A Stupid Yellow Invitation

CHAPTER FIVE

Some days, Lauren thinks she's completely and totally unpredictable.

Then she resigns herself to the fact that she is one of the most predictable people she has ever met.

This is why it doesn't surprise her when Joey finds her.

She's sitting with her feet in a freshwater pool, leaning back on her hands, her toes pointing and flexing and circling in the water. She's shaded by the tree curving over her, and her eyes are closed.

"Hey," Joey says. "Thought I might find you here."

He walks over next to her and, after a moment of hesitation, toes off his shoes, dipping his feet into the clear water.

"That's still so good," he sighs, and Lauren lets out a silent laugh as he drops to sit next to her.

It's awkward.

"How?" she asks.

"Hmm?"

"How'd you know I'd be here?"

"Julia said you were going to 'haunt your old haunts'. It wasn't supposed to clue me in, though, given that she and Darren chased me to the door yelling obscenities." She laughs out loud this time. "So, um, Brooke was just wondering if you'd like to come away with a bunch of us for... um, well, I guess a bit of a nostalgia trip for us, and a get-to-see-how-we-used-to-hang-out for her."

He's fidgeting, she notices, and Joey is not a fidgeter. A warm feeling settles in her.

"Sure," she says lightly.

"Really?" he exclaims, almost like he'd expected her to say no.

And then she remembers; he probably had. She remembers that she doesn't know if Joey fidgeting is an uneasy sign or if he's like that now.

An unpleasant weight settles on top of her.

Then, she remembers something else (today is really going well for her, remembrance-wise) - this is Joey. It's never impossible to chat with him, no matter how they feel about each other. Hell, they've been broken up and she's called him in the middle of the night (usually either sobbing or overly excited because she thought of a great joke and couldn't wait till morning to tell it).

And she knows that was when they worked. Before the months and months of slow, slow breaking and loneliness and late nights, before even love couldn't save them, before the first time they really fucked, before he brushed the tear off her cheek at their friends' wedding as they tried not to ruin everything for everyone except them (because they were already ruined).

"How far is everyone willing to go for nostalgia and induction?"

So she pretends that their friends' reality is theirs. That she left because of her new job and they broke up because of that. She pretends that she doesn't still trace photos of them and pretend that they could've been okay if she hadn't said no and if he hadn't done it in the first place.

"Well, I'll follow suit, I guess," he shrugs, a twinkle in his eye. "But, I mean, maybe don't give Brooke the same initiation treatment you gave me."

"Fine. We won't force your fiancée to chug half a bottle of beer in one go then lick the rest off of Joe's abs."

"God, why did you do that?"

"Oh, come on. You cannot still be salty over that."

"I can! None of the rest of you ever did that!"

Lauren bursts out laughing, accidentally kicking her feet up. The spray of water spatters both her and Joey.

He gapes at her for a moment, and then his face is turning to a brilliant, bright grin, as he kicks his own feet up. He does it, however, purposefully, directing the water over her and onto her head.

She gapes at him, willing the corners of her mouth to stop turning themselves up into a grin. Her will is nowhere near strong enough, and she bursts out laughing, using her hand to slap the water toward him. It gets him right in the face and he wipes it away from his eyes, beginning to truly laugh with her.

"Joey, no -" he splashes her as she attempts to run across the pond, but she trips and ends up getting even more wet. He is standing up now, too, his mouth spread wide in truly joyous laughter, and she pulls him down beside her.

He emerges with his tee clinging to him, and without thinking (nothing is in her mind except him), she blurts, "I fell in love with you here."

There's a pause where they're both silent and she feels so fucking stupid. She can feel her cheeks heating up.

"No, you didn't," he answers. "You fell in love with this place. I was here sometimes. We didn't fall in love here."

It doesn't even really hurt that he's with someone else. It hurts that they broke and refused to fix it and that he's right. That he crept up on her.

She can, however, pinpoint with clarity exactly where it all started.

He sighs and reaches down a hand to help her up.

She takes it, and then looks down at herself. Her dress is dark and clingy from the water and she huffs out a tiny laugh, before glancing back up at him, and if she was totally, completely crazy, she could swear his eyes were stuck to her for a moment.

"See you on Friday," she says, denying impossibility, and begins to walk, sodden, back to her car.

( • • • )

"Sooooooooo..." Darren says, entering her room with a large carton of ice cream, a block of chocolate and a gargantuan bowl of popcorn, "me and Julia wanted to say that we're sorry for putting so much pressure on you and Joey to talk about your Unresolved Feelings for one another."

"Oh," Lauren says. She hadn't been expecting them to apologise or even acknowledge that they were doing The Thing.

"But, seriously, do you wanna talk about it? Or we can just watch a movie or something."

"This is so... nice. Is there a double catch?"

"No!" Darren says quickly, in a slightly too high voice. "Why would you think that?"

"I can't believe you're an actor," Lauren mutters. "Let's go with the movie."

Darren beams, and she immediately wants to switch options, and then she remembers what the other option is.

"Okay, so I have a few classics. 101 Dalmatians?"

Lauren shoves his box of DVDs off the bed.

"Hey!"

"You're just trying to make me emotional so I'll be honest with you!"

"So what if I am? Look, Lauren, I wish I could say I'm sorry for what happened between you and Joey, but the truth is, I don't even know what happened between you and Joey! Like, I'm going to be best man at his wedding next week, and I still don't know why two of my best friends broke up six years ago! There's no fucking way holding that shit in can be good for you. I'm sorry if I'm pressuring you, but you need to fucking face it. Joey's getting married, and you still love him!"

He might as well have just slapped her.

She does slap him.

"You know what, Darren? I'm angry. I'm angry at Joey, and I'm not even allowed to show it, even though I know he's just as pissed as I am, because all of you insist we're still in love. We broke up. It hurt, yeah, but I don't want to keep dragging it out.. And I left to try and leave that. If I have to cut off my relationship with all of you too, I will do it."

She grabs her jacket from the bed and storms out into the streets, pacing around until the wee hours of the morning, when she comes back home and hugs Darren, and they watch I Am Legend at 3 a.m. and fucking bawl over the dog dying.

And then they watch 101 Dalmatians because it's a dog movie.

And then they watch The Emperor's New Groove because it's pretty much the best movie ever made.

And then they watch Mulan because it is the undisputedly the best Disney movie.

They're watching a documentary about the dangers of sugar, nodding along and feeding each other sour snake candy, when Julia closes the laptop.

Lauren blinks up at her, slightly dazed, and wonders how long it's been since she had a proper sleep. She would guess since before she saw Joey again. Or maybe even got that stupid invitation.

"Okay," Julia sighs, and there's a terribly soft look on her face as she stares down at them, "I'm gonna pack for you."

Lauren slumps back and suddenly realised that she's been crying.

She wonders why for a second, then looks back at the screen. It's paused.

The scene is a car crash, sprawling and devastating, and Lauren hugs Darren.

For all his goofy, ridiculous, idealistic rambling, he misses his last love too much, and it breaks Lauren's heart.

She sleeps all day and some of the night.

She slips into the dream she hates more than anything else.

She tries not to wake up sobbing.

She fails.