Page 10 of When to Call a Blitz

Looking at Heidi one more time, my mouth still half open, I awkwardly turn on my heel and head inside, unable to shake the feeling that I did something really, really wrong.

4

HEIDI

Idon’t think about Emmett Gardner for a couple of days.

Scratch that, I’m an unreliable narrator, apparently. The big guy consumes my every god damn thought. When I’m editing photos, when I’m dealing with a difficult client, or when I’m struggling to open my fucking car door and it won’t budge, sending me into a fit of rage.

I’m no stranger to rejection. I’m well accustomed to it. Rejection and me? Best friends. But being rejected because I’m not creative enough, or because I refuse to use sepia on wedding photos, or because Eddy from second grade told me I had no soul because of my hair color is a lot different than having my friendship rejected by someone I spilled my guts to on a beach on a random Tuesday during our vacation.

That, somehow, feels more personal, and I can feel the sting with my whole being.

Because it’s not just one part of me that’s being rejected, it’s me as a person who happens to belong to a friend group that he likes. This is a person I’m going to have to see frequently. A person with a daughter I’ve watched before along with Briar’s daughter.

How the fuck am I supposed to look him in the eye when he’s clearly so disgusted with me that he’s literally run away from me at a bar? The man looked like he was being hunted, for fuck’s sake.

I shouldn’t have come on too strong. Shouldn’t have asked him why he was acting strange. I should have let it all be.

I should have done a lot of things differently in my life, but here we are.

“Hey, do you want to get takeout tonight?” Mila asks as she barges into my room without even a knock.

I glance at her before returning my face to my fluffy white pillow I’ve been screaming into for the past five minutes. “No,” I mumble.

I hear her pause. “What do you mean no?”

I shrug. “I mean I don’t feel like eating,” I tell her, my voice completely muffled.

“Sweetie, you have to eat something. What’s going on?”

With a groan, I turn onto my side, propping my head against my fist. “I feel really weird about what happened with Emmett,” I admit.

Mila wrinkles her nose. “Still?”

I stay silent.

“Okay, we need to get whatever this is to stop. You have some,” she looks around the room, “bad energy in here. Isn’t that something you would say? Some bad vibes. What do we need to do to cleanse the room?”

“We can burn some sage?” I sit up, immediately interested. If there’s one thing Mila knows, it’s how to cheer me up.

“Alright let’s go!” she smiles before handing me her phone. “But first, order something. We’re getting food in you.”

“How do I know that the vibes are officially clear?” Mila asks, looking around. “And are you sure the smoke alarm isn’t going to go off?”

Biting my lip, I look around my room. It’s small, but it’s cute and it’s mine, with a gorgeous cherry oak queen bedframe I found on the side of the road around Johns Hopkins when we were helping one of Amara’s friends move out of their school apartment.

While I loved everything about my room, for whatever reason the bedframe has always been my favorite.

“I think we’re good.” Our incense officially burned out and the lavender scent is almost thick enough to choke on.

“Well,” she places what’s left of the stick on my dresser, “I hope you feel a little better.”

Instead of telling her “I’ll be better when my room airs out a little,” I nudge her into the family room where a romcom is waiting for us on our large TV. “I’m ready for some cake,” I tell her.

“Don’t touch my lemon cake or so help me—” she starts before snatching it out of my hands.

Grabbing a fork, she immediately digs in.

---