Maya sits up and groans. “Not again!”
“Yes,again.” I sigh and decline the call, which has to be the hundredth since noon—and it’s only two. My ex seems to be in the bargaining stage of grief. He thinks calling me over and over again, begging for forgiveness, will fix the damage he’s caused. I’ve tried blocking him—twice, in fact—but he always finds a new phone to call from. I used to be naïve enough to assume the random numbers were just spam, but not anymore. I have become as pessimistic as can be. Every wrong number is him. He is everywhere. I can’t escape him.
“You havegotto change your number,” Maya tells me.
I shrug. “That’smore trouble thanhe’sworth.”
“That much, we agree on.”
It’s painful to admit how cliché the whole thing is. Milo cheated on me with his “work bestie”.Emily. A woman in the office who he would casually mention. “Emily loves watching this show too,” or “Emily always has Cesar salad, she eats it most days for lunch, y’know.” I’m not the jealous type and although my skin prickled a little each time he mentioned her, I never asked any questions about her or had any suspicions. I don’t think it would have made a difference anyway. He insists it’sover now and it was a “short-term affair,” but I’ve got too much self-preservation to let him back in again.
I smile at my friend and let my gaze flicker down to the half-packed suitcase on the floor. Maya seems pretty excited about this trip. Maybe I should be too—or at leasttryto be. Nothing good ever comes from pessimism. Sure, my life fell apart along with my almost-marriage, but that doesn’t mean that the world stopped spinning. It’s time to start living again, for better or worse.
“Sorry I’m being moody. I promise I am really glad we’re going on this trip together,” I tell Maya, reaching out and squeezing her hand. “Since the payment was nonrefundable, I couldn’t stomach the idea of losing all that money, and well, I wasn’t going to let him take…her. Thank you for coming with me. I don’t know where I’d be without you. I love you.”
“Aw, Darcy, you sap.” Maya nudges my arm and lays her head on my shoulder. I can feel her crane her neck up to look at me, but I can’t see anything other than a sea of blonde curls. “While you’re really feeling that love for me, there’s something I should probably tell you.”
Oh, boy.Maya is good at a lot of things, but getting us into trouble might just be her best talent.
I wait.
“So, you remember how Cody was working at the resort, and he helped me get you such a good deal for this trip?”
I really don’t like where this is going.
“Yeah…” I affirm. “And then he got fired and moved to Maui.”
A beat of silence.
“So about that…” Maya says, “he never actually moved, per se. Because he sort of got rehired. And he’s still there.”
I sit up so fast, Maya nearly falls off of the bed. Frazzled, she pushes herself up onto her elbows and looks at me, her big blueeyes filled with guilt. Normally, that would be enough to dissolve any anger I have toward her, but not this time. This time, only an act of God will save her.
“He’swhat?!” I screech, my blood boiling. “Maya, no!”
“It’s really not that big of a deal, D,” Maya tries. “Please don’t overreact.” Maya holds out her hands like she means to placate me, but I bat them away.
“Oh, Iwilloverreact, thank you very much. Your deluded brother, who I cannotstandis crashing our vacation? Ugh. Just when I thought this cursed honeymoon couldn’t possibly get any worse…”
“Don’t you think that’s a little dramatic?” Maya asks in exasperation. “I know he can be annoying sometimes, but?—”
“He locked me in your basement. Fortwohours.” I still have nightmares about that horrifically ghost-shaped broom that lingered in the corner. “And that’s justoneof the thousand effed up things he did to me!”
“It was an accident, and?—”
“Or so he claims,” I interrupt.
“And,even if he did do it on purpose,” Maya continues as she narrows her eyes in warning, “he was eight. Eight-year-old boys tend to do stupid, borderline sociopathic things. We can’t hold it against him.”
“Oh, yes we can, and yes I will.”
“Okay, you know what, Darcy? I know you don’t like Cody. I know you don’t want to go on this trip. And I know that you have dug yourself so far into a pit of self-pity that you’ll need a ladder to climb out of it, but can you please think about me just this one time? He’s my brother—my brother that got you a major discount on this vacation, by the way—and I haven’t seen him in two years. You know how hard it’s been since he moved away. We can’t afford to come see him and he can’t afford to comehome. So can you please just bite your tongue and pretend to be amicable for a week?”
Maya is, by nature, kind. She’s the type of person who would help an old lady across the street or give her last dollar to the needy. She doesn’t say things just to say them, and she doesn’t typically ask me to just smile and nod like this. So I can tell this means a lot to her. And if it means a lot to her, it means a lot to me. So what if her older brother and I have a complicated, messed up past? I haven’t talked to him in years. I’m sure we can be cordial with one another and act like agreeable acquaintances. Maybe.
“You won’t leave me alone with him?” I ask. She knows I’ve given in. I can tell from the smile that splits across her face.
“I won’t, I promise!” She throws herself into my arms, and I can feel the warmth of her sun-kissed skin pressed against me. I can smell her fruity perfume. I’m reminded that I really do love her, no matter how crazy she drives me sometimes.
