“Let
go,
” I growled and yanked the box from her.
Roxanna held on, her iron grip surprising me. “No, I will
not
let go.”
“I
need
these cupcakes,” I insisted and smacked her hand away, pinning the pastry box to my chest. “You’ll have to pry these cupcakes from my
lifeless body.
”
Roxanna’s eyes widened, as if she were looking at a crazy person. Maybe she was. I didn’t feel even remotely close to sane—depressed, pissed, disheartened…scared, was more like it.
“First of all, you need to shut this off,” Gen said from behind me, and I whirled to see my twin switching off my laptop. Deborah’s evil face disappeared to a blackened screen.
Some jerk had made a video of Deborah’s interview, posted it to a video-sharing site, and I’d been replaying it over and over for a week now.
“Turn it back on,” I insisted, and squeezed the box tighter as the beginnings of an anxiety attack took hold—another new development in my life. I’d never been the panicky type of person, but I wasn’t exactly the same person anymore. I’d been marinating in Deborah’s poison, and I was a much duller version of myself now.
“
No,
” Roxanna and Gen said in unison.
“Why do you want to see that anyway?
She ruined your reputation on television,”
Gen stressed.
I’d heard the rant so many times—and from my own lips too—I felt like I was in a damn
Twilight Zone
episode
.
The theme melody for the old TV show played like a broken record in my head, pushing me closer and closer to a steep drop-off.
“It reminds me how weak and naive I was.” I turned to the kitchen. “I
need
that stupid video.”
I was ruined. Everything I’d worked for had been torn out of my hands. Catherine continued to inform me I was too young for a mid-life crisis—always said in her big sister tone—but I disagreed. This was an appropriate time to lose it, in my opinion. I loosened my chokehold on the pastry box and set it down on the breakfast bar. The cupcakes were probably all smashed together.
I can use a spoon…
“That woman is a heinous bitch.” Roxanna pushed aside a bagel bag so she could perch on the end table. “We know that. So, let’s just move on…and let go of the cupcakes.” She waved her hand to gesture at the apartment. “And clean up a little.”
My apartment was a disaster. I had never been a slob in my life. Of us twins, Gen was the messy one. I’d spent all of our childhood a step behind, picking up a shirt here, a pair of socks there. But now, the tables were turned and I didn’t have the energy to worry about the scallion cream cheese stained plastic knife inside the crumpled bagel bag laying on my end table. As more cancellations called in, and less walk-ins graced the boutique, I’d fallen into a daze of zombie-like motions, just getting through the day only to toss and turn each night, sleepless.
“You need to snap out of this.” Gen propped her hands on the hips of her jeans. Her black and purple parka was still on, but unzipped. She’d thrown her stocking cap on the counter after letting herself and Roxanna inside. I’d heard them knocking, but I hadn’t gotten up to answer, hoping if I waited long enough they’d assume I wasn’t home and go away.
“Fight? What’s the point?” I sat down heavily on a stool in front of the breakfast bar.
“The point is you’ve worked too hard to let her get the best of you! This isn’t the Lexie I know.” Gen sat down on a stool beside mine.
“Yes, well, I haven’t been that Lexie in awhile.”
The truth was, I hadn’t been that Lexie since Jeremy and I announced our engagement. As soon as his parents found out, Deborah had stepped in to dictate everything, turning what should have been the happiest experience of my life into a nightmare. She’d walked all over me, pushed her wedding planner on me, and changed my wedding date. She’d nagged about the table decorations, rearranged the seating chart, anything to make me miserable. She’d run my life the way she’d always run Jeremy’s, turning me into a horrible, miserable Bridezilla.
I looked down at the pullover hoodie I wore, a ketchup stain on the pink pocket. Ketchup from the French fries I’d had for lunch.
French fries.
“I still can’t believe that woman’s nerve.” Roxanna crossed her legs with a shake of her head, one black mid-calf boot swinging. Roxanna didn’t sit still very well. She was always moving, always doing something. I swiveled around to face the breakfast bar.
“Yeah, well, she warned me,” I said, my nose in the box of cupcakes.
They weren’t smashed. It was a freaking cupcake miracle. Melanie, a friend who owned the bakery downtown, had filled it with my favorite—a S’mores inspired, gooey chocolate and whipped marshmallow wonder. Mel was a cupcake genius. She’d been the one to cater dessert for my engagement party, but back then I wasn’t eating cake. I’d been so
boring
back then. This specific cupcake was meant to be eaten with a fork because it was jumbo sized and too thick to get my mouth around. However, in my current state, I attacked it with a full frontal mouth assault. A dab of frosting stuck to the tip of my nose.
“Give me that.” Gen took the cupcake from me.
It became mush in our struggle for cupcake dominance, but Gen won out and dropped it inside a personal pan sized pizza box, empty but for the crusts. Pizza was a new indulgence of mine. No more one-slice-wonder for this girl. It wasn’t that I’d spent my entire life without foods like cupcakes and pizza, it was just I’d always preferred leafy greens and fresh grilled meats. Carbs had always been an indulgence I enjoyed in moderation—which made me think of Leo. An image of his naked chest came to mind like a hot flash. I’d been avoiding him like the plague. There was no time for another complication in my life—I was already a walking disaster.
“You don’t even like this stuff.” Gen shut the lid on the pizza box.
I’d never really had a sweet tooth like Gen’s. Or maybe I’d never really allowed myself to enjoy them? To think, all this time I’d been missing out. All it had taken was a nervous breakdown for me to see the light. I snickered, and Gen raised her brows.
“You are going to be the size of a truck if you keep eating junk like this.” Gen’s gaze was now on the pizza box. “When was the last time you went to the gym?”
The word “gym” made me think of Leo again. Out of sight, out of mind. It wasn’t like he was worried about his crazy ex, anyway. He’d been wrapped up in a big case the last month, so I doubted he even thought of me. It was all for the best. There were some nights I lay awake thinking about his kisses, but I blamed it on my newfound insomnia.
Anyway, I couldn’t risk any kind of relationship with Leo, or anyone, even if it was “just sex.” Men were the enemy. A man was the reason I was in this crap predicament in the first place. Men came with false promises and prenups—
and contracts—
and broken hearts. And Leo didn’t have a good track record where I was concerned. So, he was officially lumped in with the rest of men—beasts, all of them.
I glared at Gen. “Since when are you the carb police? You’re the one who told me to ease up and quit being so anal about what I eat.”
“That was before you started binge eating,” she pointed out.
“Three weeks and five days, that’s how long it’s been,” Roxanna piped up, and I whirled on the stool around to face her.
“How do you know that?” I asked. Hearing it out loud made me flinch.
Almost four weeks?
My old self would have shuddered, especially after all the junk I’d been eating. The new me concentrated on being less uptight.
Roxanna fished out a tube of lip gloss from a pocket inside of her handbag. With the gloss wand a half-inch from her lower lip, she said, “You’ve been making up excuses and missing our gym dates so I asked the receptionist. Had to bribe her with a twenty. It’s personal information.”
“Of course you bribed her.” Gen shook her head. She turned to me, her lips set in a concerned frown. “Lex, you really need to snap out of this.”
This?
My messy life couldn’t adequately be described as simple as “this.”
Deborah told anyone who would listen about what a heartbreaking bitch I was, how immoral I was, what a bad role model I was for young women, and people
listened.
Why wouldn’t they? Deborah Buchanan was wealthy, a pillar of the community—a mother aching for her son’s broken heart.
That’s
what people saw.
A bad person
—that’s what people believed of me.
I had no proof—none—of Jeremy’s parents being the cause of the wedding debacle. Why the hell hadn’t I demanded a copy of the contract? Why couldn’t I have snapped out of my stupor long enough to save my future self from this fallout? Maybe if I had proof I could have my own televised interview, wave the contract in the air and gain sympathy by the thousands.
But I didn’t have a contract, so I didn’t have any proof. And who would believe me over the mighty Buchanans?
No one, that’s who.
After a night of tossing and turning, I was exhausted and hyped up on all the cupcakes I’d consumed today. I’d watched Deborah’s televised lynching about four times already. Not because I was being particularly masochistic; I’d taken down notes in case I hit the lottery and had the funds to sue her snotty-bitch-evil ass. That was another thing—I’d taken to cussing a lot, in my head. It made me feel better.
Reviewing the video seemed my best option at this point. I wasn’t sure what exactly would stick in court, but there had to be some law against bribery, coercion, and slander. I’d been about to research the law before Roxanna and Gen interrupted my day off.
“Stop torturing yourself. None of this is your fault,” Roxanna insisted.
“It’s not? I’m the one who was engaged to the bastard,” I seethed.
Gen sighed. “You might have been engaged to a bastard—”
“Might have?” Roxanna interjected.
“Okay, so you were engaged to a bastard,” Gen corrected, “but you loved Jeremy and trusted him. There is nothing naive about believing in your relationship, believing in the man who proposed to you.” She frowned and wiped at the frosting on my nose.
I clenched my hands into fists. “I knew things between us weren’t okay after the engagement party. But I ignored it like an
idiot
, pretending everything was fine. And it
wasn’t
fine. This
is
my fault.” I held my arms wide to encompass my messy apartment. “All of it.”
“You are being exceptionally dramatic today.” Roxanna held up the empty bagel sack, holding it between her fingers like a piece of evidence. “We didn’t come here for the drama, Alexis Anne. This is an intervention.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t need an intervention. I need a hit man. My wedding
is still haunting me.
”
“You don’t need a hit man.” Gen grabbed the box of cupcakes off the counter. I hadn’t noticed she’d been sneaking in close with the sole purpose of stealing them from me. “What you need is to change your clothes, clean your apartment, and then drive downtown to check on your boutique.” She patted my hand and gave me an encouraging smile. “Remember how much you love your boutique?” she asked in a soothing, please-quit-being-crazy tone.
I wasn’t done being crazy. I’d just gotten started. I’d worked
so hard
for my boutique. I was twenty-three years old, for Pete’s sake! For most, owning one’s own business was a step that didn’t come so soon after college. And I’d done it all on my own. Working a job through college, sometimes two at the same time, had been tough. I hadn’t slept much, but I’d saved a lot. When I decided to open the boutique, I’d gone over the numbers, prepared an impressive business plan, and secured a small startup loan for
Once Upon A Dream
. But how would I pay my bills and my bank loan if my boutique didn’t make any money?
God, my head hurts.
The migraines had been on overdrive for the past week.
Roxanna rounded the counter and nosed around under the sink for the garbage can. “I was just at the boutique; Michelle’s painting her toenails behind the counter.”
Normally such a remark would have made me jump for the phone, but this wasn’t a normal day. I shrugged. “I’m sure Michelle is taking care of things just fine.”
“I don’t know who you are, but I want my friend back.” The corners of Roxanna’s lips pressed into a frown. In one quick swipe, she cleaned off the counter and filled the trash can with the evidence of my stress eating. Roxanna met my scowl with narrowed eyes. “Don’t give me that look.”
“Go away,” I said and hopped off the stool. I turned in the direction of my bedroom door on the opposite side of the living room. “I’m going to take a nap.”
“What you need is a girl’s night out.” Roxanna sounded too close to have abided my request. “You’ve been skipping out on those too, and becoming a hermit hasn’t helped you any.”
“Yes, a girl’s night. Just us. That sounds fun,” Gen said cheerfully.
I didn’t bother shutting my bedroom door since they’d follow me in anyway. I shuffled to my bed and fell onto the mattress, jerking the covers up over my head. Mitzy was jostled from her sleep, cuddled up into a tiny, blonde ball near my pillow. She blinked at me, then closed her eyes and commenced ignoring the pesky humans ruining her afternoon nap.
“That doesn’t sound fun at all.” I curled up around Mitzy and her warmth. My apartment was cold. I couldn’t afford luxuries like heat these days, which was why both Roxanna and Gen were still bundled up in their winter jackets. I had two pairs of socks on my feet.