When I looked at Rachel and shook my head, she laughed. “What? I’m having fun. I’ll never see these guys again.”
With our arms filled with ice cream, brownie mix, graham crackers, soup, orange juice, coffee, eggs, and bacon, enough provisions for our girls’ night in and for our “hangover breakfast” in the morning, we headed toward checkout.
“You sure you have ibuprofen at home?” Brooke asked one last time, scanning the shelves before grabbing a pack of gum and tossing it onto our pile.
“I have literally every kind of pain reliever they make,” I said confidently. “My mom sent me away with a crazy care package. It had everything in it from aspirin to Tums to Cliff bars and Gatorade. They’re all still in there.”
“Your mom’s so dope,” Rachel said. “She totally packed you a hangover-cure box, and you didn’t even know it.”
I smiled, suddenly missing my mom a little. “And I haven’t ever needed it.”
“This is going to be fun,” Brooke said with a giggle that sent us into a fit of laughter.
And it was. We spent the night baking brownies and eating ice cream until our stomachs hurt and I was forced to break into my care package to grab the Tums and Pepto-Bismol. None of us brought up Nick, and my mind wasn’t even fully focused on him. Girlfriends were the cure for everything, I decided.
When I woke up the next morning, dread consumed me. Nick was getting married today—to someone who wasn’t me. And to make matters worse, he was marrying a person I couldn’t stand. My stomach felt like it was carrying a lead balloon inside it, and my feet felt like they were encased in concrete.
“I will not fall apart. I will not apart,” I chanted softly to myself. I had decided last night before falling asleep that it would be my mantra today. I’d fake it till I made it, or however the saying went.
Or at least I’d try.
But how was I supposed to be okay with this when I wasn’t? My mind rewound to when Nick and I were just starting out, our relationship a thing of envy for all the girls at school who weren’t me, Carla included. Everyone who assumed I was just another one-month date fest for Nick realized quickly how wrong they were, and all the girls who used to wait on the sidelines for their chance with him, stopped waiting. What we had wasn’t perfect, by any means, but it was ours.
How had we fallen so far from where we once were?
How the hell had this happened to us?
I will not fall apart. I will not fall apart. Nick did this. Nick happened to us.
Nick’s a pussy. The thought came out of nowhere, and I started laughing uncontrollably. I laughed and couldn’t stop, eventually waking Rachel up.
“The hell are you laughing at?” She sat up from the couch, rubbing at her eyes. The three of us had decided to sleep in the living room last night, like a good old-fashioned slumber party.
“I don’t know.” In a heartbeat, my laughter turned to tears, and I muttered, “Shit.”
I’d been laughing so I wouldn’t cry. Now it was too late to stop—the tears were falling.
“Oh, chica, come here.” Rachel pushed up and held out her arms, pulling me in for a hug.
“I don’t want to cry. He doesn’t deserve my tears anymore,” I said as my mind ran through a gamut of emotions.
“I don’t think these tears are for him,” she said as she rubbed my back.
I pulled away and wiped at my face. “Who are they for then?”
“I think they’re for you.”
Brooke nodded. “You’re grieving. You haven’t really grieved the loss of your relationship because in the back of your mind, you were always holding on to the possibility of there being a future for the two of you. You let that go when you heard about his engagement, but today is the end.”
“It’s the nail in your guy’s coffin,” Rachel said, and their words only made the tears fall harder.
“I’ll be fine. After today I’ll be fine. I just need to get this out, I guess,” I said, my body shaking.
After a few minutes of silence, I pulled myself together and looked between them. “What time do bars open, anyway?”
When Rachel laughed and Brooke instantly looked worried, I said, “I’m kidding, Brooke.”
She looked to the ceiling and let out a sigh. “Thank goodness.”
As the day dragged on, I found myself staring at the clock on my phone more than usual. Nick’s wedding started at four thirty, and the lead balloon in my stomach grew heavier with each hour that passed.
“We have to be drinking by the time the wedding starts. I can’t be here. I have to be drowning in alcohol by then. Please. Promise me?” I begged, knowing how pathetic I sounded.
Rachel placed a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll head to the bar whenever you’re ready. But we’ll definitely be there by four, okay?”
“Okay.” I let out a long breath, feeling somewhat relieved. Apparently the cure for my broken heart was not only my girlfriends, but alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol. And I wasn’t even that much of a drinker.
We got ready together in the bathroom, and Brooke begrudgingly let Rachel do her hair and makeup. When she was done, Brooke looked gorgeous but nothing like herself, and even though I knew she was uncomfortable, but I could tell she also felt pretty.
“Thanks, Rachel,” she said as she stared at her reflection in the mirror.
“You have gorgeous skin and cheekbones, girl. All I did was accent them a little,” Rachel said with a wink.