Paused Emotions

28

Angelica

"When you sent me that text I was about to shit my pants, you usually never text me like that, what's up?" She sips on her drink, scrolling through her phone. How am I supposed to have a proper conversation with her like this?

"Can you put your phone away for a bit?" She stops scrolling, her eyes searching for an answer. She turns her phone off, giving all her attention to me.

"We haven't hung out together like this in a while." I don't know how to talk about it. My throat feels dry and walls feel like they're closing in around me. She smiles, "Yeah we haven't, maybe it's because of school and shit. You know how university life is." I can't have meaningless conversations with her when I know the truth.

"Why did you post a picture of the letter that day." The cup in her hand stops midway, she places it back on the table. "How did you find out?"

She did do it. She doesn't even try to deny it.

Tears start forming in my eyes. I will not cry, I refuse to cry in front of her.

"You're not gonna try to deny it?"

She averts her eyes, "I've been waiting for you to find out. Three years though? That's a long fucking time."

"Why did you do it?" I'm surprised my voice is coming out strong. I'm usually really bad at hiding my emotions.

"Why do you think I did it?" She looks at me, her devoid of any apology.

"I don't know."

"I obviously felt bad afterwards because your Mom died and everything but I don't regret it."

"Were you jealous of me?"

"And the award winning prize for dumbest fuck alive goes to Angelica Myers."

I take a deep breath. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"No one does something just to confess to it later on. I had no intention of staying friends with you, I'm sticking around for Momo."

"You don't even like Momo."

"I don't, but she likes Adam and they broke up a while ago. I'm trying to get him over her by dating me and I can't have her confessing to him again because he still likes her."

"What the fuck?"

My eyes widen. Momo stands behind Hira, her eyes flaring with anger. I get up, quickly.

"Momo," she raises her hand, stopping me from talking.

"Hira, what the fuck?"

Hira doesn't get up, she stays in her seat and continues drinking her coffee like she didn't just ruin our friendship. Momo takes the seat I was sitting on, I sit beside her.

"You invited this one too, huh? Couldn't deal with the truth yourself?" Her voice is bored but her eyes are glaring at me. "I didn't-"

"She didn't invite me, Hira. If you don't know, I work here." Hira looks around and sighs, "Whatever."

Momo's hand rests on my leg, comforting me. "I knew there was something off about you since that day. You became distant with us, you didn't give a shit about either of us. How could you do that to me? How could you do this to Angie?"

"You guys were just so... Happy. I couldn't bear it."

"So you decided to—"

"Yes. I decided to make your lives miserable," she continues drinking her coffee. "What I didn't know was Angie's life was already terrible. When I found that letter, it changed everything for me."