The Lonely Hearts Club

Chapter 23: Joy (Bree)

If I could describe both Lana and Coco in three words, I'd pick radiant, friendly, and loopy.

They entered my apartment without hesitation, gathering me in hugs like it was second nature.

They talked like they had known me forever.

There was no time to be awkward.

Lana is elegantly beautiful with long dark hair and large green eyes fringed with mascara.

Coco is startlingly pretty with sharp cheekbones and corkscrew curls with blue butterfly clips.

They're both so...attractive.

Everyone in Hades' photo is.

I would find it intimidating except it's impossible to feel intimidated around Coco and Lana.

Thankfully, Hades' name hasn't been mentioned.

Like at all.

Instead, our conversations are revolving around happy memories and funny stories.

"Want to hear about how I shit my pants?" Lana asks.

Coco bursts into laughter and Lana throws a pillow at her.

"It's not that funny," she rolls her eyes but is still smiling.

"How did that happen?" I ask.

I'm trying to ignore the fact that ever since Rowan sent me that box with...

With the worms and...you know...I get extremely uncomfortable at the mention of human feces.

"First things first, I have terrible stomach problems sometimes." Lana clears her throat.

Coco has to stuff a hand over her mouth to stop laughing.

"Stop Coco!" Lana says, exasperated. "You're totally ruining my story."

"I'm sorry." She wipes a tear out of her eye.

"Anyway, my boyfriend Joey is like super paranoid about people, so we only go places where there's no one."

I relate to Joey.

"I wanted to go the beach, yeah?"

She sighs.

"We can't go to normal beaches because he's scared someone is going to try to drown me, so he rented out this super nice private beach, like so far away from civilization."

"You forgot to mention that it literally doesn't exist on any maps," Coco adds.

"For a good reason!" Lana says. "We get there, and we have to go through a fucking jungle—now I'd gotten hungry on the drive because it was so far away, so I ate our picnic food too quickly...it was a fatal mistake."

She throws a hand over her head dramatically.

"As we're walking, this wolf—literal wolf comes out of the woods and pounces on me, it knocks me on the ground and its paws press down really hard on my stomach."

I have to cover my mouth.

"I'm screaming and Joey's yelling at it, but it just keeps jumping up and down on my stomach and well, that was too much pressure for my poor bowels."

Lana pulls a face.

"So anyway, um...I shat my pants—like explosively, and the wolf got scared and ran away."

"It got scared?" I ask in shock.

"Yeah." She gets really quiet. "It was really disgusting."

It's quiet for a few moments.