When we’ve both caught our breath, Zach folds himself onto the floor opposite me, and holds his arms out in a gesture that feels so second nature now that I don’t even hesitate. I’ve skirted around him the last three days, banishing him out to the sofa to sleep, glaring at him if we so much as bumped arms moving past each other. Now, I crawl onto his lap, letting him wrap his arms around me, breathing in the scent of his aftershave again and placing my hands against his chest. Zach presses a kiss to the top of my head and sighs, his arms tightening around me.
“So what do we do now?” he asks me quietly.
“I don’t know,” I admit.
“Do you think we should talk about it?”
“Do you think you can form an opinion on anything?”
“Do you think you can stop snapping at me?”
I do, at least for the moment, and nuzzle into the crook of his neck, closing my eyes. “Yes, Zach. I think we should talk about it.”
I feel him nod against me.
“You think we could at least have a cup of tea first?”
“Yeah. Tea sounds good.”
But I don’t move off his lap, and his arms don’t loosen around me.
I don’t know if we’ll even manage to talk it through, or if we’ll come out of this on the other side any better than we are right now, going into it, but I suppose then, at least, we’ll both know where we stand, and we’ll know we tried.
We’ll talk about it, and we’ll go make a cup of tea, but not right now. It’ll wait, just a bit.
For now, just for a little while, we’ll stay wrapped up in each other’s arms, familiar and comfortable, and remember what it’s like to just be together.
apartment #22 – olivia
Chapter Twenty-seven
Maid of Honor’s log, still day eight. Of course it’s still day eight. This day is. Never. Going. To. End. The living room is still carnage. Stomach is grumbling, laptop is getting low on power. Headache now probably due to a lack of caffeine. The groom has texted me to check in because he’s not heard from Kim. Have ignored him.
Right now, Kim’s taking a nap. Or at least, that’s what she told Lucy and Addison. I think it’s pretty convenient timing, given that I’m just finishing up work for the day. I should be relieved to be done with it for the week, but I’m scared of what’s going to happen now I don’t have the excuse to avoid everyone.
It’s been a long week, for all of us.
(Have I mentioned that yet? I don’t feel like I’ve mentioned it enough.) Addison takes the opportunity to go out on the balcony for a little privacy to call her mum, now it’s late enough over here for America to be awake. Lucy folds herself into the corner of the sofa to quietly go back to reading something on her iPad.
I fix myself a quick cup of tea, not having had one for a few hours.
(Lucy snuck me one earlier, along with a sandwich; I hadn’t risked leaving the bedroom for hours, having to wait until the rain cleared before I could seek refuge on the balcony to work for the day.) I take my mug back to the living room and survey the damage.
I spot a couple of pieces of glass we missed when cleaning up last night. There’s still a damp mark on the wall, but it doesn’t seem to have stained. Looking at it, I really don’t think she meant to smash the prosecco bottle like that. She did look pretty bloody surprised when it shattered against the wall.
I set my tea down and start to go around the room, collecting the little purple chocolates. I stack them up near the TV, then collect the broken bags, the scraps of netting. I take them out to the bin in the kitchen; by the time I get back, Addison’s in from the balcony and she and Lucy are going around the living room to clean up too.
Addison collects the centerpieces while Lucy gathers all the dried rose petals. I take care of the packets of Love Hearts.
“Sorry we didn’t sort this out earlier,” Addison tells me, shrugging one shoulder and giving me a small, sincere smile. “I was a little scared it’d cause another breakdown.”
“How’s she been?”
“How’ve you been?” Addison asks instead.
I shrug.
“Not so good,” Lucy tells me, when I don’t say anything. “She’s just been really quiet all day. Sulking, I guess, you know?”
“You think she’s going to ever talk to me again?” I ask, biting my lip. It’s not like Kim and I have never fought in all the years we’ve been friends, but never like we did last night; this one makes me feel sick and sits heavy on my shoulders, threatening to crush me whenever I think about it too long. And she’s been my best friend since we were five years old. I genuinely can’t imagine life without her.
“You ask me,” Addison scoffed, “she’s the one who should be saying sorry.”
“But you didn’t say that,” I joke, remembering our conversation this morning in the kitchen.
“Damn straight. Or, like . . . not.”
I raise my eyebrows at her.
“Well. Damn straight, if it’s your parents asking,” she adds, muttering under her breath, pulling a cheeky, wide-eyed face with her lips pursed. She’s standing close enough that she bumps her shoulder against mine and waggles her eyebrows.
I try so hard to ignore her, just on principle, but once I start laughing, a giggle sputters out of Lucy, and then Addison’s laughing, too, and I don’t actually think I’ve laughed so hard all week. We all seem to remember Kim, napping (or maybe not), and fall quiet at the same time—but as soon as we’re trying not to laugh, of course it’s all the more difficult not to, and I’m still wheezing with laughter, a stitch in my side, by the time we’ve finished cleaning up.
I sit with the girls for a while. When we hear movement from the bedroom, the sound of Kim getting up from her nap, I shut myself out on the balcony again, plugging in my headphones and trying to lose myself in some TikToks.
*
Maid of Honor’s log. Still. Day. Freaking. Eight. I may live out here on the balcony forever now. Or at least for the next two days, until I can finally kick them all out of my apartment and have the place to myself again. Although currently unsure if I kick Kim out I’ll ever see her again, the way today is going. Despite all of us being in each other’s way all week, and currently being stuck under the same roof, it has been incredibly easy to avoid my best friend for the entire day.
Oh God, it’s been way too easy to avoid her all day, and we’ve been trapped in the same apartment. What if this is just the beginning?
What if we start avoiding each other in real life when this nightmarish, week-long sleepover is finally over, and just like that, we’re not in each other’s lives anymore?
Kim was the first person I came out to. She came with me on my first date and lurked at a table in the back of the coffee shop—a favor I returned on her first date to a Nando’s. She’s the person I dragged out to orchestra classes with me every Saturday morning when we were in school because I didn’t want to go on my own, even though she’d sit reading or on her phone the whole time. She helped me dye my hair red when we were sixteen and got her belly button pierced with me when I got my first helix piercing. She’s the person who came to a Jonas Brothers concert with me last year, because even as an adult I’m a die-hard fan, and who’s always been on the other side of the phone to offer advice and reassurance when I’m having a relationship crisis (which is more often than I’d care to admit).