Page 66 of All Your Tomorrows

“Yes please,” I told her.

“You got it.” She squeezed my shoulder before she got up and went to the kitchen. I watched her wind her arms around Eloise from behind and set her chin on Eloise’s shoulder. They were beautiful together, I had to admit. Hunter and I had been skeptical of the relationship at first, her more than me, but Cade and Eloise were in it for the long haul. Lucky them.

Love hadn’t worked out for me, but it was beautiful seeing my friends happy. Stace and Hunter were also plastered to each other and laughing at something that Cade had said. Eloise’s friend Camile and her husband John were also here, as well as a few of the new friends that Cade had made in the neighborhood. Jo hadn’t been able to come, but I wished she was here.

It was a nice group of people and I couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit of guilt for being the moody bitch scowling in the corner.

I couldn’t help it, though. They didn’t know what I’d been through.

Cade must have gotten distracted by her sexy girlfriend and forgotten about my drink, so I got up and went to make it myself.

“You don’t have to be a bartender here,” Eloise said as I measured everything into one of her shakers. I did love having decent supplies on hand. Eloise had the best of everything in her house, and that included her cocktail tools and top shelf alcohol. It would be a crime not to take advantage. Plus, I wasn’t driving.

I shrugged. She opened her mouth and I could tell she was going to ask if I was okay, but she seemed to change her mind at the last minute and gave me a smile instead.

I took my bad mood and my new drink back to the couch and pretty much stayed there the rest of the night until Stace and Hunter came to ask me if I was ready to go. I’d been ready at least an hour ago, but I didn’t want to be the annoying friend who begged to go home early.

I cringed the closer we got to my apartment, crossing my fingers that I wasn’t going to have another run-in with Sophie. She seemed like the kind of person who would want to hash it out. From what I remembered she’d been a yapper. Always barging into Kaylee’s room and wanting to talk about this and that and begging to go on our dates. More than once she’d almost interrupted us in the middle of sex.

Fuck. I hadn’t thought about all of this in detail for a long time. For the most part, I tried my hardest to forget about all of it. Now it was at the forefront of my mind again, as if all my anger and grief and hurt had been resurrected.

I hated it. I was so angry at Sophie for making me relive all this. I wasn’t sure if I believed in a higher power, but if there was one who had thrown Sophie in my path, that power was an asshole.

I glared at her door as I unlocked mine and stepped inside. I couldn’t hear any sounds coming from her apartment, but just knowing she was over there breathing was enough to make me want to pound on the wall and tell her to stop.

Yes, it wasn’t fair to her to convict her of her sister’s crimes, but I was tired and my social battery was drained and my skin was raw and I hated everything.

I groaned as I flopped on my bed and then screamed into my pillow.

Why? Out of all the places she could have moved, why here? Why right next to me?

“Fuck,” I said as I tried to blink away tears. I hated crying more than anything. Hated it.

I sniffed and did my best to ignore them as they soaked into my pillowcase.

I hated this.

Chapter Four

Sophie

Reid definitely wasn’t happy to see me, and truly, I couldn’t blame her. The way things had ended between her and Kaylee was brutal, and I’d just been watching from the window in the living room. I shouldn’t have, but they’d been so loud it had scared me.

Reid had screamed as if she’d been physically hurt and then she’d doubled over, heaving onto the lawn. Kaylee tried to help her, but Reid slapped her away. A short time later she’d stumbled to her car and Kaylee had followed her. She didn’t come back for a long time.

Our parents had been away for the weekend on a retreat, or else they probably would have intervened.

Kaylee hadn’t come home until late that night and when I’d tried to talk to her, she’d yelled at me to get out of her room and wouldn’t stop throwing things at me until I left her alone.

Over the next few days I’d tried to ask her what had happened. From what I’d heard, she had cheated on Reid, but I couldn’t believe Kaylee would have done that. She loved Reid. They’d been perfect together. I’d been so envious of their relationship.

Dating was out of the question for me, being socially awkward and skittish around boys. At the time, I hadn’t known why.

I’d mostly kept to myself, with the exception of Larison. It wasn’t all bad, because I’d discovered a passion for books that was now leading me to getting my MFA in creative writing on the way to hopefully getting a job in the publishing industry.

If I said I didn’t listen for any sounds in the apartment next door the rest of the night, I would have been lying. Every time I heard anything in another part of the building, I jumped. Most of my time was spent unpacking and trying to turn my apartment into a home instead of towers of boxes. I figured as long as I had my bedroom and kitchen mostly done, and clothes to sleep in and wear tomorrow, I could call it a night.

It took much longer than I anticipated, and I knew I wasn’t going to get to my book collection for a while. I’d ordered some bookcases since my new place actually had room for them and I wasn’t going to have to store my books in random wobbly piles or shove them under the bed.