“At least we’re in agreement that we’re all going to die.”
I shook my head and laughed. “You really are miss sunshine and rainbows, aren’t you? I was murdered by a piece of shit I was dating, and I have more optimism than you do.”
“Well, it’s not like you were always the brightest. What happened to that, by the way? You drop dead and suddenly you have a brain in your skull? You’re actually forming real sentences.”
I knew she was being sarcastic, but I still wanted to beat her ass.
“I was drunk when we met. Who isn’t stupid when they’re drunk?”
“Me.”
“That’s because you’re an alcoholic,” Cora commented. Dana laughed.
“You’ve never even seen me drunk, hoe.”
“Oh, you were totally sneaking shots at the date auction in Rookridge. Don’t even lie.”
“And yet here I am. The bitch lived. Even intoxicated I’m completely unstoppable.”
“Why does that sound like a tagline for a bad comic book movie?”
“It kind of does,” Dana whispered and then bashfully giggled. It was cute how she wanted to be in on the jokes but was afraid of hurting someone else’s feelings, so was quiet about it. Priscilla probably wasn’t even able to get her feelings hurt, so Dana was wasting her kindness.
“So, is that a no on the marshmallows?” Cora asked.
“I doubt I have any, but I can look,” Dana answered.
Cora skipped back to the coffee table covered by candles and sat on the floor while Dana raided the kitchen cupboards. Cora wrapped a blanket around herself and said, “I meant to say this when we all first got back together, but I like what you’ve done to your place. It looks a lot different from the last time I was here.”
“You mean it’s clean now,” Dana said from the kitchen.
“Well, yeah. But it’s organized too. And I think this coffee table is different.”
Dana laughed. “How did you know that?”
Because Cora noticed the tiniest, stupidest stuff. I used to make fun of her for it all the time, but it’s endearing me these days.
Instead of saying that, Cora shrugged. “Just a guess.”
Priscilla raised one of the candles to her nose, and with a repulsed expression asked, “What is this scent? Chocolate cake?”
“Yeah,” Dana replied.
Cora almost fell over trying to get to her feet. “Ooh, let me smell!” She swiped the candle out of Priscilla’s hand and nearly knocked her onto her ass. I had to laugh. Cora then inhaled the candle and moaned. “Now this is the quality content I’m interested in.”
“I think you’re just hungry. When’s the last time you ate?”
“I found a pickle in your fridge and ate it. I’m gonna be really honest with you, though, I’m not completely convinced it was, in fact, a pickle, nor do I care.”
Priscilla wrinkled her nose. “What else would it be if not a pickle?”
“I don’t know, man. It crunched and it had a weird shape.”
“Let’s talk about something else. Literally anything else.” Priscilla wrapped her arms around her knees casually. “Who even buys chocolate cake scented candles, anyway?”
Dana walked out of the kitchen and shrugged. “When I light it, it smells like someone is baking in the apartment, and it makes me think of my mom. She loved to bake.”
Cora chuckled. “My mom only baked if she absolutely had to. Like for school events or family functions.” She looked at me and said, “Remember those brownies she baked for our Christmas party?”
“Were those brownies? I thought they were croutons,” I joked.
Cora loudly laughed. “Kind of tasted like them too, I won’t lie.”
It was nice that we could talk like this. Like friends. It wasn’t always like that, and I’m mostly to blame. I was a total shit to her for so long and she put up with it. Even after reconnecting, a part of me wondered why she was so willing to be friends. I never had that level of forgiveness inside of me.
“This lighter isn’t working,” Priscilla announced as she attempted to ignite a flame.
“I have another one in my desk drawer,” Dana told her.
“I’ll get it,” I said, and went straight for the only desk in the room. I pulled open the top drawer and found a scattered mess of envelopes, pictures, pens and rubber bands. I moved my hands around the clutter trying to find a lighter, when a photo grabbed my attention. I wasn’t even sure why, I just felt compelled to pick it up and look it over.
The photo was of Dana, but she looked younger and her hair was blond. She was sitting on a log by the lake with her arms playfully wrapped around a good looking woman with jet black hair and dark features. They were smiling. They looked close.
“I forgot I had that,” Dana softly spoke. She was standing beside me but I never heard her footsteps.
I felt a little awkward and I didn’t want her to think I was snooping, but she didn’t seem to care and only smiled as I held up the photo for her to see. “You were a blonde?” I asked. “I never would have guessed.”
“I was a blonde for a long time. Tiffany and Molly convinced me to try it out because they thought it’d give me confidence.”
“Did it?”
“No,” she said with a tiny laugh. “I was already uncomfortable in my skin. With this hair, I just felt uncomfortable in someone else’s.”
“If it helps, you looked good. Not that you don’t now.”
Dana bit her bottom lip and curled her hair behind her ear. “Thanks.”
“So, who was she? The girl in the photo?”
Her lashes hung low over her cheeks and for a moment she looked very sad. “Her name was Jaide. We met the summer before our senior year in high school. We were
