Page 102 of For The Weekend
I think she’d feel better.
Once everything is in the basket, she takes it in her armsand turns to me. “Please, I don’t want to talk about it. Tell me what’s going on with you.”
I bite my lip, afraid to pile my drama onto her when she has so much stuff going on, but as if she can read my mind, she says, “I need to focus on something else, so give it to me. Why do you look like a feral prairie dog?”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. Prairie dogs are adorable.”
“Also Micah’s latest fascination. They can run up to thirty-five miles per hour and have complex communication like dolphins and chimps.”
I make squeaky noises, and Sloane pauses mid-stride. At her confusion, I tell her, “I’m a prairie dog.”
She coughs a laugh. “That is not what prairie dogs sound like.”
I trail her back to the living room. “Then whatdothey sound like?”
“Not like that.”
I roll my eyes. “You don’t know.” I proceed to search YouTube on my cell phone for a video and turn the volume all the way up. I wasn’t too far off from their barking call. “See?”
“See how you’re changing the subject? Yeah, I do.”
I flop on the couch and take two of Micah’s socks out of the basket to continuously roll up into a ball, only to unroll. “I don’t want to tell you.”
She folds one of Olivia’s T-shirts. “Why not?”
I set down the folded-up socks. “Because you have your own stuff going on, and I’m not gonna pile on my stress.”
“Why not?
“Why are you so obsessed with me?” I ask in an imitation of Regina George.
She throws a pair of superhero underwear at me, and I laugh, tossing them on the growing pile of folded clothes. Ireach for another pair of socks, these purple and belonging to Livie, and I heave out a sigh. “I don’t even know where to start.”
I take a deep breath, trying to find the right words to explain the mess I’ve found myself in. “So, Roman and I… You know it was getting intense there, and the other night I told you we were gonna go out, but when he showed up at my house, we…”
Sloane raises her brows when I trail off then fills in the blank. “You fucked instead?”
“Yes!” I throw myself to the side. “But it wasn’t just fucking, it was making love.”
“Making love,” she teases in a high-pitched voice. “Roman with the anaconda dick makes looooooove.”
I giggle because, of course, I already filled in my best friend on the important details. Like length and girth and how he likes his nipple piercings played with.
“It was amazing,” I say, covering my flaming face with my hands. “Like, never ever,everfelt that way before.”
Recalling that night, remembering how confident and safe he made me feel, and how I thought he loved me the same way I love him, I start to lose all my good humor. It takes me a long time to recover, and Sloane waits patiently as I gather myself. She’s always been a good listener, and I’m grateful for that now more than ever.
“I told you that I reached out to Amy,” I say quietly, and she nods. “But I didn’t ever tell Roman.”
Sloane stops folding the laundry. “Oh, Ellie.”
I sniff. “I know. I know. I just… I didn’t want to bring it up if nothing ever came from it.”
She shakes her head, clearly reiterating what I already know—wrong decision.
“So what happened?” she asks, sitting down next to me so Ican put my head in her lap. While I stretch out, she plays with my hair. “I’m assuming he found out?”
“We missed our reservation, so he went out to my kitchen to order food, and he saw my mail. I didn’t even know Amy had written me back. He didn’t say anything about it, didn’t tell me he saw it or read it or anything. He just left. Walked out.”
