizzie shrugged. “You couldn’t keep it in forever. Although you did get close.”
“Now that we’re allowed to talk about it, can we cheers? You are kicking ass and taking names, my friend. How many people are following that thing? Like six thousand?” Ava asked.
“Ten,” I muttered. I didn’t care anymore. And I was not cheersing, either. I couldn’t celebrate the reason I’d driven Marc off.
“Holy crap! I bet you get an agent out of this,” Scarlet said. “Maybe I will have another, after all. Lizzie?”
“I’m not your mom.” But she got up anyways.
“I did get an offer from one,” I admitted. The shrieks were deafening.
“You have an agent! You have an agent!”
“Will you remember us when you’re rich and famous?”
“Wanna be roomies again in your mansion?”
“Guys. I’m not accepting.” That shut them up, but only for a second.
“But… why?” Because I’d exploited Marc enough already was why. Because the very thought of Screwmates made me sick to my stomach right about now. Because I didn’t even know if I could draw at all anymore. Maybe I was just broken.
“Because I never told Marc about the comic, okay? He found it on his own. And now he’s staying with his mom before banging his way across a foreign country and he hates me and I hate myself and I can’t exactly accept an agent’s offer of representing the series I’ll be deleting as soon as you people leave.” Which hopefully wouldn’t be until I’d had a few more drinks, because as much as I wanted Screwmates gone, it would really, really hurt to say goodbye.
Once the comic was gone, so was the only evidence of my torrid roommate affair.
Lizzie excused herself to go to the bathroom, and I told her to bring me back some tissues.
“Oh my gosh, let it out,” Scarlet said.
“I’m not crying!” I was definitely crying. And the more I tried to hold it back, the harder I cried. The girls were exchanging looks again and I didn’t want concern, I wanted shots. However, it was a bit difficult to understand me through the tears and the snot, so I just got up and collected glasses and the salted caramel flavor. Because it really did look delicious.
“Oh, we’re onto this, then? Let me text my sitter.” Lizzie had emerged, with the tissues, and just in time. I knocked one back and immediately refilled.
“You guys did not tell me how much this sucks. I blame you entirely.”
“Because Little Madison finally fell in love? I’m not taking the blame on this one, sister.” Lizzie took her shot.
“Plus are you serious about not knowing how much heartbreak sucks? That’s literally the only thing songs and books and shit are about.” Ava perched on the edge of the table and made a face at her shot glass. “I wanted Birthday Cake.”
“Drink that and pour what you want,” Lizzie said. “I’ll take a Cake too, actually.”
“You’re closer,” Ava said.
“Oh my God, I’m not your mom either.” But she got up.
“Back to me, please,” I said.
“Oh, yeah. Well, you’ll go through all the steps of grieving and then emerge on the other end a stronger woman,” Scarlet told me. “Wanna play Truth or Dare?”
“I’m not done being coddled, I think.” Although Drunk Scarlet was a blast, because she would do any dare. Which, come to think of it, could explain her reluctance to drink very often. We’d probably never let her live down the time she streaked our high school principal’s yard. But then that reminded me of the time Maddy and Markus got naked in the neighbor’s yard and I teared up again.