I roll my eyes as I reach for a soda bottle. Not because she’s wrong—she isn’t, shy isn’t who I usually bring home—but because Emilia likes to regularly remind me how terrible my taste in men is. To be fair, I give her an opportunity to remind me every time a guy turns out to be the asshole the red flags told me he’d be, ignoring the signs in favor of string-free sex.
“If I wanted to be rejected by a man tonight, I’d have called my dad.” An awkward not-quite-a-laugh bubbles out of me as I fill up our glasses, careful not to spill the soda this time. “God, I can’t wait to get away from Maple Hills.”
Before I can say anything else, Emilia’s cellphone lights up in her hand. “I’m gonna step outside and take this call from Poppy. It’s breakfast time in Europe, you good for five minutes?”
“I’m sure I can keep myself out of trouble for five minutes, go. Give my love to Pops, please.”
Emilia kisses my temple affectionately. “You say that, but I’m not convinced. I’ll be back. Text me if you’re about to go missing.”
She looks genuinely excited as she makes her way toward the backyard to talk to her girlfriend. I love their love, I really do, but God they make me feel single. It’s hard being the official third wheel to two people disgustingly perfect for each other, especially because I’ve never had a real relationship in my life. I haven’t even had a first date. For the most part, I’m happy single, but sometimes, when they’re curled up together under a blanket at home, for a tiny moment that I’d never admit to, I do feel a little jealous.
When faced with two people so well suited, it’s impossible not to wonder what your own version of that might look like. But then I remember how fun being traumatized by my parent’s relationship was and the desire for my own evaporates as quickly as it arrived.
For all the romance books I’ve read and all the happy endings I’ve enjoyed, I can’t imagine my own. I’d like to hope I’ll have one, but hope can be dangerous.
Someone much smarter than me once said something poetic and clever about love being when you give someone the power to hurt you but trust them not to, but I can’t imagine ever trusting someone that much. I’d like to, though, maybe.
If I want my feelings hurt, I am more than capable of doing it to myself. It’s a skill I’ve honed over many years and arguably my best one.
Pulling my cellphone out of my purse, I decide to wait for Emilia by filling my time pretending to look at what people are saying about F1 qualifying from earlier today. My aimless scroll lasts ten seconds before I give in to the real reason I got my phone out: snooping on my dad’s latest girlfriend from my fake account.
It’s my current favorite way to hurt my own feelings and, luckily for me and my masochistic tendencies, Norah loves updating every second of her life on her stories, like she’s a thirteen-year-old with social media for the first time and I love being unhappy watching it.
I also love reporting the pointless lives she does for bullying and harassment.
At least ninety percent of the impulsive decisions I’ve made in the past month have been triggered by her posting about how wonderful my dad is—and yet here I am again, watching it. Her face fills the screen, far too close and terribly lit and then, in a move that makes my heart stop beating, she pans around to film my dad packing boxes in what appears to be in her daughter’s dorm room.
I’m not sure my dad would even know where I go to college if he didn’t pay my tuition.
I hate watching it, but I can’t stop. My entire life has been a fight for my dad’s time, so to watch him give it away so freely is like a punch to the gut.
When he didn’t travel to Spain for the Grand Prix this weekend because he had “important plans,” the foolish part of me that still hopes her dad isn’t a total jackass questioned if it was because he did want to prioritize saying goodbye to me before I leave for the summer. Now I know who he considers to be important and, once again, it isn’t me. I hate the type of person it’s turned me into, one desperate for attention and validation, and I hate that I’ve let my life become one shaped by kneejerk reactions to feeling forgotten.
For once, I want to make a decision because it will make me happy, not because something has triggered me into acting out.
I lock my phone screen and push my phone back into my purse as soon as the body in my peripheral vision gets too close. It’s not that Emilia doesn’t know I snoop, but it’s still embarrassing, particularly because her dad is actual perfection and as much as she tries, she’ll never understand.