Page 7 of The Best Worst Thing

Room-Temperature Gatorade

The next morning, Nicole—head pounding—rolled over, acknowledged the blur that was her little sister, and held a hand over her eyes. Through the drawn curtains, a few too-bright streaks of daylight had snuck across the hardwood in hot, white slices.

It was, quite possibly, noon.

“Mari warned me this might happen,” Paige said, twisting the cap off a bottle of lemon-lime Gatorade, then sitting on the edge of Nicole’s bed. “Drink up.”

Nicole tried—and failed—to take a sip as Paige began rifling through a giant canvas tote.

Mari must’ve told Paige to book a flight out of San Francisco this morning, because here she was with her cool, ugly jeans and her cool, quirky hair, a receptacle full of your-husband-fucked-at-least-one-person-who-wasn’t-you distractions in tow.

Revealed so far: two matching pairs of fuzzy socks, a thick stack of trashy magazines, and a bag of Red Hot Riplets.

“I brought Sense eyes sunken and lips chapped—winced at the sound of Gabe’s exhale. At the sound of his dress shoes, rushing up the stairs. She knew by the time he called out her name that she would have to face him.

“Colie! I’m begging you! Just let me come up, okay? Let me explain!”

Nicole inhaled slowly, then inched toward the stairs, one tiny tiptoe at a time, until she’d folded herself onto the top step of her landing.

When she raised her hung head and her burning eyes met his pleading gaze, her insides wrenched.

Gabe was standing there in that same suit and tie with his lips narrowed and his forehead creased and his eyes, sorry.

“Nicole,” he said.

Gabe had always had one of those voices. Thick, warm, smooth. Everything he’d ever spoken, that first year, had gone down easy. He had, in the beginning, made this life she’d agreed to build with him sound so good.

“Please, baby, just talk to me,” he said as Paige pushed her way past him and steadied a hand on Nicole’s slumping shoulder. Nicole, without a word, nodded her sister off. Paige, scoffing directly at her brother-in-law, disappeared into the guest room off the hall.

When her door slammed shut, Gabe took two steps toward Nicole. At once, she stood up and took three back. It was all too much. His body, getting closer to hers. His words, stressed and cracking and strange.

“You have to know, Colie, how much I love you.”

Nicole turned away. She was midpivot when she looked back at him. “I think I know exactly how much you love me.”

Gabe cowered. Nicole shook her head, then finished dragging herself down the hall. Her body, thin and bent and folded—like a rejection letter, like a piece of junk mail. She was inches from her bedroom door when Gabe spoke again.

“Baby, I—”

“Please, just go,” she said, closing her eyes as her fingers turned the doorknob. “Please.”

“You have to let me fight for us! You have to let me try! I love you!”

“If you love me half as much as you claim to, you’ll give me some space, okay? Just give me some fucking space.”

And with that, Nicole stepped inside her bedroom and closed the door. She didn’t bother to slam it. Come to think of it, she couldn’t remember whether she’d even felt the doorknob in the palm of her hand.

Whether she’d truly felt anything, ever, at all.

Wednesday was a bit better.

Nicole slept in while Paige worked downstairs, walked Nero, and dealt with Nicole’s broken phone.

By midafternoon, they were lying in bed watching literally every last thing on BritBox while Nicole drifted in and out of sleep, texted Valerie bullshit words of encouragement, and ignored her husband’s calls.

That evening, Mari stopped by and got stoned with Paige while Nicole picked at her dinner and stared off into space.

She didn’t even think about the podcast.

On Thursday morning, Nicole’s period arrived, calming her haywire hormones but reminding her of what she’d been desperately trying to forget.

That her body didn’t work, that her doomed embryos were nestled inside of a clueless, lovely Valerie, and that she’d done it all for a man who couldn’t keep his promise.

Who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.

By Friday, Nicole was showing signs of life, although she was still in bed, unshowered, and subsisting on nothing but graham crackers and the occasional piece of string cheese.

“I think we should text Mari,” Paige said, looking up from her laptop, where she was fielding a dozen different work chats. Several of them, JavaScript, but at least two, simply GIFs of Elmo screaming. “We need to get you out of this house. Besides, it’s my last night. We should do something fun.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“You are,” Paige said, staring at Nicole, who was now staring at her ring. “It’s time.”