FRIENDS

20

I spent the next two weeks working and hanging out with Zoe and Maddy. Sometimes we'd hang out with their other friends, but for the most part it was just the three of us. I was grateful that Zoe had introduced me to Maddy; we liked all of the same things, from music to clothes to movies and we had clicked instantly. I felt like I knew her so well already. I felt like I could trust her, and trusting someone new wasn't something I did easily. I never would've guessed that I'd be so trusting after things fell apart with Michael. But here I was with two girls that I hoped I could call my best friends. They meant the world to me.

I hadn't tried to contact Michael since I'd learned he'd blocked my number, but I had learned that he'd also blocked me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. One night after I'd realized this, I'd gotten Zoe to creep him on her accounts and I found out he'd recently followed Lacey on Twitter and Instagram. Like, as recent as within the past few days. I felt just as betrayed as I had when I'd found her on top of him in his bedroom. But I guess that he didn't care about how I felt anymore. He'd do whatever he wanted. The other three hadn't followed her on either sites and I silently thanked them. Deep down, I knew that Lacey hadn't slept with Michael to hurt me, but she had still done it, fully aware of how I felt, and because of that she was the opposite of a friend to me. She wasn't necessarily the enemy, but she was close enough. Lacey had texted me a few times since I'd left LA, even more recently. The last text I'd received from her had been a week ago, begging for me to let her explain again, to let her apologize. I had ignored it; I didn't care what she had to say. In the end, she meant nothing to me. She was just a person who I had trusted and had let me down. I was better off without her.

Though, part of me wanted to text her and ask, 'if it meant nothing and you didn't mean to hurt me, why have you talked since'? He would have had to talk to her in order to get her social media handles.

After a while of me talking like that, Zoe managed to distract me.

"It's not worth it, Ivy." She started, rubbing my back softly to comfort me. Zoe always knew how to comfort me. "Neither of them are worth it. You have better people in your life. Just let it go and leave it be."

And so I did, knowing that Zoe was right. There was no point to linger and hold onto all my anger and sadness.

I mean, of course I was still sad. I was devastated, really, and I missed my best friend every single day. I had dreams about him and I becoming close again in the future, like Zoe and I had. On nights I couldn't sleep, I'd watch home videos of us growing up. When I ran out of those, I watched videos on my phone and laptop of him and I goofing off. A few nights ago I had found a video of him and I singing 'You're My Best Friend'' by Queen, drunk off our asses when we were sixteen years old. Ashton had recorded it, at the time thinking it was the funniest thing in the world.

Now, it was just kind of sad.

Today I was at work, bored off my ass even though it was busy in the cafe. I felt like this at work most of the time, like time was moving slower than usual because I was standing behind the counter in my hideous brown apron and my hair pulled up in a messy bun.

When I was working my parents left me in charge of the cafe, so I was realistically allowed to do whatever I wanted as long as I didn't close the store or set it on fire. Zoe had promised that she'd come visit me today, but so far she hadn't made an appearance and my eight hour shift was more than halfway done.

If she didn't come soon, I was going to die of boredom.

I sighed and decided to try and distract myself somehow. There were two other people working with me and I figured they'd be okay helping customers on their own so I decided to do some cleaning as a way to distract myself until Zoe showed.