Page 20 of My So-Called Perfect Life

I scrub my hands down my face and feel the twinge of soreness between my legs as I sit up. “Why is she so dramatic?”

“She’ll be even more dramatic if she sees your ass is still in bed at ten. Usually, you’ve already been up for three hours, gone to yoga, reorganized something, or written a lesson plan. If she sees this, you’ll be taken out in a straitjacket.”

“Can’t a girl just get a night and a morning to herself around here?” I ask, heading to the bathroom across the hall from my bedroom. “In case you guys forgot, my life kind of fell apart two days ago.”

Mercy stands in the bathroom door, not caring in the least that I’m peeing. Being best friends since freshman year of college kind of takes those boundaries out of the picture. “A girl should call her besties to go and drink with her, so she doesn’t make stupid choices. Especially after her life blew up two days ago.”

Before I get a chance to respond, my sister bursts through the front door and starts calling out for me, “Where the hell are you, Dani?”

Now, I have both Amelia and Mercy glaring at me while I pee.

“Seriously?”

“What did you do last night?” Amelia demands. “What stupid choices did you make? I swear, if you got drunk and went to Scott’s, I’ll hog-tie you until the crazy bus gets here.”

“Ew.” I stand after finishing my business. “That would never happen, even after all the alcohol in the world. That piece of trash is dead to me.” I grab my toothbrush and point it at her. “If you go make me a cup of coffee, I’ll fill you in after I brush my teeth. Damn, you two don’t give a girl a break.”

“Well, maybe if you weren’t acting batshit crazy, I wouldn’t have to take the day off work to make sure you’re okay,” she grumbles, leaving the bathroom doorway.

“I didn’t ask you to do that,” I call after her.

Mercy just shakes her head and follows Amelia down the hall.

I brush my teeth and wash my face before joining them in the kitchen.

“Have you heard back from Armando?” Amelia asks as she hands me the coffee she made. “You have, like, nothing in here. There’s no cream for your coffee.”

“Black is fine right now.” It’s what I drank when I got home last night. I wasn’t running out to the bodega at one in the morning for cream. “He called yesterday. I can stay in this unit, thank God.”

Her brow furrows. “But you haven’t unpacked. Why?”

“I was a little busy yesterday, making a ton of phone calls and then dealing with Scott. I did the kitchen as you can tell. I started unpacking my clothes around one thirty this morning. Hence why I was still sleeping when you got here.”

Finishing unpacking my clothes while being pissed about Ryan leaving me alone was the perfect thing to do to try and forget all about him. Lesson learned for going home with some random. At least I’ll never see him again, so I don’t have to face my ejaculate-and-evacuate experience.

“What do you mean, dealing with Scott?” Mercy asks.

“He showed up here yesterday around five.”

“And?”

They both look at me with expectant faces, so I tell them about Scott and his asinine idea.

“You punched him in the nose and kicked him in the balls?” Amelia asks, shocked, while Mercy doubles over in laughter.

“Yep.” There’s a tinge of pride in my voice.

“I wish I could’ve seen his face,” Mercy adds between her laughs. “That must have been great.”

“Then, what’d you do?”

The thought of lying crosses my mind as I think back to my stupid yet incredible decision to sleep with Ryan. I still can’t believe I did that, but at the same time, I want to share it because I picked up one of the hottest men I’ve ever seen and had crazy sex with him. Share-worthy sex. I know I’m not going to hear the end of this, but I’m a woman, and I want to tell my best friends about Mr. Sexy.

I feel a little dirty though. Maybe not dirty. Slutty is more apropos.

“Hello?” Amelia interrupts. “Where’d you go? And what did you do that was so stupid?”

“I needed a drink or something to cool my jets, so I snuck down the fire escape to avoid criminal charges of beating Scott to death. I called the airline to cancel the flights, so he couldn’t take the homewrecking whore on my honeymoon. Then, when I started to feel crappy from lack of food and the heat, I stopped at the first bar I saw, had a few drinks, ate some nachos, and went home with the bartender.”