“Fine. But he’s not my type either.”
“But you thought he was mine?”
“I thought you were desperate,” she laughs. “He was a good starter date.”
My hand smacks my face. “Starter date? Men aren’t objects, Whit.”
“Nah, they kind of are.” She runs a finger around the edge of her glass. “Speaking of men, I’ve refrained from asking about Lance so you could bring it up. But, you haven’t and I’m tired of waiting.”
“You’re so kind,” I groan.
“Not really. Spill it. What’s going on?”
What is going on? Hell if I know, but something is because I can feel it. It’s that sixth sense you get when something is awry. That niggle in your stomach that doesn’t quite feel like you have to puke but makes you a little leery of getting too far away from the restroom.
It’s in my scalp, that prickly sensation like my hair follicles are standing on end, waiting for me to process whatever unknown that’s coming.
I’ve told myself over the past two hours that it’s nothing. From the second Lance’s text came through, I’ve passed this sinking feeling off as leftover stress from the day. The problem is, I can’t work it out enough to believe myself.
“Nothing,” I say, getting our plates together and carrying them to the sink. I busy myself with scraping leftover bits and pieces down the garbage disposal and rinsing off the rest. When I finish, she’s still watching patiently like she’s expecting more from me. I toss down a dishtowel. “What?”
“You don’t cook like that just for you. And when I showed up, it was already done, which tells me you had plans. If that’s true, then what happened to them? Because that would explain this ‘my goldfish just jumped out of the bowl’ thing you have going on.”
“Really? Goldfish?”
“Yeah, goldfish. You aren’t crying, so it’s not one of your thousand fictional cats,” she laughs. “People don’t get as attached to goldfish unless they’re like six.”
“Fair enough,” I sigh, collapsing back into my chair. “Dinner was for Lance. He was supposed to come over but I got this short text that he ‘couldn’t make it’ and then my return message wasn’t delivered.”
“So, you think he shut his phone off.”
“Yup. Or it died, I guess, but …” I flex my neck, that half-cringe thing people do when they’re working something out in their heads that I never understand. It’s like the universal delivery, the same as opening your mouth to put on mascara.
The honest way of answering that question has me one step closer to needing the toilet. I’ve been in an anxiety spiral since seeing the app earlier today, but then with Chrissy calling and Lance calling and his phone dying, it’s all adding up to more than I can handle and I’m clinging to reason to keep from toppling over the edge in a freak-out fest.
“What’s the rest of it?” she asks.
“Probably nothing.”
“But …”
“Can’t you let it be?” I laugh, a nervous energy in the words that Whitney doesn’t miss.
“I wouldn’t be your best friend if I let it be. Might as well spill so we can move on to dessert.”
My eyes close and all I see is that little notification on his phone. The green square with the pink splash of color, the same icon I hit every night to talk to him for weeks.
“It’s no big deal,” I say, wiggling in my seat. “I just saw today that he still had the app where I met him. Well, where Nerdy Nurse met him.”
She lifts a brow. “Do you still have it?”
“I deleted it after we went to my mom’s. There was no agreement to delete it. I mean, we aren’t even in a place where that’s a conversation we’re having, you know?”
“But you feel like maybe it was an unspoken agreement?” she asks guardedly.
Groaning into my hands, I try to settle myself. “Apparently, but I shouldn’t.”
“You aren’t wrong to feel this way.”
I hear her but I don’t hear her.
“Maybe it’s nothing, Whit. It’s an app. It means nothing.” Scraping my teeth over the inside of my bottom lip, the words echo in my brain. Like if I hear them enough, I’ll believe them. “It means nothing.”
My friend looks at me, her head tilted to the side. “What brought this on?”
“I saw it on his phone today. It was lying there. I wasn’t snooping.” I try to reason with myself, fighting a surge of bile in my stomach. “I’m just paranoid, I think.”
“You think?” she asks, trying to override the laugh that wants to permeate the words.
“Insecure. Do you like that word better?”
“I don’t like any of them, to be honest.”
Me either.
My muscles pull tight across my back, my neck tensing as I struggle to stay even-keeled. I’m a ball of taut, twisted emotions on the inside and out and a good, loud scream is the only way I can think of to release some of the energy. But that’s what crazy people do and I’m not going crazy. Not today, at least.