The Parrot Predicament

Chapter 5

After sobbing over my carton of ice cream like a main character in a romcom, I remembered that I was supposed to text Tiffany hourly updates. Hopefully she wasn't worried. Pfft. Like she would notice, being all friendly with Lexy. But I grabbed my phone, and left her a text.

I made it home safe, not that you would care since you're too busy being best friends with Lexy.

She responded immediately.

I'm glad you're okay. How'd it go?

My passive aggressiveness went over her head, making it very unsatisfying. The fact she might've been purposely ignoring it made it even worse. She was good at doing that.

It went great. Noah's great. A lot greater than Lexy.

You should give Lexy a chance. She's not bad.

Yeah right.

I tossed my phone on my bed. I had read enough.

There was a knock on my door, and it opened without me prompting the knocker.

"What's wrong?" Alice poked her head in, eyeing my half-eaten carton of ice cream, and my face. It was probably red and covered in snot and tears. "I heard wailing earlier. Worse than usual."

"It's nothing. Go away."

Alice sat down on my bed. "Is it about the parrot?"

"No. It's... Tiffany. She's leaving me for... for..."

Alice tilted her head questioningly.

"Lexy!" I sobbed at the last word. "Can you believe that?"

Alice looked down at her feet, flushed. "Yeah."

"Yeah? You knew?"

Alice nodded. "I caught the two together in the supply closet last week. I promised not to tell anyone."

"And now they're looking for janitorial supplies together?" I pressed my palms against my eyes. "It's worse than I thought!"

"Emma..." Alice bit her lip. "I should go."

"Yes, you should." I wiped my eyes on my sleeve, and then my nose. "And next time you knock, wait for me to tell you it's okay to come in. That's the whole point of knocking."

Alice smiled and left. I returned to my ice cream and it hit me. I spent my much needed money on a carton of ice cream. I needed every penny I owned, and I wasted $4 of it. Another sob escaped me. In the distance, a dog barked. I opened my window, and barked right back.

School that Monday was rough. I wanted to avoid Tiffany, but it was kind of hard to do when she sat next to me in Mr. Milburn's class.

"We need to talk," she said, the second I took my assigned seat next to her.

I focused on pulling out my textbook.

She poked my shoulder with her pencil. "Emma!"

"What?" I snapped.

"I want to talk about this thing with Lexy," Tiffany said. "I mean, we've been best friends forever. I don't want to lose our friendship over a girl."

"Cool. Stop hanging out with her then." I turned to the front of the room, where Mr. Milburn had stood up and started droning on about imaginary numbers. Which I found confusing. Wasn't working with regular numbers hard enough?