“Holy shit, what did you do?” I say, looking down at her car. It’s definitely more than just a flat tire. “Did you hit something?” She looks down at her nails as she takes something imaginary from beneath one of them, not looking at me. I reach through her opened back window and grab my bag from her back seat, ensuring my ID tag is in the front pocket where I left it.
“Well, I did get a little close to the curb before I left the salon, but the car did fine until I got here.” Her rim is completely bent and will need a tow.
“Okay, fine. We gotta go. I have to be at school.” I slide the ID card into my front pocket and walk past her toward my car. She huffs, rolling her eyes and opening the door to the front seat. I take one last glance at the vehicle, wondering how the hell she made it out of the parking lot of the salon, much less down the street before her tire exploded. It's ridiculous.
“So tonight, I think we should go to the movies. Oh, and check out that new bar, Genk’s, It's a jazz bar that a few people in my lit class were talking about. Apparently they have half-off drinks and I could sure go for a Margarita right about now.”
“We can't tonight,” I say, pulling into traffic and speeding down the road toward the entrance to the highway. I only have to go down three exits, drop her off at home since she clearly can’t drive herself, then spin around and head back to the school. I should still get there right on time. I hope that Professor Satchi won’t be upset about that. Lord knows I hate for him to think that this will be my norm, just beating the clock every time. But he knows my work ethic as a student and hopefully that will speak for itself.
“Of course we can,” she says.
“No, Fee. I said I'm not hanging out tonight. You know we have the final on Monday. And I’ve got the shit with the team I’m trying to squeeze in. How about I pick you up Monday after your exam is over. There’s some stuff we need to talk about anyway.”
She sucks her teeth and rifles through her purse, pulling out a stick of gum and popping it into her mouth.
“What do you mean? Talk? No. You never want to do anything fun anymore. Just study.”
“I want to do well, shouldn't you?”
“I'm doing just fine,” she snaps.
“Well, if you were, then you’d take Professor Satchi’s exam seriously and not go out on a bender the right before.” Felicia is also an engineering student and made sure to stick by me anytime we ended up in the same class. I won’t lie, it was sort of annoying, even when we were on good terms. Pulling up to the stoplight, I tap my foot against the floor mat and squeeze the steering wheel, praying for the light to change. I'm so close to the highway.
“Well, actually, I've been having meetings with Professor Satchi and the study group, and like I said, I'm doing just fine.”
“Study group?” I deadpan. I haven’t known her to take school seriously since she was trying to keep her grades up for cheer in high school.
“Yeah, study group, and it's helped me out a lot. So I'm not too worried about this exam and, unlike some people, I don't mind having a life and enjoying my last year as a college student.”
“Well, I guess we both have different goals,” I say as I watch the light change. I pull onto the highway quickly, merging between two semi-trucks, which causes Felicia to look frantically from side to side.
“Slow down! What are you doing?”
“Well, I have a meeting, I told you yesterday. This is really important. And I'm sorry you got stranded, but now I'm rushing through an already fucked day trying to make it to this meeting on time.”
“Oh, right. The internship thing,” she says, seemingly uninterested.
I cut my eyes at her, heat rising in my cheeks.
“Why in the fuck are we still—” My voice booms through the car but I swallow my words, pulling my lips into my mouth and biting down so hard it almost hurts. This is not the time. I can’t let her fuck with me right now. She’s so damn self-centered. She doesn't support anything I do and has only been in it for herself. Yeah. It's definitely time for this thing to end. But I'm not going to think about that right now. I'm just going to focus on what I have in front of me. Right now it’s getting her the hell out of my car.
“Yeah, the ‘internship thing.’ The thing I’ve wanted more than anything in the world since I entered CHU. This TA job could get me a step closer,” I say after a few intentional breaths.
“Well, good luck.” She shrugs as the sound of buzzing permeates from her side of the car. She looks down at her watch, her brows furrowed, and taps the screen. The sound of a female's voice comes from the speakers.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Mom?” she says, question heavy in her voice. Her mother never calls her, so I get the surprise. “Everything okay?”
“Yes, I'm just calling you back. What do you need?”
“Calling me back?”
“Yes.” Annoyance plays not-so-subtly in her mother’s voice. “You called me an hour ago.” Felicia grabs her phone and scrolls through her call log. Seeming to have found what she was looking for, she clears her throat in response to her mother.
“Sorry, I was trying to call Chrissy. Dad just got me a new smartwatch and I’m still having trouble making calls.” Her voice is a softer tone than it was when she was speaking to me moments ago.
“Oh, okay, that’s nice,” her mother says. Felicia runs a hand through her hair, then balls a fist in her lap. I’ve never understood why the relationship between her and her mother is so strained. She never talks about it, and it almost makes me feel bad for her. “Well, do you need anything?” her mother asks.
“I’m good.”
The call ends abruptly. I don’t know if it was Felicia who hung up, or her mother, but I watch as she stares at the phone a few moments longer than normal.
We stay silent for a while after that as my car melts fluidly through the highway of cars. Felicia doesn’t notice and looks almost relaxed as she stares out the window. I should say something. As much as I can’t stand Felicia right now, I get her pain. She does everything she can to get her mother’s attention, but her mother always seems dismissive as she rains love on Felicia’s older sister Judy. I wouldn’t be surprised if her supposed mistaken call was actually intentional. I’ve only seen her mother a few times, and even then it seemed like I was the only thing she actually liked about her daughter. Talked about how it gave her status, that maybe she’d finally amount to something with my help. It’s sad, and I’ve told Felicia plenty of times to stop living and dying by what her mother thinks, but she’s obsessed.
Just as I’m about to be comforting, say something that makes me resemble a nice guy and not one who’s thinking about ending the relationship, she speaks and ruins it.
“You know what, Jordan? You are just as bad as her. A selfish asshole.”
I nearly choke as my head whips back and forth looking from her to the road. “Whoa, what the fuck? Me? Selfish?”
“Yeah, you never want to hang out with me anymore. All you want to do is study and then you make me feel bad or stupid for wanting to be young. We're twenty-four years old. Stop acting like an old ass man.”