Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 34243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 171(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 171(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
A knock on the door cuts my thoughts off. Before I can even say “come in,” the handle is already turning, and the next thing I know, Icelle is walking into my room with the kind of calm, purposeful stride that makes people in hallways instinctively step aside for her, and—
Wait.
Icelle?
Did Mom lie?
What if she really did text Icelle, but my friend hasn’t read Mom’s message yet?
Is that why Icelle hasn’t blacklisted me yet?
“What are you doing here?” I demand.
Icelle only looks at me with her RBF. As in, resting bitch face, which I asked about the first time we met. And in case you still haven’t figured this out by now about me—I am very, very big on honesty.
“Why aren’t you dressed?”
This is so typical of Icelle. She tends to answer every question with another question because she thinks her face already says it all. I’ve tried my best to convince her otherwise, but she still believes that her RBF is supposed to be enough for all of us poor mortals. Icelle may have the kind of face that can launch a thousand ships—but anyone relying on her for direction is better off buying an emotional compass, and...here we go again.
Why are all the ladies in my life so uniquely stubborn?
Icelle grabs one of my duffel bags and starts shoving clothes into it without saying a word.
I jump to my feet, and we end up playing tug-of-war with my favorite shirt. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Helping you pack, what else?”
Pack?
For what?
“Did you not get my mom’s text?” That’s the only reason I can think of for Icelle to still be here when she should be running in the opposite direction. Not a single friendship of mine has ever survived the moment my mother enters the picture. She doesn’t just burn bridges. She salts the earth, paves over the ashes, and then asks the person on the other side if they can lend her money for gas.
“Of course I did.”
“And?” This is so, so like Icelle, with how she’s still diligently working on packing my clothes even as I’m just as diligent in undoing everything she does.
She throws something in, I throw something out. I can be stubborn, too, you know.
...
Okay, I give up.
I’m clearly not as stubborn as Icelle or my mom because we’ve already been doing this for five minutes, and I have never been the patient type.
“Stop this!”
As expected, Icelle looks at me with her RBF, but no, no, no, I am not letting her get away with it this time.
“You have to explain yourself,” I insist. “You say you got Mom’s text, but did you read it?”
Icelle’s beautiful blank face finally cracks. Admittedly, it’s the tiniest crack, but it’s enough. I think she’s exasperated. Or annoyed. Hard to tell the difference when you’re only working with a millimeter’s worth of emotions.
“Why are you being so silly about this?”
I can tell she feels strongly about this. She’s even shaking her head as she says the words, which for Icelle is as good as a yell.
But honestly?
I’m tempted to shake my head back at her because she’s the silly one, not me. How can she not see it’s the height of silliness—no, actually, let’s call a spade a spade here. It’s not just silliness but sheer stupidity to stay friends with me, now that she knows what Mom’s capable of.
They’ve never met, for God’s sake. And yet my mother didn’t see anything wrong in texting Icelle without my permission and guilt-tripping her into taking me as her plus one, also without my permission.
Even worse, I’m pretty sure Mom used the same act she uses with everyone: she has this really good way of speaking and looking like she’s old money but has fallen on hard times through no fault of her own. It always works, too. Gets everyone to bend backwards for her. But you can only fool people for so long. The truth always comes out. I’ve tried to make Mom see this, too, but she never listens. Never.
“If you thought your mom’s text is enough to cause trouble between us—” Icelle drops an armful of my shirts onto the bed and turns to face me. “You clearly don’t know me well enough—”
“I don’t need to know anyone to understand how good my mom is at crossing the line.”
“You don’t get it, Ti.” Icelle finally stops packing my clothes and looks at me. “We have more things in common than you think. Because trust me. My mom’s worse.”
“Impossible.”
“How much are you willing to bet?”
Ten minutes later, and it’s official. I owe Icelle a grande-sized latte because she’s actually right. Her mom is worse. As in, arrested-for-trying-to-sell-Icelle’s-V-card kind of worse, and the only reason the news never went public is because of her dad pulling all sorts of strings.