Page 68 of When We Were Younger

I can't even imagine the smell in here. I've only managed to pull myself up to shower once since I arrived, and I didn't even bother to wash my hair. But hey, I managed to change my underwear daily. That's something.

I'm a sad, heartbroken cliché like in the movies. I haven't even told anyone I'm here. I'm sure Kira knows–she has security cameras outside and has nodoubt noticed an uptick in delivery drivers dropping off food–but I haven't turned my phone back on, so I don’t know if she's tried to reach me.

The steady stream of Postmates guys will have to be proof enough to my friends that I'm still alive, even though I feel like I'm hanging on by a thread.

On the television screen, Meredith Grey currently has her hand on a bomb that's lodged inside of a patient's chest, and I do not have the mental fortitude to deal with it. I click the TV off and decide on a nap. I roll myself up into the four blankets I currently have laid across my lap and cover my head so that I'm not disturbed by the sunlight in the window.

I'm just drifting off into unconsciousness when a loud bang near the front door makes me jump out of my skin. I screech–probably not the smartest idea to attract the intruder's attention, but it's too late now. To my surprise, the intruder screams back.

"I HAVE A WEAPON!" they yell, and I recognize that voice. Jesus fucking Christ.

"Rachel!" I call out as I try to untangle myself from the mess of blankets.

"Dottie, what the hell?" she pants, holding her chest with one hand and bracing herself up on the wall with the other. "You scared the shit out of me!"

I instantly feel horrible for having my phone off for so long. I am such a shit friend. Rachel is going through a breakup right now, and I just fell off the face of the earth. First, because I was too busy with Stephen and then because I was too busy leaving him. My liptrembles, and though I didn't think I had any tears left to cry, more start to well up in my eyes.

"I'm sorry! You weren't here when I showed up, and then today I just assumed you were up at G's," I sniffle. Fuck, I really am awful. Today's Georgie's birthday. She's right across town and I couldn't even pick up my phone to wish her a happy birthday. I go ahead and add another dollop of self-loathing to the mental load in my brain.

Rachel crosses the room and sits on the couch next to me.

"Babe, what are you doing here? You're not due back for a week. What happened?" She glances around at the room and crinkles her nose. I know if I didn't look so pathetic right now,she'd make a bitchy quip about how bad I smell. Then I'd tease her about the coffee stains on her shirt, and we'd laugh and clean ourselves up before commiserating over a bottle of wine. For my ego's sake, Rachel doesn't say a word, but I can see her trying not to breathe through her nose.

“Tennessee was… I really fucked it all up, Rach. I had to come here. Misery loves company, right?" My tears start to flow, and before I can protest, Rachel is pulling me and my stink cloud into her arms. I cry into her shoulder, and I can feel her tears dropping on top of my head. It feels weirdly good. Cathartic, even, to get this all out with my friend.

That is, until she starts violently shaking. I pull back and Rachel is laughing. Like 'front row at an Iliza Scherzinger comedy show while high as hell' laughing,all the while still crying. I just watch as she loses her marbles in front of me. When she stops making sounds and starts gasping for air, I tap her leg.

"Rachel…you're scaring me," I say, and she waves me off. When she finally calms down, she tells me everything that's been going on in her life since I've been in Fox Hole. How she broke up with Amir and the way he's been leaving her love letters, trying to get her back. He left the most recent one with Rachel's dad, and when she read it, Amir had said that if Rachel wanted him, he'd be waiting for her tonight. Personally, I think a New Year's Eve deadline for some kind of romantic gesture is totally cheesy and overdone, but both Rachel and Am are addicted to romance novels, so I guess it tracks for them.

I let Rachel get it all out, and then I let her go through the pros and cons of getting back together with Amir. By the end of it, she still doesn't know what she's going to do, but I'm grateful for the reprieve from my own love woes.

When she's all done, I don't know what the right thing to say is. So instead, I say the only thing I know for sure right now.

"Love is a goddamn bitch, isn't it?"

Rachel laughs and wipes the tears from her face.

"It really fucking is," she says, and for the first time in days, I smile. I decide to capitalize on this moment of happiness, tiny as it may be, and tell Rachel to text Georgie to let her know that I am alive and will, in fact, attend her birthday party tonight.

"Come on," I say once the text is sent. I stand and hold my hand out to Rachel. "We'll take turns showering and then I'll do your hair. We've got a new year to pretend to care about."

Rachel, being the incredible friend that she is, doesn't push me for information on Tennessee or why I've been rotting away on Kira's couch for days. We mainly talk about her, her dad, and Amir's letters as I curl her hair and raid Kira's closet for a party outfit to wear tonight.

I settle on a two-piece ensemble, a feathery halter top with a pink sequined miniskirt. It works perfectly because Kira has a smaller frame than me, but the skirt has some stretch, so it still fits over my wider hips. I pair the look with some of Kira's white Jimmy Choo's and silently bless the shoe gods that me and my girls are all a cool size seven and a half. I twist two skinny braids into the side of my hair, parting it to the right and letting the curls fall down my back.

Rachel looks fucking stunning in a ‘Paris Hilton at her 21stbirthday’ coded silver minidress and sky-high heels. I make her snap a selfie with me in Kira's mirror closet so I can post our hotness all over Instagram later.

We're fake smiling through our mutual misery in the shot, but nobody needs to know that.

We head upstairs, and I keep that fake smile plastered on my face as I move through the party like a ghost. The birthday girl, Georgie, looks fantastic in her black, sheer corset dress and as much as I'd love to cling to her, I don't want to bring her down. It's a long storyas to why, but this is her first ever birthday party and I'm not going to be the one to ruin the gorgeous smile on her face.

Rachel is lost in her own thoughts. I can’t blame her, she's got a big decision to make tonight. But that leaves me pretty much on my own here. I've had plenty of offers to dance, but I don't feel like it. James asked if I felt like getting behind the turntable and doing some DJ-ing, which usually lifts my spirits, but I turned him down.

I stick by the kitchen door so I can catch the servers as they come out with fresh trays of canapés and champagne flutes. If I can't be happy, I can at least be full and drunk.

My favorite server of the evening, Joey, passes by me, waving a hot plate of coconut shrimp in my face. Joey became my favorite after his second turn around the room when I realized he always has some sort of fried appetizer on his tray. I moan, and just as I'm about to swipe a shrimp or seven from him, I feel a large hand clasp my bare shoulder.

I turn, ready to tell whoever is keeping me from my tropical fried shellfish that I'm not interested, but my stomach bottoms out when I come face to face with a broad chest covered in black and gray flannel. I tilt my head up, and there is Stephen, his dark hair tied back into a bun, two braids twisted into the side, just like mine.

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