When peer pressure pushes Lenny to try out a new dating app, she starts to realize that the past may not always define the future.
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Lenny Harlow wants a lot of things, but a boyfriend isn't...
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THE WEEKEND PASSED BY IN a blur of schoolwork and dumb texts leading late into the night. Piper and CJ kept the group chat busy as hell, and in turn, Talia helped me balance out all that crazy. By making me work. While I was supposedly on break.
Occasionally when I could spare a five-minute break to run downstairs and raid the fridge, I ran into Leah-who'd arrived with her boyfriend right after we returned from church yesterday. He was a tall light skinned man with a fairly muscular build. I had a hard time figuring out what his roots might be, but not Dad. Dad's first instinct was to call him out on his not Blackness, which Mom, Leah, and I thought was unnecessary. It was also awkward as hell, if the look on his face was any indication.
Sometimes I felt Dad was a little ... unwelcoming of other races.
My phone was constantly buzzing, much like now, with texts and the rare Instagram notifications telling me I'd been tagged in several photos. I wasn't even in any of the posts I'd been tagged in. While CJ was off living the life, I was stuck dealing with an overachieving smartfuck and Nash's radio silence.
"Helloooooo, Lenny? Are you listening?" I couldn't tell who it was at this point. My head was throbbing. Throbbing. There it was; I needed a drink. I needed a break. I needed to talk to Leah before she flew back out.
"Yeah, totally," I murmured as I shut my laptop. The sound of my door shutting softly made me perk up. Leah stood there, facing the door, hand still on the handle. I cleared my throat.
She jumped, her sock clad feet hitting the ground almost inaudibly. So we were both light on our feet. Wonder who we got that from.
"Hey." Leah had a smile on her face as she approached my bed. The table was overloaded with study material, and this was far more comfortable and spacey. She narrowed her eyes at me. "Are you ... studying?"
"No. I have this project that's due sometime after break and I don't want to procrastinate it." I also have nothing better to do. I was dreading leaving the house, even though I wanted nothing more than to drive around town and end up at the beach. I didn't want to increase my chances of running into a certain August Wilder.
She nodded and joined me on the bed, nudging my phone closer to me. I reached out and ended my call with CJ. This felt more important somehow.
"How've you been?" she asked with a peculiar curiosity in her tone. Her words were laced with heavy undertones. It was odd how she could ask the most personal questions while posing them as no big deal.
Or maybe I just understood what she wanted to know.
"In this weird place between fine and terrible." I sighed and flopped back dramatically, laying my head in her lap. "I've been doing okay, though. He hasn't crossed my mind even once." The lie slipped through my teeth with ease.
Leah let out a laugh. "That's a lie and you know it."
"Okay, fine, I have thought about him. Quite a lot, but I'm over it. And him. And everything." A heavy breath escaped my lips. "I met someone new, anyway."
