Page 19 of Sour Notes

Fuck my fucking life.

I did forget.

Now I really want to choose violence.

With a groan, I throw my head back and smack the headboard with a bang. Maybe that will knock some sense into me because I should know better.

I love my parents, I do, but they want both their kids sooooo in love and happily married like they are. They got married at eighteen, which is like a million years ago. Things are totally different now. We have DoorDash, WiFi… OnlyFans. These days it’s hard to get a man to commit and stay faithful for longer than the length of a phone contract.

But now, with my twin getting married in a month, their heart eyes have been firmly focused on me for the last year.

Mom offered to set me up with countless friends of friends' sons and I’d managed to resist, until she texted me a few weeks ago in a moment of weakness.

Or madness.

I’d gotten home from another disastrous MatchNote date and was drunk crying over a tub of Ben and Jerry’s about being alone and having to see the aforementioned trash bag ex at this stupid wedding—a personal low, I know—so I stupidly agreed in sheer desperation.

Why do I do this to myself?

Me

Ok. Fine.

Mom

Maybe he’s the one. He’s free to fly out to the wedding with us. I already checked the dates with him.

Me

OMG Mom, stop

Mom

Fine, fine! But let me know how it goes.

I can’t even.

Thank fuck I have breakfast with the girls this morning to help distract me.

Ugh, and the boys, which means Swayze.

Creeping to my bedroom door, nervous butterflies dance low in my stomach. I suck in a deep breath and grip the handle in my sweaty palm to open it a crack.

Ahh, sweet heavenly silence.

I bolt for the bathroom, shower and dress in record time. Without even smudging my eyeliner—now that's an achievement.

The minute I’m done, I hear stirring from his bedroom.

Nope.

There’s no way I’m gonna have a showdown with him first thing. I’ve already had my mom practically marry me off to a random stranger today, dammit. There’s only so much I can take without coffee to make me feel more human and less… stabby.

Heart racing, I grab my laptop and run out our front door, closing it behind me with a quiet click.

Driving my Mustang with the sun shining, and my music cranked up—because singing “You Should See Me in a Crown” by Billie Eilish is my whole ass jam right now—I can almost feel my mood brightening. Of course, the second I start belting out the chorus, my phone rings.

Please no.