Who We Could Be

by Chelsea M. Cameron

  “Oh shit, let’s do this.”

  A few minutes later she handed me a boozy frappe. That was much harder to down than when she’d just mixed it with milk, but maybe that was a good thing.

  “Oh, this is good. I’m going to get wasted.” Tessa sang the last word as she sucked the frappe through a straw.

  “Not if I get wasted first,” I said. Tessa was adorable when she had too much to drink. She got flirty and handsy and loved literally everyone. If she had too much, she would start crying about random things, like thinking about butterflies being hit by cars.

  In contrast, I was all over the place, and could get, as Tessa put it “broody.” Honestly, I was kind of hoping to drink until I forgot about TJ for a little while. I’d never been truly drunk before, I liked control for too much, so why not go for it now?

  Both of us finished our frappes, and then Tessa made more.

  “Come on, let’s go sit on the couch. I just want to snuggle with a blanket.” There she was. It did not take much for Tessa to start being silly.

  “Sure,” I said, and we took our third rounds to the living room. I sat on the couch and Tessa draped herself across my lap, covering us with a crocheted blanket one of her aunts had made.

  “Play with my hairrrrr,” she whined. I held my drink with one hand and ran my fingers through her hair with the other as she hummed softly. My body was warm and my thoughts rolled softly, like gentle waves.

  “This is nice,” I said, closing my eyes and resting my head on the back of the couch. I went slower with my third drink, and by the time the glass was empty, I was feeling pleasantly tipsy.

  Tessa sighed happily and snuggled closer to me. Her weight was warm and cozy, even though I had started to sweat.

  “I’m glad you’re not getting married,” she said, and I thought that I’d misheard her.

  “You’re glad that my fuck of a fiancé cheated on me?”

  She turned so she was on her back looking up at me.

  “No. I’m not glad about that at all. But I’m glad you found out now and not after you tied yourself to him and moved in and everything.” That was a good point I hadn’t thought of.

  “I wonder why I wasn’t enough,” I said, voicing one of the thoughts that kept spinning over and over in my head.

  “Hey, don’t you dare think that this has anything to do with you. TJ is lower than the mold on a rotting dildo covered in shit.” The more she drank, the more colorful her language got, and I couldn’t help but laugh at that one.

  Tessa touched my face and stared into my eyes.

  “You’re enough, Ford. You’re everything.” I looked down at her and I felt even warmer as something fluttered in my chest. TJ may not have loved me, but Tessa did. At least I had that. I had her, and she wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Thanks. I don’t feel like that right now,” I said.

  “I know. But you will. You’ll get through this because you’re strong and you’re amazing and I know you’re going to find someone who’s worthy of you.” I snorted.

  “You don’t think any guy is worthy of me.”

  There was chocolate on her mouth, and I thought about wiping it away, but I didn’t. “Well, that’s because no guy is.”

  She was impossible. “Tessa!”

  “I’m sorry, it’s true!” Another thing that happened when Tessa drank was that she got louder and louder. They could probably hear her in the coffee shop downstairs.

  “I need another drink. Move, please.” She rolled off me and I got to my feet, a little unsteady. Not quite at “the floor is liquid” stage, but I was on my way. Everything was sloshy.

  “How much of this do you put in?” I called to Tessa as I started pouring the brandy in the blender.

  “Enough,” was the answer.

  “Works for me.”

  SEVERAL HOURS LATER I was laughing my ass off, but I couldn’t remember why. Tessa was singing, and we were both sitting on the floor. We’d given up on the frappes and were just drinking right from the bottle, passing it back and forth.

  Someone’s phone had been going off, but we’d both been ignoring it.

  “Shut uppppp,” Tessa said, pulling out said phone and squinting at it. “Shit, my parents are being annoying.” Instead of trying to type out a message, she used speech to text and sent a reply.

  I curled up on the floor and sighed.

  “I hate him. He was supposed to be my husband. I was supposed to have a husband. Now I have to find a new husband,” I moaned. “How do you find a husband?”

  “I don’t know, Gus found me.” Tessa started giggling as if that was the funniest thing in the world, and I laughed with her because for some reason it was.

  “I have to have a husband, Cin. You’re supposed to have a husband.” That had always been my goal. I wanted to be married by twenty-five, and be having children by twenty-seven. I’d even written an essay on it and fourth grade and made vision boards and shit. That was my life, that was my path, and TJ had fucked the whole thing up.

  “You can’t have my husband. He’s mine,” she said.

  “I don’t want yours. But I need my own. Husband! Where is my husband?” I started yelling and then laughed again.

  “Husbandddddddd,” Tessa sang over and over. She rolled into me and we tangled together, laughing our asses off.

  “Tired now,” I said. “Bedtime.”

  “Sleep sleeps,” she said. “Night night.”

  We curled together on the floor and that was the last thing I remembered, falling asleep with Tessa’s hair in my face. It smelled like coconut lime.

  Five

  Tessa

  I woke up on Monty’s floor with the worst fucking hangover of my entire life. I’d also never had to pee so bad.

  Somehow, I made it to the bathroom without hurling or falling or injuring myself, but it was close.

  When I made it back to the living room, Monty was moaning as well.

  “Why did we sleep on the floor?” I asked in a whisper.

  “Too loud,” she said, and then her eyes flew wide. She was going to hurl, so I grabbed the closest trash can and held it in front of her face just in time.

  Somehow I was able to keep myself from joining her as her stomach tried to turn itself inside out to rid her body of the alcohol we’d consumed.

  I didn’t know if I’d ever felt so completely awful before. It had been fun at the time, but now I had major regrets.

  The two of us were a sorry sight for a while. We both ended up having to call in sick again, and I didn’t have to fake anything when I said I had a stomach bug. I also sent messages to my parents, but they didn’t seem too concerned. I mean, they did deal with my brothers before they got to me, so by the time I came along, they’d been through pretty much everything. I was a breeze in comparison.

  Monty and I took turns puking and nursing each other and by the afternoon, we were starting to see the light at the end of the hangover tunnel.

  I still had her phone, and she had a massive amount of messages from TJ and her parents. Somehow, they must have found out. I didn’t know who had told them, but it was only a matter of time before the whole damn town found out, and she had to deal with the gossip monsters. This was fresh, dramatic meat and they were always hungry. I was ready to put on my fucking armor and defend her to the end from them trying to devour her.

  She was hurting enough, and those fuckers didn’t need to add to it.

  “I need to deal with the wedding stuff,” she said, a cold cloth on her forehead as she sprawled on the couch.

  “Tell me who you need to contact. I can pretend to be you.” She listed it off, and I used her phone to start sending messages. I also put in asks for refunds, even though I knew what the answers were probably going to be. I didn’t give details, just that the wedding was off, and could they see it in their hearts to grant even a partial refund?

  Even though it was a small wedding, I spent a long time going back and forth with the various vendors. Th
ere really should be some kind of app for this so you could write one message and it would go to everyone and deal with the responses. Maybe I’d create it.

  “Can I have some privacy?” Monty asked when she decided it was time to call her parents.

  “Yeah, I should probably like, go home anyway.” She’d been progressively pulling away, and I knew Monty enough to know that she needed some space. I didn’t think she was in danger of being alone, so I gave her a hug and made sure to take the rest of the alcohol with me when I left so she wouldn’t get any other ideas about getting drunk again.

  “How is she?” Mom asked when I walked through the door. She was a secretary at the local high school, and my dad managed the hardware store, so she was always the first one home.

  “I mean, we got really drunk on coffee brandy and cancelled all her wedding shit, so I think she’s okay? I also have all her wedding gifts in the trunk of my car so she doesn’t have to see them.”

  Mom crossed her arms and tsked. “I can’t believe he did that to her. What a fucker. I swear, if I see his mother, I’m going to give her a piece of my mind for raising a piece of shit.” I didn’t doubt it. And if she saw TJ, I could imagine the words she’d have for him too.

  “Can you not, until I talk to Ford about it? I don’t think she wants her best friend’s mom to do that. I think she just wants it to go away right now.”

  Mom glowered, and I almost wanted to run away as if I’d done something wrong. She hadn’t raised three men to adulthood without mastering being utterly terrifying with just one look.

  “I can respect that. But just say the word and he’s done. Done.”

  “I’m sure she’ll appreciate that.”

  I put a hand to my pounding head and then flopped over on the couch. I’d been taking care of Monty and it had taken a toll.

  “You okay?” Mom put her hand on my forehead, as moms were wont to do.

  “Just tired. I couldn’t sleep at all because I was worried she was going to wake up and now I’m just exhausted.” She stroked my hair and kissed my forehead.

  “You’re a good friend, Tessa. I’m so proud of the way you care for Monty.” That made my heart swell a little bit. “How about some comfort food?”

  “That sounds great.” I closed my eyes and rested my head back on the couch cushions.

  Sure, I was a grown-ass woman, but I still loved when my mom made me a grilled cheese sandwich on sourdough and a bowl of canned tomato soup with oyster crackers on top and a glass of iced tea. Pretty much the perfect lunch combination.

  “Thanks, Mom. This is perfect.”

  I had a little more energy after I ate, but I still needed sleep, so I took a nap and when I woke up, Dad was home and watching the news from his recliner.

  “Hey,” I said, my voice scratchy. It must be late. I shouldn’t have slept so long. Oops.

  “Hey, how are you doing? I heard about Tessa, that’s terrible.” I sat up and waited for a little dizzy spell to pass.

  “Just tired. I should check on her.” I grabbed my phone from the coffee table, and I had a message from Monty, asking how I was doing.

  Fine, just took a nap. You?

  I mean, she was one the one whose life had kind of gotten blown up.

  IDK anymore. I slept a little. Not sure what I’m supposed to do now. Don’t want to see anyone, but I don’t want to be alone.

  That was a little worrying.

  Come over. My parents won’t bug you. Stay over and then you won’t have to be alone.

  If she didn’t want to, I’d go back over to her place and stay over again. I didn’t even care if I missed another day of work or got fired. I wouldn’t even need to spin a sob story about why I’d missed so many days.

  If that’s okay Monty said, as if my parents wouldn’t take her in in a heartbeat.

  Get here when you can I responded.

  “Ford’s coming over. She said she didn’t want to be alone, but she probably doesn’t want to talk about it, so can you both be cool?” I said and my parents shared a look.

  “We’ll behave,” Dad said.

  “Does she want anything? I’m happy to make dinner or heat up some leftovers.” There was no shortage of leftovers in the O’Connell house. My parents had gotten used to feeding three teen boys and hadn’t lost the habit of making way too much in anticipation that someone would come by and devour whatever it was.

  “I’ll ask when she gets here.”

  I didn’t know why I was fretting about Monty getting to the house, but she didn’t show up until nearly an hour later, and when she walked through the door her hair was still wet from the shower and, honestly, she looked like shit. Her skin was too pale, except for the red blotchy patches under her eyes and on her cheeks. The puffiness around her eyes hadn’t gone down at all. Monty always dressed carefully, but the outfit she had on was something I’d never even seen before: sweatpants that had enormous holes and a faded t-shirt from a camp we’d attended when we were ten that I didn’t even know she had anymore. On her feet were two different socks. She hadn’t even brought shoes.

  “Oh, Ford,” I said, holding my arms open. She stumbled into them and I pulled her inside.

  MONTY STAYED WITH ME for nearly a week. I woke her up and made her eat breakfast and shower and go to work. She did a lot of staring at walls and not a lot of talking, but we got over the initial hump of grief. Then it got out (I didn’t know how) about her and TJ, and then I spent my time following her around and hovering whenever she was near anyone else in case they asked her about it or gave her pitying looks. Those came, as did the whispers. Honestly, I didn’t listen to a lot of the gossip because that shit didn’t matter, but I heard it nonetheless.

  Monty was stoic through it all, but I heard her crying the guest room at night sometimes. I tried to comfort her, but she told me that she had to deal with it alone, so I just gave her a hug and went back to bed to worry about her.

  The boxes she’d taken to TJ’s showed up on her steps, and he didn’t try to contact her further. She did end up writing a message to the other girl, but she didn’t hear anything back. That was probably for the best.

  In the second week after everything, she started looking better and I even caught what I thought might be a smile or two. Always focused, she threw herself into work, volunteering for way too many things and meetings and committees to fill up her time, but I didn’t blame her.

  Her parents finding out was the roughest part. There was a lot of screaming and crying on the part of her mother and a lot of disappointed words from her dad. As if she’d been the one who’d done wrong. I’d never really gotten along with them, and they’d been pretty absent for most of her life. I would never, ever have said this to her, but they were the kind of people who got pressured into having kids because it was supposedly the right thing to do, but probably shouldn’t have.

  I was so glad when she got to get away from them when she went to college and got her own place. They pretty much sucked.

  Every night she stayed with us, I would wake up and creep to the guest room and check on her. I couldn’t help myself. I had to make sure that she was okay. I think she was beginning to get annoyed with me when I kept texting her during work to check in. Not to mention all the times I brought her coffee and food to make sure she ate.

  One week before her wedding was supposed to happen, there was a knock at my bedroom door in the middle of the night. I shot out of bed, fumbling with my covers.

  “Come in,” I thought I said, but it might have been gibberish because I was still half asleep.

  “Hey,” Monty said in a soft voice. I was instantly alert.

  “You okay?” I reached out to her and she sat on my bed. She didn’t look like she’d been sleeping.

  “Yeah, I was thinking. My honeymoon was all paid for. Hotel and everything. I can’t get the money back for TJ’s ticket,” she didn’t even flinch when she said his name, “but I could get one for you. We could go together. Get out of town for a wee
k. What do you think?”

  “Fuck yeah, I’m in.” I didn’t need to know anything else. I’d forgotten even where she was going, because I hadn’t wanted to put any thought about Monty leaving me and going off with him. Now that wasn’t happening, I was all too thrilled to take his place, so to speak.

  “It’ll be a bestfriendimoon,” I said, pulling the term out of my ass on the spot.

  “Sure, why not,” she said, and yawned. “I hoped you were going to be in. Since I can’t do much else with any of the leftover shit.” I’d helped her return the gifts to the senders. I told her she could keep them, but she wanted to stick to accepted etiquette. She could heal and grieve in whatever way worked for her. Monty had also gotten money as gifts and she had plans to donate what she didn’t return to charity, which I also had questions about, but I did my best friend thing and didn’t make any comments.

  “Okay, I should go back to bed.” Part of me wanted to reach out and stop her. To pull her into bed with me like we had when we were kids and whispering secrets late into the night under the covers, listening for my mom’s footsteps in the hallway.

  I didn’t ask her to stay, because why would I? We’d been a lot smaller when we’d shared this bed and there wasn’t a reason to do that now. She had a huge bed in the guest room, all to herself.

  I swallowed the question as she stood up and headed toward the door.

  “Night, Ford,” I said.

  “Night, Cin.” She closed the door and I breathed for a second. Her scent was still in the air for a few moments, but she wasn’t here anymore.

  THE NEXT DAY I WAS tweaking a display of Maine-centric gifts when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I jumped and turned around to curse the person out and found Monty holding a frozen coffee out to me.