Chapter 23

“How have you lived here with your shit all over the place?” Lily groans as she rifles through a box left on the ground. “I don’t know where anything is!”

“I’ve been figuring it out,” I say as I walk into my bathroom to Annie.

“Girl, you need to clean this place up. What are you waiting for?” Annie pushes as she grabs a lipstick.

“What? It’s not like I’m staying here forever. This is temporary housing, remember?”

“Yet we don’t know when you’ll be leaving!” Lily calls out begrudgingly.

“Don’t be a hater, Lily!” I taunt her.

“You’re ridiculous!”

“How are we ridiculous? You’re the one who’s going through a divorce and lives next door to your hot as fuck boss!” Annie laughs.

“Shh!” I tell her, covering her mouth. “The walls aren’t that thick!”

Lily joins us in the bathroom, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall. “What, you don’t want your hot boss to hear us?”

I walk backward right into my best friend, crushing her with my body.

“Hey!” Lily laughs.

“Take it back!” I laugh, tears already beginning to form in the corners of my eyes. Annie’s doubled over as she screeches with delight.

“Never!” I throw back.

Lily, to her credit, is much stronger than I am. She manages to push me away and run back out the door of the bathroom, where, to her horror, she trips over the stack of clothes she’s been looking through.

That does it, and I just fall over, clutching my side as legit screams of laughter echo through the entire apartment.

“Stop, I’m going to pee!” Annie shouts through her laughs.

“I think I bruised my entire body,” Lily whines as she continues to writhe on the ground, still laughing as well.

“I absolutely cannot handle the two of you without a babysitter!” I taunt my best friends. “This is why I don’t take you anywhere.”

“Hire a babysitter!” Annie giggles. “Maybe they’ll be nicer!!”

We keep up our jokes, making one another laugh harder and harder. It’s honestly just nice to have them here to distract from the harsh reality of what’s really happening.

My best friends are already pushing for me to meet new men, to get out and flirt. Even if Derek wasn’t next door and I wasn’t feeling a little dizzy when I think about him, it feels like a huge weight off my shoulders to have moments like this.

It takes us a long time to finally calm down enough. Lily is still lying where she tripped, Annie is bent over and heaving with each breath she takes, and I’m sitting on the tile floor with my hand covering my mouth.

Annie is the first to recover from our laugh session, shaking her head as she stands back up.

“Come on, dumbasses,” Annie states as she sticks her tongue out.

“You were laughing with us!” I protest.

“You can’t prove that now get up and come here; I need to fix your eyeshadow!”

Lily, still near the pile of clothes, grabs a few different dresses she’s found. She holds them up to me, seemingly to ponder what might look best.

“Those dresses are pretty small for a bar, don’t you think?” I question, skeptical.

“Not at all!” Annie insists.

The problem I’m having isn’t that the dresses are short. I still don’t know if I’m pregnant yet. I have a doctor’s appointment next week to confirm, but everything I do makes me self-conscious.

I’m not showing, but I’m paranoid about being found out.

These two are the only people who know. Even though they know, they haven’t pushed for an abundance of information. That has been so helpful.

“You need to get yourself out of the house.” Lily gently touches my arm as Annie brushes at my eyelid.

“You don’t have to go home with anyone,” Annie points out.

Lily nods. “Just talk to him and give yourself a break from being so tightly wound.”

I exhale out of my nose at this comment.

“What if I make a damn fool out of myself?” I say softly.

“Then you’re a human,” Lily shrugs. “We’re all just fools floating in the wind.”

“Okay, Edgar Allen Poe.” Annie rolls her eyes.

I look into the bathroom mirror, taking in the woman I can see staring back at me. I’m so exhausted, and yet, I haven’t even left the house or spoken to anyone outside my best friends all day.

“We’ll be at the bar, Esme.”

I look at Annie, and my eyes soften. “I’m just nervous. The divorce, the move, the pregnancy?”

“You’ve always taken everything in stride,” Lily says sweetly, coming up to me and bumping her shoulder with mine.

“But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to get out there and continue to talk to men like this.”

It’s the honest truth. Because I’m not interested in any of this at the moment. I’d rather just stay in.

“Hon, we understand that you’re probably incredibly stressed out. But that’s why we wanna take you out.”

“You don’t even have to drink anything he orders for you. Stick to your water, and just let us know if anything is going wrong.”

I don’t hesitate. I grab each girl and hug them at the same time, feeling tears trying to fall down my cheeks.

“No crying!” Annie taunts.

It takes another thirty minutes of goofing around before we finally put together an outfit for each of us to wear. Annie and Lily, now done with dressing and putting makeup all over me, quickly start to get ready themselves.

I watch them from across the room, feeling like the dress I ended up in is way too tight. My stomach could burst between the seams at any moment.

I don’t object to anything the girls have put together, though. I know their goal is to make me happy and keep me up and moving in this hell.

But in truth, I don’t mind being alone in this apartment at times. Sure, thinking about Ryan’s betrayal is disgusting and has given me a few different nightmares and some anxiety.

At the same time, though, when I think about how I’ve left that marriage and seem to be enjoying my life a lot more, it’s hard to think about the past, like I lost something.

“Whatcha thinking about, Blondie?” Annie asks, leaning back so her head pops out of the bathroom, and she can see out the door.

I shrug. “Nothing,” I lie.

Lily’s head follows Annie’s. “Liar.”

“Why have you two ganged up on me?” I whine.

“No one’s ganging up on you, asshole,” Lily replies. “We’re concerned about you, what’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” I sigh, positively defeated.

I wish I could just tell them that I don’t want to do this. But it’s how they feel they’re being helpful and considerate of me.

It’s another twenty minutes before we finally head out the door together, Annie and Lily on either side of me. Our arms stay linked together as we go, heads held high against the world around us.

But as we leave the complex, I start hearing my rushing pulse in my ears.

This night doesn’t feel like it’s going to go right.