Things We Said Today

Chapter Seventeen

Evie came marching down the hallway from her bedroom, her heels clicking loudly against the hardwood floor.

"Do you want to go get a drink somewhere or something?" I asked as I watched her walk into the kitchen from my placement on the couch. "I'm bored and Nora ditched us to go have a date night with Eli."

Evie grabbed a couple protein bars from the cabinet and stuffed them in the tote bag that was hanging off her shoulder.

"Sorry Lucy, I'm going to Jason's for the weekend." She said as she walked back into the living room, flipping her blonde hair off her shoulder, and beginning to dig through her tote bag.

I groaned, "You're both ditching me?"

She exhaled, glancing up from her bag and shaking her head at me. Then she pulled her phone out of the bag and began clicking away at the screen.

My phone buzzed somewhere between the couch cushions, and I pulled it out to find a text from Evie on the screen.

"Um... I'm right here?" I said, my eyebrows pinched together as I glanced up at her.

"I sent you Ben's contact information. He thought you were really cute when we saw him at Bottom of the Hill yesterday. Why don't you give him a call?"

"Cute?" I scoffed. "What am I... a kitten?"

She dropped her phone back into her tote bag. "You said you were bored. I just offered you a solution."

"Thanks so much." I sneered, then collapsed back onto the couch, letting my phone fall onto the floor. It bounced, then landed underneath the coffee table with a sad thud.

"I'll be back Sunday evening. We can try that new pasta recipe for dinner." She said, her voice echoing down the hall as her clicking heels sound tracked her departure.

"Cool." I muttered, leaning over a bit, and grabbing the remote from the coffee table. I turned on the television, absently clicking through the channels without absorbing anything that was on the screen.

My focus shifted down to my phone, still lying face down under the coffee table. With both Evie and Nora occupied by their boyfriends, my list of people to contact had diminished to zero. Of course, I could call Ben... but I certainly wasn't going to do that. There was one more person I could call... but his number was still blocked. Rightfully so, I tried to convince myself when that bout of yearning rose up in my gut.

And so that was it... my Saturday night would consist of me and the couch and the thousand television channels that offered me nothing to watch. A crushing sense of disappointment came down on me as I tossed the remote onto the other end of the couch.

Perhaps I should go out... I could go out by myself. In fact, a bit of alone time might be good for me. I could bring a book to the bar and catch up on my reading. I could meet some new people. I could meet a guy... someone who wasn't Jude... someone who I could actually date.

I tried to hype myself up as I flung myself off the couch, grabbing my phone on my way to my bedroom. Going out alone wasn't weird. People did it all the fucking time. I could be that kind of person. I didn't need Nora or Evie to be my social crutch.

I exhaled sharply as I fixed my hair in the mirror by my mess of a closet. I looked slightly deranged, those purplish bags still hung under my eyes from a lack of sleep, and I quickly dabbed at them with some concealer that was sitting on top of my dresser. It didn't help much, but it would have to do.