Listen to Me (Fusion 1)

“I can’t do this,” he murmurs.

“What can’t you do?” Are you fucking kidding me? He’s bailing. He doesn’t even have to say the words, I can see it written all over his face. I love him. I gave him everything, learned to trust, and he’s bailing.

“I can’t do us.”

“Well then, you’ll need to leave.” I keep my face perfectly clear of any emotion and my body doesn’t move, until he’s gone and I shut the door behind him.

I sit blindly at the dining room table and brace my head in my hands. I’m too stunned for even tears to come, and I’m not even sure why. Why does this surprise me? This is what happens. People leave.

The only person I can depend on is me.

“PASS ME THE bottle,” I say, reaching toward Kat for the bottle of tequila she just opened. All five of us are sitting on Cami’s living room floor, getting drunk. We each have a shot glass, and a fork for the chocolate cake sitting in the middle of us. “Thanks for coming, guys.”

“Hey, we have rules,” Riley says, watching me pour some tequila in my glass. “If there is a death, a birth, or a breakup, we come. No questions asked.”

I nod, then throw back the shot, enjoying the way it burns down my throat.

“Besides,” Cami says with a grin as she takes a bite of cake, “I enjoy our she-woman-man-haters club nights.”

“I’m not a man hater,” I say with a shake of the head. “The one I love is just dumb.”

“Totally dumb,” Kat says, raising her glass in salute, then shoots the liquor back.

“Did he say why he was dumping you?” Mia asks. She’s lying flat on the floor, staring at the ceiling, her long, dark hair spread out around her like a halo.

“Not really.” I shrug, and take the bottle back from Riley. “He ranted for a while about having to be away from work too much, and some other stuff that I didn’t quite understand, and then he just said he couldn’t do us and left.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Cami says with a frown.

“You keep that bottle,” Kat says and returns to Cami’s kitchen for more liquor.

“Is there any of that whipped vodka in there?” Mia calls out. “I want something sweet.”

“Yes,” Kat says with a grin as she returns with the bottle Mia asked for, along with a can of whipped cream. “There’s this too. It has alcohol in it.” She sprays some of the whip in her mouth and hands it off to Cami, who takes a bite of cake, sprays some whip on it, and stuffs it all in her mouth.

“I hate it when men are dicks,” Riley says with a frown. “Like, why do they have to be dicks?”

“Because that’s what they’re thinking with. Their dicks,” Mia says with a sigh, then swigs directly from the bottle before passing it back to Kat. “It’s like they don’t know any better.”

“Bullshit. They know better.” Cami points her fork at Mia. “Dickery is a chosen attitude.”

“Dickery.” I snort, then laugh out loud. God, I can’t feel my lips. I shrug and take a swig of tequila out of the bottle. “I just hate it when they just leave.” I fling my arm out, driving my point home. “They just leave, and you don’t know why. There is no reason. I mean . . .” I scrunch up my face, trying to find my words. “Maybe there’s a reason, but they don’t tell you.”

“Exactly,” Riley says with a nod. “Because they’re chickenshit.”

“And there’s the dickery.” Cami stuffs more cake in her mouth. “Fucking dickery.”

“Sometimes their dickeries are fun,” Kat says with a wink. “Lots of fun.” She points at Cami and squirts more alcoholic whip in her mouth. “God, this is strong.”

“God bless the man who put alcohol in whipped cream,” Mia says.

“It was probably a woman,” I reply. “On a night like this.”

“Well, God bless her,” Mia repeats, then stares at me with one eye clenched shut. “Did you know that if you close one eye, then switch to the other, it looks like stuff moves around, but it doesn’t.”

“Mia’s drunk!” Cami announces and she and I clink our bottles in celebration.

I dive for the cake, stuffing way too much in my mouth, making me cough and spew chocolate pieces all over the carpet. “Sorry, Cami.”

“Meh.” She shrugs. “I’ll vacuum tomorrow.”

“I have good friends,” I say with a sigh, after I swallow the cake and take a swig of tequila. God, this shit is good. “Like, the best friends ever. I don’t just have a person, I have people. How many bitches can say that?”

“Four others that I know of,” Riley says with a laugh. “We are lucky to have a tribe.”

“We so are,” I say, patting her pretty hair. “Your hair is so soft.”

“You know who has soft hair?” Cami asks, her voice really loud. “Landon.”

“Are we talking about Landon?” Kat asks. “I thought he was still off-limits.”

“It’s a dumb-man party,” I point out. “I say let’s talk about all the dumb men.”

“Except, he’s not dumb,” Cami says sadly. “He’s really, really, really smart. He was the valedictorian of his class.”

“That doesn’t make him smart,” I reply, but then frown. “Wait. Maybe it does.”

“He’s dumb for hurting you,” Mia says. “But he doesn’t even know he’s doing it, which makes him doubly dumb.”