"Holy crap! I bet you get an agent out of this," Scarlet said. "Maybe I will have another, after all. Lizzie?"
"I'm not your mom." But she got up anyways.
"I did get an offer from one," I admitted. The shrieks were deafening.
"You have an agent! You have an agent!"
"Will you remember us when you're rich and famous?"
"Wanna be roomies again in your mansion?"
"Guys. I'm not accepting." That shut them up, but only for a second.
"But … why?" Because I'd exploited Marc enough already was why. Because the very thought of Screwmates made me sick to my stomach right about now. Because I didn't even know if I could draw at all anymore. Maybe I was just broken.
"Because I never told Marc about the comic, okay? He found it on his own. And now he's staying with his mom before banging his way across a foreign country and he hates me and I hate myself and I can't exactly accept an agent's offer of representing the series I'll be deleting as soon as you people leave." Which hopefully wouldn't be until I'd had a few more drinks, because as much as I wanted Screwmates gone, it would really, really hurt to say goodbye.
Once the comic was gone, so was the only evidence of my torrid roommate affair.
Lizzie excused herself to go to the bathroom, and I told her to bring me back some tissues.
"Oh my gosh, let it out," Scarlet said.
"I'm not crying!" I was definitely crying. And the more I tried to hold it back, the harder I cried. The girls were exchanging looks again and I didn't want concern, I wanted shots. However, it was a bit difficult to understand me through the tears and the snot, so I just got up and collected glasses and the salted caramel flavor. Because it really did look delicious.
"Oh, we're onto this, then? Let me text my sitter." Lizzie had emerged, with the tissues, and just in time. I knocked one back and immediately refilled.
"You guys did not tell me how much this sucks. I blame you entirely."
"Because Little Madison finally fell in love? I'm not taking the blame on this one, sister." Lizzie took her shot.
"Plus are you serious about not knowing how much heartbreak sucks? That's literally the only thing songs and books and shit are about." Ava perched on the edge of the table and made a face at her shot glass. "I wanted Birthday Cake."
"Drink that and pour what you want," Lizzie said. "I'll take a Cake too, actually."
"You're closer," Ava said.
"Oh my God, I'm not your mom either." But she got up.
"Back to me, please," I said.
"Oh, yeah. Well, you'll go through all the steps of grieving and then emerge on the other end a stronger woman," Scarlet told me. "Wanna play Truth or Dare?"
"I'm not done being coddled, I think." Although Drunk Scarlet was a blast, because she would do any dare. Which, come to think of it, could explain her reluctance to drink very often. We'd probably never let her live down the time she streaked our high school principal's yard. But then that reminded me of the time Maddy and Markus got naked in the neighbor's yard and I teared up again.
I would miss those little cartoon perverts almost as much as I would miss my own screwmate.
"I'm just going to go back to bed now, I think. Feel free to get tanked in the living room without me," I said, standing up.
"Sit down," Lizzie growled.
"Shut up," said Ava.
"Have another!" said Scarlet, uncapping the Orange Dreamsicle flavor next.
"What are you going to do, Madison?" Lizzie asked. She liked plans. And lists.
"Well, I was planning to go back to bed, but you guys stopped me, so." I thought it was obvious.
"No. What are you going to do? Are you going to accept this? Or are you going to fight?"
"What is there to fight?" I asked. "I screwed up. Royally. Unless someone's hiding a TARDIS?" Unfortunately, I was the likeliest subject in the room to have a time-traveling police box, so I was forced to check that option off the list.
"So you screwed up. It happens. He'll calm down, and then you need to be prepared." Ava was raiding the refrigerator. A good decision, considering the rate at which we were knocking back the vodka. I hoped Marc hadn't taken the good snacks with him.
"Prepared for what? It isn't like I can just casually cruise by his mom's every day until he's receptive. Plus, even when he's calm, I doubt he'll want to talk to me." No, there was nothing to it. It was over. He was done with me, and I was just done. It was back to lonely nights at SplatScreen and lonelier days trolling Craigslist for a new roommate.
The bag of chips Ava found wasn't going to be nearly big enough for me to eat the feelings I was experiencing.
Everyone was quiet, chewing for a minute. I knew it should be comforting that they'd come over, but I just couldn't even work up any gratitude. The vodka part was nice, but them leaving so I could shower before returning to my endless Lord of the Rings-on-repeat marathon sounded even nicer.
How had I never noticed how much Ava looked like Marc before? Those deep, dark eyes, the big curls …
"Why do you look like you're in love with me now?" she asked.
"Pass the chips," I said. I didn't feel like explaining myself. I kept sneaking looks at Ava and wishing she was Marc. I was definitely, definitely broken. And the girls did not look like they were going anywhere in a hurry.
In fact, they were not going anywhere at all. A couple more drinks and a couple hours later, Lizzie's mother was taking Charlotte for the night ("Rich is working late constantly these days," she told us) and Scarlet was napping ("But I'm gonna rally when I wake up," she told us) and Ava was looking up recipes for dealing with the salted watermelon vodka ("I looked at the word salted too many times and now it isn't real anymore," she told us).
Drinking with my friends wasn't even fun anymore. I was the brokenest creature on earth.
I remembered when drinking was fun. I missed drinking with Marc. I even missed Brandon the sommelier. He didn't deserve the way I treated him. I made a note to name a character Brandon soon, and then not kill him off. It was the highest compliment I knew how to pay. If only I had come clean when Marc was nice and wasted. I could have done it that night.
I should have shared the crostini.
There were a million things I could have done differently.
On the couch, Scarlet farted in her sleep and it didn't even make me laugh. No one had ever been as broken as I. I set the bar for brokenness.
"Maybe we should order a pizza," Lizzie said. "Kick this party up a notch."
I turned on the TV and ignored everyone. Eventually they would leave and I could crawl back into my hole. For another day, anyway, then it was back to work and begging for overtime so I could try and bulk up my bank account before finding a new place to live.
I really liked this house, too. Just my luck, I'd end up in someone's basement next. Although at least in a basement I could do some printing.
Printing. I had wanted to hang prints in here. My vision got blurry as I stared at the empty walls, as barren as my heart, but I drifted off before I had a chance to start sniffling again.
The Dream was back, but this time, the ink splotches on my arms were whispering to me as I walked down the halls of my alma mater nude.
"You weren't good enough for him."
"Your boobs are too small."
"Your comic sucks."
I looked down at my final project, and it had turned into an oil painting of his face on a giant penis. Even in my dream, I was pissed.
A penis? Really? I had worked long and hard (ha ha) on that project. And my boobs were a perfectly acceptable mouthful. And my comic was actually awesome. I'd earned those followers, I'd only screwed up my reactions to everything.
I woke up with a start, and ran for my computer. It wasn't on my desk where I was certain I'd left it. It wasn't anywhere in my room. I started to hyperventilate a little. Had I been robbed? Did we all get too drunk and robbers just tiptoed in and grabbed the computer? But no, the television was still there, and so were the assorted vodkas.
"Looking for something?" Lizzie stopped me in the hall, laptop under her arm.
"Give me that." I wasn't in the mood for games.
"I'm not giving you shit," she hissed. Turned out she wasn't in the games mood either. "I am not going to let you throw away the career you've always dreamed of over a man. You aren't getting this back until you are ready to behave like a grownup, Madison."
"Okay," I said.
"What?" I think she was expecting a fight. But it turned out broken just wasn't really compatible with my natural optimism, and nervous or not-I'd already done the scariest things I could think of when I put my art online for strangers and told my sex thing I loved him.
"I said okay. I'm ready to be a grownup. And I need to accept that agent's offer before she gets bored of waiting for me." I hoped she wasn't already. I had no idea how agents worked, but I bet they didn't expect to be ignored.