Page 107 of Best Served Cold

She shrugs. “I have some mementos I boxed up. It’s…” She looks down, shrugging again. “I’ve been meaning to toss it, but there were some good memories. It’s hard to process that all of it was…”

“Bullshit,” Hannah finishes for her, springing to her feet. “Get your box, Sophie. We’re taking Briar’s car. She’s barely sipped her beer.”

“Where are we going?” I ask, caught off-guard by her shift in mood.

“Jonah’s house. We’re throwing that shit at his house. All of it. Do you have some eggs to throw too?”

“Uh, eggs are expensive these days. What about toilet paper?”

“Yes. Let’s do it. I haven’t toilet-papered a house in years.”

I haven’t done it since I was a teenager, beforethe incident. The bewildered look on Briar’s face suggests she’s never done it.

“We need this,” Hannah declares with conviction, and I can’t tell her she’s wrong. There has been something raw building in my chest all day, ever since I saw that RSVP card.Fish.I’m not sure whether it’s rage or grief, but it needs an outlet.

“Okay,” I say.

“I don’t know about this,” Briar hedges, glancing at the box of our things combined together, as if we were one person to Jonah. Completely interchangeable. Somehow that infuriates me more than anything. Possibly because it’s still easier to be angry on someone else’s behalf than my own.

“I do,” Hannah insists. “You’re not just sad, Briar. You’re angry. Be angry.”

She considers this for a moment, her expression serious, then nods. “You’re right. There’s a time and a place for anger.”

“Damn straight,” Hannah roars.

We gather my Jonah box from the closet, plus some of the gross one-ply toilet paper Otis buys whenever I fail to come home with the nicer stuff, and pile into Briar’s car.

“We deserve justice,” Hannah fumes, a war general if ever there was one.

“It’s not really justice to toilet-paper his house and throw his stuff around,” I admit as Briar makes her way to his house, following my directions.

Apparently, he told her that he had a mold infestation so it was better if they spent time at her place; he invented a loud roommate for Hannah.

“No,” Hannah says, “but it will make us feel better. The real justice is you banging his brother, the way he was banging your friends.”

Even though they didn’t become my friends until afterward, I have to laugh. “Yeah, that can’t be great for his ego. I just worry about getting between Rob and his family.”

“It might be a blessing,” Briar says. “I wish someone would get between me and my parents.”

Hannah laughs. “You act like you don’t have a sense of humor, and then you hit us with some real zingers.”

My skin feels itchy and hot as we get closer to Jonah’s house, where I spent so many hours. Where I thought I would live with him after the wedding…

That marriage doesn’t feel like a dream come true anymore, but a nightmare that almost became my whole reality. If Jonah hadn’t swapped phones with me that morning, I wouldn’t have found out he was a cheater until much later. Until we were married, probably, and I wouldn’t have my friends, or even Otis. Idefinitelywouldn’t have Rob.

Rob, who wants to make me dinner.

Rob, who touches me just because, even though he’s not my real boyfriend.

Rob, who makes me feel cherished.

Rob, who’s waiting for my text…

I’m feeling so many thing at the same time. Grief and rage, and a shocking glimmer of gratitude nestled into them. Because I’d escaped that fate I’d signed up for so eagerly. For once I’d gotten lucky.

“I’m feeling some big feelings,” I confess.

“I hope rage is one of them?” Hannah asks.

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