The Ex Best Friend

Chapter 21

When I woke up the next morning, I was curled up on my sofa with a nice blanket thrown over me. Stacy and Jenna were huddled in the kitchen, casting wary glances at me while whispering.

“I don’t think we should wake her up yet,” Jenna said quietly, even though I could still fully hear her.

“No, it’s almost 2 in the afternoon. She needs to get up. Now,” Stacy protested at the same volume as Jenna.

Obviously, they were both trying to be very quiet because their voices were like hushed whispers but the only problem was that they weren’t very quiet.

“Stacy…”

“Jenna, I’m missing an entire day of work just to watch her sleep. I don’t want to do that anymore.”

Jenna sighed and they both turned around to face me so quickly that I barely had time to shut my eyes again.

“Fine,” she said. “But you go wake her up.”

I mentally pictured Stacy making a face of disgust at Jenna. “No! You let her sleep, you do it.”

“No way! You’re the one who wanted to wake her up.”

“Yeah, well…still. You go!”

“No, you.”

“You.”

“You.”

“You.”

With a sigh of annoyance, I jumped out of the comfortable position I was in on the sofa and walked over to the both of them.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll get up myself.”

“Are you going back to work today?” Stacey asked me.

“Yeah,” I replied, taking a bite out of an apple. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Stacey and Jenna exchanged glances.

“No reason,” she said.

I gave her a weird look and then headed towards the bathroom. It’s a big day. Other than the fact that I have to face Jake after all that, I would have to face everyone else at the office. Awkward much?

When I got to work, I quickly jumped out of the car and ran for the door. I knew Stacey and Jenna would be trying to make sure that I was okay—A.K.A swarming me like a bunch of bees.

Bill gave me a nice smile and I returned it. I could always count on Bill to be a nice person.

The long line up for the elevator seemed to stretch forever, and honestly, I’m not dealing with any more judgement from anyone. So, I decided to walk. Except, after the first ten flights of stairs, I realized that taking the stairs was not such a good idea because I felt like I was about to have a heart attack. And there were over 20 more flights to go.

I opened the door to my floor and started panting and heaving immediately. My legs felt like they were going to fall off and all I wanted to do at this point was to go back down the stairs, get in my car, drive home and sleep. Of course, that wasn’t very likely. After a full five minutes and calming exercises, I straightened up and headed to my desk. Everyone pretended to be minding their own business but I saw them stealing peeks at me from the corner of their eye. Even Tyler didn’t bother to saw hi, thankfully. I appreciated their effort, but somewhere deep down, I kind of wished that someone would ask how I was doing so I could just have an epic breakdown and Jake would feel like utter cr-p.

I took about 5 steps before I slammed into something and falling to the floor.

“Oh, I’m so – oh. Jessica. Hi.”