Page 3 of The Last Special Thing

She slid her tongue across the cracks of her lips. With a sigh, she pulled back the comforter and slid out of bed. She stripped out of last night’s clothes, cursing herself for not changing before she tucked in. Although she mocked Weston about his routines, she was envious of the discipline.

Dragging herself into the bathroom, she sighed at the reflection in the diamond-encrusted mirror in critique. She ran her thumb across her cheek. The powder suffocating her pores would cause a breakout in a few days. She was going to need to form better habits regardless of whether she was drunk or not.

Peeling off the fake eyelashes and setting them aside on the marble countertop, she stole another look in the mirror, wondering how much of her beauty was real and how much was manufactured. She pulled at the edge of her eyebrow, freshly waxed every twelve weeks. The hair on her legs had been lasered off when she was sixteen. Botox was only a few years away.

Turning on the sink, she cupped a handful of cool water and drank, easing the sandpaper feeling in her throat. She needed to start drinking a glass of water before bed. When the water warmed, she splashed it on her face, removing the last remnants of graduation.

There was a knock on the slider, and Amelia turned her head as Lauren walked in. Lauren looked around, and her eyes caught Amelia in the mirror. She did a once-over, lips pursed. She wasn’t wrong for it. Amelia looked like shit.

“You drank last night.” The disappointment was so heavy in her voice that Amelia’s shoulders sagged under the weight.

“Like one cup. I’ll be at college in a few months anyway. What do you think I’ll be doing there?” She hated that she cared what her parents thought at all. Their praise and critique centered on her appearance and on maintaining their social standing, not who she was as a person.

“We’re taking the boat out in an hour. You think you can pull yourself together for that?”

Just as Lauren ignored her comment about going away to college, she ignored the jab.

“Yeah, let me call Madisson and see if she wants to come.” Amelia turned off the faucet.

If she were nursing a hangover for the better part of the afternoon, she wanted her best friend to be there as well.

“Great,” Lauren said, her eyes sweeping over the room covered in discarded clothes one last time, before she left Amelia to get ready.

At noon on the dot, Amelia and Madisson laughed in the back of her parents' pontoon boat. The breeze was enough to keep the hangover nausea at bay, and the girls traded stories about what happened after graduation.

“I can’t believe you went to Chris’ party,” Madisson said, eyes wide. ”I heard his parents are super weird.”

Amelia glanced at her parents on the other side of the boat. Her dad was driving, wearing black sunglasses as he navigated the bay around other vessels. Her mom was skewering mozzarella balls and Roma tomatoes in a crocheted swimsuit cover-up.

Confident they weren’t listening, Amelia lowered her voice. “I didn’t even notice them. I think they came out once to refill the punch.” Then she asked, “What did you and Max do?” She hoped the words came out neutral.

“We drank, probably too much,” she giggled. “We mostly just hung out. He had a few friends over. He’ll be moving into his own apartment this week.” Madisson reached for the tanning sunscreen and squirted a dollop into her palm.

Max was a couple of years older than they were, but it never seemed like it. He hadn’t gone to college, lived off his parents, and was content to orbit his life around Madisson. Amelia assumed that his parents paid for the new apartment.

Amelia thought they would break up when Madisson was accepted to college. But instead of going to NYU, as she had always dreamed about, Madisson chose San Diego State University. She said Max was only one of the factors that tipped the scales in SDSU’s favor, but Amelia knew he was the determining factor. SDSU kept her in San Diego close to him.

She sighed, a quiet layer of jealousy that Madisson and Max were continuing their relationship when Weston had abandoned her.

“Weston was there?” Madisson asked.

“Always.” Amelia reached for the sunscreen. “He was the one to take me home.”

“Are you sure that was a good idea?

“What choice did I have? I either stay at the party as people get more drunk and obnoxious, or I go home with my ex. I made the best out of the bad choices.” Amelia forced a laugh out.

The boat hit a small wave, and she put a hand against the tan leather backrest to steady herself. “Plus, we didn’t even hook up this time.”

“Are you over the breakup?” Madisson’s words were tentative. She had been there every step of the way as Amelia processed it. She denied it, of course. Weston had a lot of pressure on him, and committing to long distance was hard, apparently. When two weeks passed, and he didn’t come crawling back to her, she was so angry she dumped a box of his belongings in his front yard. He texted her later, saying he wanted them to be “civil” and he was “sorry.” After that, she cried in Madisson’s arms about the future he had ripped from her. Madisson stroked her hair in a way her mother never did and listened.

That was a few months ago.

“I’m over the breakup, but I still like being around him. Is that wrong?”

Madisson shook her head. “No. If you feel okay, then it’s okay. I’m just making sure you’re not getting hurt.”

The girls pulled their designer sunglasses over their eyes and basked like lizards under the warmth of the sun rays. Lying next to Madisson, the boat rocking beneath them, Amelia was ready to savor every bit of the summer.