"𝗂 𝗁𝖺𝗏𝖾 𝖺 𝗉𝗈𝗌𝗍𝖼𝖺𝗋𝖽 𝗆𝗈𝗎𝗍𝗁
all it ever says is:
𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦."
- trista mateer, honeybee
when valerie forester heads south to visit her best friend in nashville, the last thing she expects when she departs is an...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
★ ★★
"i just don't know what to think."
"i know exactly what to think," layla said as she wandered farther down the aisle, raising an eyebrow and curling her lip at me like she couldn't believe i wasn't joking. "you wanna know what i think?"
"well..." i muttered, absentmindedly pushing the shopping cart forward.
"i think—" she turned to look at me, lifting her index finger "—that you guys fucked."
heat rose quickly to my cheeks, my eyes widening to the size of saucers at her theory, which was nothing if not ridiculous, and stupid, and completely far-fetched. "layla!" i defended in a whisper, scanning our surroundings in hopes that no fellow whole foods patrons caught wind of her crude word choice. "we did not... do that. okay?"
"how would you know? you were, like, thirty-three sheets to the wind." layla chuckled at her own joke and began reading the nutritional information on a box of granola bars.
"ugh, that's the problem!" i groaned. "i can't remember anything!"
"exactly, so how can you be certain that anything even happened at all?"
"i just... i have a feeling."
a handful of days had passed since i spent the night at jake's, and i still couldn't shake the inexplicable feeling of embarrassment that consumed me the following morning. nor could i stop trying (and miserably failing) to revive the memories. and maybe layla was right. maybe nothing even happened between jake and i, and i was driving myself mental for no reason. but just as i couldn't be certain anything even happened at all, i couldn't be certain something didn't happen. i needed to be certain. and that was the problem. i just couldn't be.
"i still don't understand why you think something happened," layla said, placing a carton of oat milk into the cart.
"i'm telling you, i just have a feeling. i know with every fibre of my being that i didn't sleep with him, but i can't help but worry that i said something weird, or came onto him, or something. i smoked a lot of weed, layla... you know how i get when i smoke weed."
she rolled her eyes. "have you considered asking him whether you fucked or not?"
"do you have to use that terminology...?" i murmured, glancing around conspicuously.
she gave me a dumb look.
i sighed. "i did ask him. okay? he said we didn't—"
"well, there ya go, there's your answer."
"no, listen, he said it like... 'no, we didn't sleep together, but you did something embarrassing and i don't think i should bring it up just in case you blow chunks on my living room floor out of sheer humiliation.'"
