Kissing Is the Easy Part

Chapter 17 The heartless creature

Flora

I had disintegrated tearfully into a million shreds, like that one time I accidentally broke my mom's crystal vase. If only my ruined day was as easy to replace as a crystal vase. I managed with great difficulty to scrape up the broken pieces of myself, got up from the couch, pushed open the door connecting the porch to watch the ocean.

The beach house would be lovely under normal circumstances. The waves lapped against the sand softly like a chiffon dress, breaking and melting into tiny white bubbles. The fireplace in the living room was lit, and there were cashmere blankets to wrap myself in when the temperature dropped at night. There was, however, nothing remotely normal about the scene before me. The house was eerily silent, and I was all alone.

I pulled out my phone and called Janet. "Jan, can you come to my beach house now?"

"What? Right now? I'm on a date with Brian. He's—"

"Please!! This is an emergency!" I wiped my tears away savagely. If I wasn't careful I'd break into another hysterical wail, but I didn't want to scare Janet.

"Flora, are you crying?"

I sniffled. "No."

"You are. What happened?"

"Can you please ask Sandy and Carmen to come too? I don't want to repeat the story three times."

There was a pause on the other end. "I haven't seen Brian in two weeks," she said and sighed. "But sure, we'll be there."

A short while later my closest three friends were gathered at my beach house for another emergency meeting. I really should stop turning this into an annual event. This was a lot more serious than the Max and the V-card incident, however, and as soon as I saw them I melted down. Watching their horrified faces, I realized I'd never cried in front of them before.

Or perhaps it was because my Lancome mascara wasn't exactly waterproof and I looked like the Joker in Batman.

"I just don't understand," I said in between hiccups. "I thought we were going great."

"Well, technically, you broke up with him," Sandra offered as a consolation. "He just agreed. So you can still tell everyone you dumped him." In Sandra's world the first thing one had to clarify in a failed relationship was who brought up the subject.

"I don't care who the dumper is! The point is I didn't want to break up but he did. And I'm just so confused. Has he been unhappy this whole time?"

"Come on, Flora." Carmen patted me on the back, soothingly, like rocking a baby to sleep. "Forget about him. You're broken up already and it really is meaningless trying to pick apart everything."

"It's not meaningless. I just really need to know if-if this whole happy couple's thing is my illusion, and I let myself fall for this heartless creature. How could he suddenly blindside me like this and make me question everything that happened between us!"

"Maybe he just really hates sex," Sandra said. We all ignored her.

"He said I'm spoiled and self-centered and insensitive," I whimpered. "I admit I can be like that sometimes, but he never said anything! It's bad enough when the relationship is going stale and you know it's coming, but to break up abruptly just makes it that much harder."

"I know," Carmen said, although I seriously doubted she knew. The girl never had a boyfriend in her seventeen years of life. "I know how hard it must be for you."

"Oh come on," Sandra said. "You only dated for three months. He turned out to be a real jerk but at least you got out in time."

I flicked my gaze to Janet, willing her to differ. I knew Janet didn't want to take sides. She always said she couldn't be the lawyer of two parties that had conflicting interests.