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“I think she’s dying. Like, I really don’t think she’ll make it. No life-saving measures required, because there’s really nothing to?—”

I cut Mads off with a sigh, opening my eyes as I drag my arm off of my face. “You’re being dramatic,” I tell both of my friends, though my eyes linger on the offerings of burritos from my favorite place. “Is there queso in there?”

“Always,” Em assures me, striding past me to walk to the kitchen.

“Do I get it without having to give anything in return, or is this some kind of bribe or coercion?” I ask, and next the sound that leaves me is somewhere between a groan and a dramatic rattling of air. I know the answer when Mads doesn’t immediately reassure me to the contrary, and I drop my arm back over my face. “Then I don’t want it.”

Mads snorts and sits on the sofa, moving my legs by force when I clearly don’t want to do it for her. “You want it. Kaira—” She jerks her hand off of my leg theatrically. “Have you stopped shaving in this random depression?”

“I get laser hair removal and you know it.”

“…Get a refund.” I grunt at Mads’ reply and kick at her leg. Lifting my arm once more, I glance down at her before pulling myself up to a sitting position, my head aching.

“What do you two want? And if it’s both of you here at once, should I assume I won’t be able to leave without giving you some heart stopping confession?” Seeing as it’s a surprise to me that the two of them are in my living room after Em used her spare key, I won’t assume this is just a little drop in because they miss me.

“Dishwasher dirty or clean?” Em asks from the other side of the counter, and I look back at her, eyes narrowed, as I try to remember.

“Clean.”

“We’re your best friends.” Mads grabs my hands, prompting me to look down at our entwined fingers. I narrow my eyes, suspicious, and give her a flat, plaintive look.

“Supposedly.”

“Legally.”

“Morally, I guess.” God, I feel gross and sticky. I need to shower, and I’m sure I’m not looking so hot with greasy hair and yesterday’s clothes on. But for some reason, I can’t shake this stupid bad mood that I refuse to call a fit of depression or sadness of any kind.

“So”—Mads surveys my face, looking a little worried under her aloof veneer—“was it a guy? You never told us you had a boyfriend.”

“Or was it because of your family? Did your mom call again?” From the kitchen, Em’s voice drifts over, promising me an easy way out if I want it. I could tell them yes, my mom called again; even though I’ve had her blocked for a week now after the last ‘concerned text’ she sent that read a lot more like gaslighting than actual, legitimate concern.

“He wasn’t my boyfriend.” The words are out of my mouth before I can think to stop them, and I run my hands through my hair with a grimace. “Look, do we have to talk about this? Nothing’s wrong with me, guys. I’m just having an off week. You know?” It’s a lie, and Mads can smell lies like a shark smells blood in the water.

She leans forward, surveying my face, and pulling my attention enough that I glare at her. “Come on, Kai,” she murmurs, reaching out with a hand to squeeze my knee. “Just talk to us. We’re here, and we don’t judge. Well…” She looks up at Em over my shoulder. “I think Em judges. But at least she does it silently, right?”

How do I tell them I’m missing the man we prank called, who then broke into my house and drugged me? A man who showed me a fucking crumb of affection?

How do I tell them I’ve spent the past week trying to talk myself out of this slump and getting more and more disappointed every night he doesn’t text or call or break into my house?

How the hell do I tell them I’ve looked at my phone and considered texting him, because the two visits from Huxley to my house were some of the best nights I’ve ever had. Even without the sex. He was so fun, so easy to talk to. So fucking insane that it was unreal. But maybe something in me is insane too, because now that he’s gone, I miss it.

I can’t tell them I miss a psychopathic serial killer. Especially one I’ve only met twice. So I only give Mads a wan smile and shake my head. “You know I get?—”

“It’s a guy,” both of them say at almost the exact same time, and it forces me to halt in my lie of an explanation. My grin turns to a sneer, and I roll my eyes up at the ceiling.

“You two really are the worst, you know that? If it is a guy, fine. But I didn’t know him for long or very well. So it doesn’t matter and I’ll be over this in the next three to six business days.” If I can’t lie to them, I can at least shrug this off and make it not a big deal.

Because it isn’t.

It really, honestly, should not be a big deal or a bad thing that a serial killer is leaving me alone and not murdering me.

Em appears and sets down the takeout trays of food, along with three glasses of Dr. Pepper. When she appears again, it’s with paper plates and the other two liter bottle, which she sets on the coffee table with a thud. “You get tonight; not three to six business days,” she tells me firmly. “Tonight with tacos and Dr. Pepper. I didn’t get real nachos, but I got queso and chips.”

“Look, I could pour queso on just about any carb-y vehicle and eat it,” I assure her. “So you do not need to explain yourself to me.”

The tacos make everything better. But then again, Tex-Mex food always does. And by the time I’m actually tired from laughing and talking about stupid, everyday shit, I feel a bit better as I curl up on the sofa with my head on Em’s shoulder and one foot thrown over Mads’ lap.

I don’t need a serial killer after all, I remind myself. I have my friends, whatever is left of my sanity, and queso.

U nfortunately, in three business days, I’m not doing too much better. But in my defense, as I tell Mads over and over while she digs through my closet, it isn’t because of some guy.

“Look, seriously. I’m over him,” I assure both of them while Em grabs a few things from her makeup bag. Sitting on my desk chair while I watch the two of them, I feel a bit like a hostage in my own home.

Again.

“I mean it. This has nothing to do with some guy. My uh, my cousin called me this week.” That makes both of them pause, and suddenly I’m second-guessing my plan of spilling my guts over the real reason I’m struggling. Well, past that, I seriously do miss Huxley.

“Like, a good kind of call?” Em asks, concern bleeding into her voice.

“Well, I thought it was. She said she was hoping to, uh, reconnect and everything. Asked if I wanted to video chat.”

“Oh no,” Mads frowns in sympathy. “Not the gaslighting video chat. Your mom? Dad?”

“Both.” I give them both a tight, anxious smile. “No cousin. Just my parents having borrowed her phone. They said it wasn’t fair that I wouldn’t talk to them.” I stop there, leaning over with my arms in my lap.

“And?” Em presses.

“And I hung up on them and blocked my cousin.” With a snort, I shake my head. “I’m not dumb enough to entertain that after the funeral and…”

After all the fucking attempts, the chances, the effort I put into having a decent relationship with literally anyone in my family. It never works, and I can’t do it anymore.

I’d rather be alone than with people who blame me for something I didn’t do, and who continue to take the word of a skeevy dead man over my own.

Fuck them.

Something in the way my brain whispers the words reminds me of Huxley and I blink, looking at my friends shyly as if they somehow could hear it too. But they can’t, and with a glance at each other, Mads goes back to hunting in my closet.

“I believe you,” she assures me, when I make a noise of dissent. “But that isn’t stopping this from happening. We’re going to the bar. You’re going to take two shots, because three makes you sloppy.”

She’s right, but I don’t have to like it.

“You’ll flirt with a guy you never would’ve spoken to before, and all will be well. Maybe you’ll even get a number or seven.”

“Can I opt out? I’d really rather stay home and do literally anything else,” I groan, and flop back into my chair. “Anything else. We can even watch those shitty comedies that Em likes. You know, the sexist ones.”

Em makes a soft sound that might be frustration, though it’s definitely not anything major as she slaps her makeup bag down beside me. “ Bringing Up Baby is cute,” she disagrees. “And no one asked what you wanted to do. Because this isn’t a democracy.”

“Yeah,” I groan, submitting to the way she drags my face up to her. “It never seems to be.”

Mads chuckles, tossing out a couple of shirts from my closet. “You never seem to mind this isn’t a democracy when I bring you leftover appetizers from the bar kitchen,” she reminds me. I watch as she throws a pair of black denim shorts onto my bed, and reaches down to fling out one black combat-ish boot, then the other. Last, she finds a pair of tights that make their way to the bed as well, and I look back at Em.

At least Mads isn’t making me wear something from the hidden depths of my closet that I’ll inevitably feel uncomfortable in, or be tugging down all night, I suppose.

“Any way I can avoid this?” I grumble, giving Em the big, sad doe eyes.

Her smile is sweet and caring and truly the kindest thing I’ve ever seen on a real person.

She could be saintly.

She could be one of those cherubs that, thankfully, Aunt Hortense never used to decorate her house, God bless her.

“No,” she says oh so warmly and oh so amicably. “No, you can’t. And you’re going to have a good time, even if we have to make you.”

I open my mouth, wanting to say that I don’t think it’s possible for them to force me to have a good time. But at the look Em gives me and the way Mads is now rummaging through my sparse jewelry collection, I decide it’s really not worth it. I’d rather save my energy for later, when both of them are drunker than they intend to be, and I’m hauling their asses to the car like a fireman in training.