Page 73 of My Best Friend's Sister

T H I R T Y N I N E

- Madeline -

I hadn’t felt this disposable since my dad walked out.

Overnight, I stopped being a priority for him. I went from feeling safe and secure to feeling filled with anxiety over my inadequacies, filled with questions like what could I have done differently? and why doesn’t he care about me anymore? and were any of the good times even real?

Quinn’s unceremonious rejection had stung the same way, and just like the first time around, I had no idea what I’d done to deserve being cast aside.

But I didn’t want to be that girl. I didn’t want to dwell on my daddy issues and let them follow me into my adult life. So I refused to take Quinn’s inexplicable behavior personally, just as I refused to accept blame for my dad walking out.

Whatever the hell was going on with him, it wasn’t my fault. Or so I was repeating to myself over and over in a desperate attempt to keep my mind from replaying the hurtful things he’d said. Honestly. Telling me to see other people when one week earlier he told me he’d never tire of my company, my pussy, my taste? That was insane.

But the comment that hurt the most, by far, was when he said I don’t like myself with you. Those words were enough to perforate my heart so thoroughly it was on the verge of crumbling to pieces.

To make matters worse, I felt the opposite. Because of him, I’d gotten back to blogging regularly, and I was enjoying it more than ever now that I appreciated how lucky I was to have a little corner of the universe that I could control, a little place where I could express myself freely. And work was going better than ever now that so many people knew my name. Granted, life with Crecia hadn’t changed much, but there were enough friendly faces around that it lessened the weight of my exchanges with her. And that was because of him, too.

I thought of all the nights we went out, of how shiny I felt on his arm, how dazzling I felt in the moments when I held his attention. How safe I felt under the covers with him. There was no question that I liked myself with him, and the fact that it was one sided made me feel like some sort of parasite.

I knew we needed to talk, believed there must be some way to make him see that we were good together. But I couldn’t seek him out, couldn’t even look him in the eye. I was aching so bad for his attention I feared I’d cry the minute I got it, and that wasn’t going to fix anything. I had to reason with him, had to woo him somehow. And my insides felt too messy for reasoning and wooing. I needed time. And he obviously did, too, since he clearly didn’t know what the fuck he wanted.

I still held out hope that it was me, though. Maybe that was foolish or naïve. God knows I’d been both, not to mention called worse. But even though my ears heard his words and my eyes saw the vacant expression in his as he said them, my heart didn’t believe he was over me. Over us.

What we had was special. I knew it was. Perhaps I only believed that because I was a stubborn idiot who couldn’t take a hint. Or maybe I believed it because I feared it would be impossible to get over him. But I wasn’t moving on. Not yet. I was simply answering his silence with silence and hoping in vain every night that he would knock on my door and admit he’d been a fool.

“You going to eat that?” Maeve asked, pointing at my second slice of avocado toast.

“No,” I said, admiring the perfectly poached egg just begging to be forked. “You want it?”

We swapped plates, and I set her empty one in front of me.

“I’m practicing eating for two,” she said, pricking the yolk so it spilled artfully over the edge of the thick, crispy toast beneath.

My eyebrows rose. “Really? Did you pick a donor?”

“Not yet,” she said. “But I eliminated a lot of options so I’m getting closer all the time.”

“Intense,” I said, my concise response making me think of Quinn. I’d left the apartment quietly that morning so as not to disturb or bump into him, but for all I knew, he never came home last night.

“I’m surprised I have an appetite at all,” she said. “Considering what a sickening prospect it is.”

“What do you mean?” I reached for my Bloody Mary and took a long sip from the bottom of the glass, hoping the vodka might make me feel a little more fuzzy and a little less delicate.

“The information is so incomplete,” she explained, cutting her next bite and dragging it through the runny yolk. “Like it doesn’t say what a guy’s political or religious persuasions are or whether he has bad habits like not flossing or biting his nails.”

I glanced down at the chipped ends of my red polish, feeling ashamed that I’d let my internal heartache affect my outward appearance.

“Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you, by the way?” she asked, pausing to take a sip of water.

I lifted my eyes across the narrow table, my peripheral vision confirming that the group of women to our left and the bickering middle-aged couple to our right were too engaged in their own conversations to eavesdrop.

“You know I won’t judge you.”

I laughed. “Was that a joke, ’cause you’re the judgiest?”

“I am not,” she said. “I just have high standards and want what’s best for you.”

“You have impossible standards, and you have no idea what’s best for me.”

---