by Katia Rose
I don’t know how or why, but I’m not going to stop to question anything, because this is it. This is the magic moment I seize instead of backing down and turning away.
This is it. This is it. This is it.
“Oh my god, is this Pony?”
The shout comes from a very drunk girl right beside us. It’s more of a scream, loud and shrill enough to make me cringe and glance toward her.
I only make sense of what she’s continuing to shriek when the rest of the room comes back into focus, the unmistakable opening of Ginuwine’s ‘Pony’ blasting through the sound system. It continues for a few beats before Paige starts doing the remixing thing she’s so good at, making the crowd go crazy all over again.
I turn back to DeeDee, searching for that moment, clinging to it like it’s a lifeline, but the rope slips out of my hands. She lets go of my shoulders, an expression I can’t place lifting the corner of her mouth as her eyes bore into mine like they’re searching for something.
Then she shrugs before throwing her head back to laugh long and loud, that infectious DeeDee energy sliding into place like a shield to block out whatever’s underneath.
“Come on.” She pats my arm and starts clearing a path through the dance floor again, leaving me to follow in her wake.
You’re a fool. You are a damn fool, Zachary Hastings.
I say it to myself over and over again as she steers us to the least crowded edge of the three-sided bar, my head hazy with panic and regret. The faces around us are just a blur.
I was going to kiss her. I was practically leaning in. I was delusional enough to think she wanted it too.
She can’t want it. She has a boyfriend. She said it herself tonight: she barely even thinks of me as a guy—as in a guy guy, a guy she could date.
She looks at me and sees a friend, and I’ve told myself over and over again that that’s enough. Being DeeDee’s friend is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me, and if this is the role she wants me to have in her life, I’ll respect that. She doesn’t owe me more.
I’ll just have to find a way to never look at her mouth again.
No big deal. Completely practical.
“Do you want a drink? X should be here soon, so I’m gonna get a beer while I wait.”
It’s almost last call, and he’s getting here ‘soon.’ I know for a fact he was supposed to arrive hours ago. She spent the whole week talking about how excited she was to have him here.
DeeDee isn’t even looking at me as she tries to flag one of our coworkers behind the bar down. My head starts swimming with the fear that she realized what I was about to do on the dance floor. I grip the edge of the bar.
“Actually, I better head out.”
“So early?”
She still isn’t looking at me. Half past one really isn’t ‘so early,’ but I guess I am talking to a bartender.
“Yeah, I’ve got a lot of business stuff to take care of tomorrow,” I call out above the noise.
“Oh. Okay.” She finally turns around, bobbing her head a few times as she opens and closes her mouth like she’s working out what to say. “You know you don’t—I mean, um, I didn’t—When we...”
She trails off, staring down at the floor as she plays with that old-fashioned ring she’s always wearing. The racket of the bar fills the silence between us.
She jerks her head up after a moment and flashes a smile that appears way too fast to be real. “Tabarnak. English is hard. I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Have a good night, okay? I’ll see you later.”
“You’re okay to get home tonight?”
I know how much that matters to her. She’s never told me why it matters, but ever since the time I found her having what looked like a mental breakdown in the storage closet after her ride fell through one night last year, I never leave a shift without letting her know I’m around if she needs it. One stupid move on my part isn’t going to change that.
“You’re sweet, mon ami. X has got me for tonight.”
I nod and start heading through the crowd without saying anything else, fighting my way into the back to get my jacket. I should have said a better goodbye, but I couldn’t find the words.
He’s got her.
It’s pathetic. I should get a grip, but it’s all I can think.
He’s got her, and you don’t.
Four
DeeDee
DOUBLE: twice the amount of liquor regularly included in a single drink
Câlice de criss.
I almost kissed Zach.
I was so close to moving my hands behind his head and pulling his mouth down to mine. I wanted to rub little circles into the back of his neck with my thumbs. I wanted to sigh against his lips. I wanted to lean into him and bend my knee the way girls do when they kiss boys in cheesy movies.
I didn’t just want to make out with him on a dance floor; I wanted it to be romantic.
“Tequila. A double. And a beer.”
Renee raises her eyebrows at me from behind the bar. “Ready to party?”
“Always.”
That is what I need: to party. I need to dance. I need to clink glasses with friends. I need to pull my boyfriend onto the dance floor and throw myself into his arms like a girl in a movie. I do not need to do that with Zach.
Only my boyfriend isn’t here.
The last time he texted was to say his shift at the club got switched and he’d be late. That was hours ago. He didn’t answer my text when I told him I finished early. He hasn’t answered any of them since.
I feel like the crazy stalker girlfriend, but I send him another one while I wait for my drink to arrive.
I cheers Renee when she finally brings my drinks and down the shot. Then I sip my beer and wander through the crowd. I know a few people in the room—I know a few people everywhere in Montreal; it’s what happens when you’re a bartender—but I’m so bad with names I just smile when they call out mine. I finish my beer way too fast and end up dancing with a big group of people who keep trying to steal my flower crown.
The music and the lights don’t swallow me up like they usually do.
They just make me think about Zach.
I wanted to run my hands up his chest. I wanted him to hold onto my hips while we moved to the music—while we moved with each other.
I wanted a lot of things.
Grabbing my flower crown back from some drunk mec who can’t figure out how to fit it on his head, I push my way through the crowd and head to the back to grab my jacket. It’s time to go home.
I feel dumb calling an Uber to only go a few blocks, but I do it anyway.
Maybe if Clém had just taken an Uber...
I’m being stupid. Uber wasn’t even a thing back then, and even if it was, bad things can still happen in cars. I play with my grandmother’s ring the whole way over to X’s place, eyes on the driver in the rear-view mirror. My breath comes out in a big whoosh when I’m finally on the sidewalk, and I speed-walk over to the apartment building’s door.
I only remember to be mad when I start climbing the stairs. It’s two in the morning, and he still hasn’t sent a fucking text.
Is that music?
There’s some kind of rock song blasting behind the door.
That fucker better not be sitting at home.
I have a lot of angry French words on my tongue, ready to spill out as I pull the door open and face the crashing sound waves pumping full volume out of the stereo.
It takes me a minute to realize I’m also facing crashing people too.
As in, X’s dick is crashing into some girl’s mouth as she kneels in front of him while he sits on the couch.
He’s got his head thrown back and his hands wrapped in her hair. She has a long, pastel-coloured ponytail just a few shades off from my bright pink dye job. X moans something as she starts bobbing her head faster, but I can’t hear what he’s saying.
He can’t hear me either. He doesn’t hear when I move inside. He doesn�
��t hear when I pull the door closed behind me. He doesn’t hear when I take two steps forward into the living room and stop just a few feet away from the couch.
I’ve had guys cheat on me before, but I’ve never seen it happen. Part of me is worried I’m going to puke, but the rest of me is weirdly curious, like if I stare long enough, the picture is going to turn into something that makes sense.
I’m still watching them with my head tipped to the side when X opens his eyes and screams—actually screams before pushing the girl off and grabbing the stereo remote. The room goes quiet except for the babbling beginnings of his excuses. He stands up before looking down at his semi-hard dick and tucking it into his pants. Then he starts making excuses again.
“DeeDee, I, uh, you weren’t—We—This...” He goes on and on in French, but I just keep staring. It’s like I’ve gone numb. The girl on the couch is staring too, sitting in X’s spot and bouncing her foot in the air like she’s bored.
Everything about this feels so strange, like a movie in a language I don’t speak.
“I’m sorry.”
X’s voice has faded to a dull throbbing in my head, but I catch those words. They make me feel something, like the prick of a needle or the jab of someone poking me in the arm. Those are not words he gets to say.
“Sorry?” I repeat. I can feel myself coming back to life. Anger buzzes in my chest. “You’re sorry? Who the fuck even is that?”
“That’s, uh, Celine,” he stupidly answers the rhetorical question. “You know, uh, my ex.”
Somewhere in the back of my head, I realize how funny ‘X’s ex’ sounds, but I push the thought aside. I’m not going to start laughing like a crazy person.
“And why the fuck was Celine sucking your dick?”
“Look, DeeDee, can we just talk—”
“Non.” I take a step closer, and he’s smart enough to back up. “We don’t talk with her here—if we even talk at all. Tell her to leave.”
That’s when I see it. He glances over at her and then back at me, the spark of fear I managed to put in him shifting into something else I finally recognize: pity.
He pities me.
“DeeDee, she’s not leaving.”
You are.
He doesn’t have to say it. The words hang in the air even though he doesn’t speak them. The picture in front of me has tilted now. It all makes sense. I look at her pink hair again, longer than mine and mussed from X’s fingers, and I know I was just the placeholder. I was the rebound.
“Look, things just moved so fast with you and me. I didn’t even know we were dating, and then suddenly you’re living here and, like, showing up with boxes of your stuff. I didn’t know what to say—”
“You could have said, ‘Hey, I’m still fucking my ex-girlfriend.’ I would have appreciated that.”
I thank all my years behind the bar for the gift of always having a comeback. My legs feel like they can barely keep me standing, but I have enough pride to not let him see it.
“I wanted to say something, but you just...It’s like you live in this little fantasy world where it’s perfectly normal for you to be shacking up with a guy you just met, but it’s not. It’s not normal, and I didn’t want to have to be the one to burst your bubble or whatever, but I can’t keep doing this. You need...You need, DeeDee. You need too much.”
It’s not the first time someone’s told me that. It’s not even the second time, or the third. I should be ready for it, but the words still sound like a howling noise in my ear.
I reach into my pocket, wrapping my hand around my phone like it’s a weapon—or a shield. It’s my lifeline. I can walk out of here. I have people I can call.
You’re not alone. You’re not alone. You’re not alone.
I point a finger at X. “I lied when I said you were huge. You have one of the smallest dicks I’ve ever seen.” I move my finger to point at Celine. “Your roots are showing, chérie. You should think about a touch up.”
I feel like I’m on a high as I slam the apartment door closed behind me and sprint down the stairs, but it’s not the good kind of high. It’s one of those bad trips where your whole skeleton feels like it’s shaking and there are ten thousand voices whispering in your head while the floor tilts around you.
Trippy stuff.
I could have handled the whole thing better if I hadn’t already been so worked up about X not showing at Taverne Toulouse. Now it feels like my brain is spiking my body with too much adrenaline for my system to handle. I lean against the wall in the building’s entryway and pull Monroe’s number up on my phone before I realize what I’m doing. My foot taps against the tile floor as the phone rings, and rings, and rings.
She must be sleeping.
You’re not alone. You’re not alone.
I scroll through my contacts to find Roxanne, but that won’t work either. She couldn’t come to April Showers because her fiancé’s band is playing a big show in another city tonight.
It’s not a big deal. It really should not be a big deal, but my breathing is getting faster and faster, and the names on my screen are starting to blur as I scroll through them over and over again. I’m so bad with names. I don’t even know who half these people are. I meet so many people. I’m always surrounded by people, but they’re just there. Just like X. Just like every other fucking boyfriend.
I don’t know how long I stand there with my phone in my hands before I see the text alert. I open the message up and realize he sent it an hour ago.
It’s a meme. Of course it’s a meme. It’s some silly Zach meme labelled with a few English words I don’t even understand, but it makes me feel like the floor isn’t tilting so much under my feet.
He’s not the person I should be running to. I shouldn’t be calling him late at night. Besides a few parties with the rest of the staff, we’ve never even hung out somewhere that wasn’t work. I don’t know why, but it’s always been some kind of friendship line we’ve never crossed. I’ve always been sure not to cross it. Not with Zach.
I slide down the wall a few inches as my knees start to shake. I never wanted to be this person in front of Zach.
You need too much.
I shake my head, trying to get X’s voice out of it. Another minute passes before I type the words, delete them, and then type them again before I hit send.
Hey, do you have a meme about a girl who doesn’t have anywhere to sleep tonight because she just walked in on her boyfriend screwing his ex?
The phone rings ten seconds later.
“Zach?”
My voice cracks when I say his name. I didn’t realize how full of feelings my throat is, how it barely has room for words.
“DeeDee, where are you? I’m coming to pick you up.”
Five
Zach
TWIST: a thin section of fruit peel that is added to a drink, often after being twisted over the beverage to distribute its flavours
DeeDee Beausoleil is in my apartment. It’s like seeing the queen of England at Wal-Mart; the image just doesn’t make sense.
“Uh, do you want, um, some water?” I ask as I make my way into the living room and drop my keys on the coffee table.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
As my mother would say in her rare moments of extreme profanity: jumping Jesus on a haystack. This is DeeDee, for god’s sake. Yes, she is one of the hottest beings to walk the planet, and yes, she is literally able to make me stop breathing with just a smile, but she’s also my friend, and she’s clearly not okay.
This is not the time to turn into a stuttering mess who can’t even ask her if she needs a drink.
“C’est bon, là.” She shakes her head at my question and does her best to turn the corners of her lips up. “I don’t need anything.”
She’s got her arms crossed over her stomach, hands gripping her elbows as she hovers on the mat by the door, and that sad attempt at a smile is all I need to snap me out of my daze.
“Come on, sit down. We can
steal my roommate’s ice cream sandwiches. Don’t tell me you don’t need an ice cream sandwich. Everyone needs an ice cream sandwich.”
I gesture for her to take a seat on the worn leather couch in our living room. Paige can often be found claiming a corner of that couch with her knees tucked up to her chin, glaring at the world with her giant and very expensive headphones on. Honest to god, she kind of terrifies me, but luckily I know her soft spot for ice cream. I’m risking my life stealing some tonight, but if she could see DeeDee, I’m sure even stony-hearted Paige would spare her a sandwich.
DeeDee has never looked so small. She’s wearing the same jean jacket and crop top outfit she had on at the bar, but it’s like only half that girl showed up here. The flower crown is gone. The pink-haired phenomenon who seems to fill every room she steps inside is barely big enough to claim a corner of my couch.
“I’ll be right back.” I try not to look like too much of a spaz, but I totally sprint to the kitchen. My mom would be ashamed of all the frozen meals I have to sift through before I find the blue and white box Paige tried to hide at the bottom of the freezer. I’m surprised she hasn’t gotten a special ice cream storage unit to lock up in her room. She’s militant about this stuff.
“Here!” I toss the package at DeeDee like the idiot I am, and I’m thankful she manages to catch it. The last thing I need right now is to hit the woman of my dreams in the face with an ice cream sandwich.
I think that’s why I’m having such a hard time acting normal: this really does feel like a dream, like a moment I’ve imagined so many times I can’t quite connect it with reality.
Sure, I’ve pictured her under me on this couch more times than I’d like to admit, but it’s more than that. I’ve literally imagined what it would be like to sit here and eat ice cream with her. I’ve had conversations with her in my head about the cracks in the ceiling and the neighbours across the road you can see through the window. I’ve pictured the pink strands of her hair sliding through my fingers while we talk about everything and nothing all at once.
