Since Forever Ago

by Olivia Besse

  “Really?” Max asked with a frown. He knew very well how uptight and downright hostile Liz was, so he was more than a little surprised that she hadn’t authored an exposé on his adulterous ways or set fire to the guy’s car yet.

  “Yea, she’s being really weird about it,” Riley told him with a shrug. “But whatever. I’m going to drag her out tonight to meet some new guys. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky,” she added, letting out an incredulous laugh.

  Max looked over curiously, only to find that Riley was holding up an entire handful of the condoms that had been shoved into her bag. “Can you believe that the nurse gave me so many of these?” she asked with another cackle. “I bet I have, like, a hundred of them in here!”

  Max’s face immediately clouded over as she said this, his mind racing with unpleasant thoughts as he turned his eyes back to the road. What the fuck? What kind of irresponsible nurse hands off a year’s supply of condoms to one patient? I’m going to have to write a letter of complaint to the clinic’s director.

  “At least I’ll have a partner in crime now,” Riley babbled on as Max began to silently draft the angry letter in his head. “Get some double dates ready for us, okay? It’s going to be so much fun,” she concluded with another laugh, lazily flinging one of her billion condoms at Max. “I bet it’s going to be like Sex and the City!”

  Did I say letter? he grumbled to himself, glaring down at the condom that had landed in his lap. I meant a fucking fifty-page report.

  Eleven

  “Pass the fucking bag.”

  Riley let out a grunt of acknowledgement as she lazily kicked the bag of Kettle Corn across the sofa in Liz’s direction, shoveling a palmful of tortilla chips into her mouth as she cocked her head to the side and stared at the television screen. “Do you think we’ll ever meet genuinely good guys?”

  “No such thing,” Liz bitterly replied, glaring at the flustered couple sharing an awkwardly cute moment onscreen.

  Riley’s grand plan to have a wild night out on the town with her best friend had pretty much gone to shit the moment that she had entered through the front door. After Max had dropped her back off at home, she had been left alone with her own thoughts for a good ten minutes, which was apparently long enough for her to start missing Noah again.

  After all, it wasn’t like he had purposefully tried to gift her with a sexually transmitted disease. And he had said in his own words that he was just confused about everything. That didn’t mean that he no longer loved her. He could come crawling back at any time, for all she knew!

  Oh my God, he’s going to come back to me, Riley had decided as she changed into a pair of leggings and her trusty sweatshirt. I can feel it. He’s definitely coming back, she had convinced herself before proceeding to curl up on the couch next to an equally shabbily dressed Liz and a bottle of Patrón.

  “I mean, there has to be at least one male who isn’t a complete asshole in all of Los Angeles, right?”

  “Nope.”

  Riley let out a long groan as she poured out more tequila for the two of them, handing Liz one of the shot glasses before clinking it with her own. “To perpetual singledom.”

  “To perpetual singledom,” Liz repeated in a saccharine voice before tossing the lukewarm liquid back without so much as a grimace. “So much for being comfy, confident and cool, hm?”

  “My face is numb,” Riley mumbled, gingerly shaking the almost-empty bottle of liquor before settling back into her seat with a sigh.

  “As are our hearts,” Liz mused sarcastically, sprinkling a handful of popcorn onto the carton of strawberry ice cream in her lap and taking a hefty scoop.

  “How long do you think it’ll take for us to move on?” Riley wondered aloud as she stared off into space.

  “Half the length of the relationship,” Liz replied with a tiny nod. “Or that’s what everyone says.”

  “So I’m going to be stuck in a rut for three years,” Riley said in a gravelly voice before reaching over to pour herself another shot of tequila. “Holy shit.”

  “Well, technically a year and a half,” Liz offered with a shrug. “After all, you hate Noah half of the time and cry over him for the other half.”

  “True,” Riley muttered dejectedly. “But that just makes it sound like I’m some bipolar schizophrenic freak.”

  “I hate them for doing this to us,” Liz groaned. “How is it that one person has the power to completely ruin someone else’s life? Like, how is that even fair? I bet they both don’t even give a shit, either.”

  “Do you think those two are doing exactly what we’re doing and thinking about us right at this very moment?” Riley asked, turning to Liz with squinted eyes.

  “Wallowing on the couch, finishing a bottle of Mexican liquor and watching Love Actually in the dead of March?” Liz began as she let out a scoff. “I highly doubt it.”

  “You’re right,” Riley said as she frowned at her glowing phone screen. “Noah’s at some lounge in Hollywood. At some girl’s birthday party!”

  “What the fuck,” Liz blurted out, leaning over to grab Riley’s phone from her hands. “Are you seriously Facebook stalking him right now? After everything that he put you through?”

  “Not stalking,” Riley replied defensively, lunging for her phone just as Liz jerked it away. “Observing. And some stupid bitch wrote that she’d see them tonight on his wall!”

  “You’re never going to get over him if you keep watching his every move,” Liz warned, holding the phone high above her head as Riley crawled closer. “You’re just going to drive yourself crazy!”

  “I’m already crazy!” Riley shrieked, desperately reaching her arm out for her iPhone. “Give it back, Liz!”

  “Riley, this is self-destructive behavior,” Liz scolded, stretching her arm behind her, away from Riley’s reach. “Nothing good can come from tracking his exact coordinates at any given time!”

  Letting out a pathetic whimper, Riley made another attempt at grabbing for the illuminated phone, succeeding at knocking it out of her roommate’s hand. “Ha!” she cried out triumphantly as she scrambled towards where it had fallen on the floor, picking it up with a happy smile.

  In a matter of seconds, however, any trace of glee was wiped clean from her face as all of the blood drained from it in horror.

  “Oh, fuck!” Riley screeched out as she turned to Liz with a pained expression. “We ‘liked’ it!”

  “What?”

  “We fucking clicked ‘like’ on accident! I clicked ‘like’! Riley Benson ‘liked’ Katie Miller’s wall post!” Riley drunkenly babbled as she jumped up and down, frantically waving her hands as she groaned in agony.

  “Oh. My. God,” Liz mumbled as she stared back at Riley, her mouth slightly agape.

  “What do I do? What do I do?” Riley loudly demanded as her face crumpled into a bewildered mess.

  “Un-like it!” Liz barked, her eyes widened in shock. “Hurry!”

  Riley merely nodded as she quickly did what she was told, only to turn back to Liz with a frightened grimace. “Do you think he’ll still find out what happened? I mean, he’ll still get a notification, right? Or would he?”

  “Fuck,” Liz muttered, furrowing her brow as she attempted to think of a logical solution.

  “I knew we shouldn’t have gone for tequila!” Riley yelled, glaring daggers at the glass bottle on the table. “Tequila is the nectar of the devil!”

  “Un-friend him!” Liz blurted out, her face lighting up at the ingeniousness of her idea. “If you were never his friend, he’d never know! How could they send a notification about someone who isn’t your friend?”

  “Un-friend him?” Riley squeaked back, feeling queasy at the thought of losing her last lifeline to her ex.

  Liz seemingly read Riley’s mind in that moment, as she quickly added, “Here, I’ll delete Henry too. We can do it together!”

  The thought of having a partner with whom to experience such a harrowing event strengthened Riley’s resolve
, and she slowly nodded in agreement. Liz was right. She needed to get rid of every last trace of Noah if she was to transform into the strong, capable, independent woman that she claimed she was going to become. Every last trace.

  “All right,” Riley said as she let out a determined sigh before turning back towards the table. After dividing out the very last droplets of the tequila into their glasses, she handed one to Liz and firmly clinked it against her own. “To moving on,” she said as she pressed the button to confirm that she no longer wanted access into Noah’s personal affairs.

  “To moving on,” Liz repeated as she too tapped the screen of her phone with a proud smile on her face.

  Twelve

  “Ew, did you two have, like, a frat party here last night or something?”

  “Huh?” Riley mumbled incoherently as she peeled her face away from the sticky skin of the back of her hand.

  “It smells like Tijuana in here,” Audrey said with a wrinkle of her nose, flitting around the living room with a disgusted look on her face. “I thought you said that you two were going to go out!”

  “We stayed in,” Riley muttered, squinting her eyes as Audrey pulled back the curtains and sunlight flooded the room. “A quiet night at home, you know?”

  “It doesn’t look like it was so quiet to me,” Audrey commented, peering at the bags of junk food and cartons full of melting ice cream that were scattered across the floor and table.

  “Shut up and close the blinds,” Liz grumbled from where she was sprawled out on the couch. “My hangover’s killing me.”

  “Ooh, let’s go to brunch!” Audrey chirped in response, prompting both of her roommates to glare at her in aggravation. “Mimosas are what you need, not darkness!”

  “I like darkness,” Riley protested in a tiny voice as Audrey proceeded to lift her upright.

  “Did you finish the entire bottle?” Audrey gasped in surprise as she picked up and shook the empty bottle of tequila. “Just the two of you?”

  “Impressive, huh?” Riley asked with a lazy smile before letting out a yawn.

  “Very,” Audrey said with a shudder. “I can’t even have three shots of tequila without blacking out!”

  “Well, we never said we didn’t black out,” Liz told her, letting out a tired laugh. “I can’t even remember what we did after we finished binge watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”

  “I don’t even remember watching the Kardashians,” Riley said with a frown.

  “Maybe bottomless mimosas will refresh your memories,” Audrey suggested, gesturing for both of them to go into their rooms and get ready. “And hurry, because I’m starving!”

  After drowning their parched throats in cold water and knocking back a few painkillers, Riley and Liz managed to drag their asses to their rooms and change into clothing that didn’t feature elasticized waistbands. “Is it just me, or is Audrey especially hateable this morning?” Liz hissed to Riley as they lifelessly sat hunched on the hallway floor together, using all of the energy left inside of their upper arms to halfheartedly brush their teeth. “Not just you,” Riley mumbled through a mouth full of foam. “Not just you.”

  “You’re having nachos for breakfast?” Audrey asked once they had finally made it outdoors, wrinkling her nose at the greasy mess that the waitress had set down in front of Riley.

  “Don’t judge me right now,” Riley flatly replied, shoveling an entire forkful of guacamole into her mouth before looking down at Liz’s salad in distaste. Didn’t Liz know that the “five servings of vegetables” rule didn’t apply when one was hungover?

  “I just got a really weird voicemail from Henry,” Liz said with a frown, setting her phone down onto the table. “‘You know I don’t like it when you drink so much. I’m really thrown off by your behavior. Is there something we should talk about?’ I don’t have any outgoing calls in my call log, so it’s not like I drunk dialed him. Riley, what did we do last night?”

  Riley merely shrugged, staring at Liz with a blank expression. “Hell if I know.”

  “It should be illegal for emotionally unstable women to purchase alcohol,” Audrey said with a shake of her head. “There should be, like, a two-week probationary period following any messy breakup.”

  “‘Is there something we should talk about,’” Liz repeated with a scoff before angrily biting into a piece of zucchini. “Of course there’s something we should talk about, you asshole! The fact that you’re a cheating bastard, that’s what!”

  “I thought he doesn’t know that you know yet,” Riley said, scrunching her face in confusion.

  “He doesn’t,” Liz confirmed, picking her phone up again and perusing for clues. “Or, at least, I don’t think he does.”

  “Then why would he say all of that to you?” Audrey curiously asked. “That’s so random.”

  Liz’s mouth slowly dropped open as she stared at something on her screen, prompting both of her friends to exchange an inquisitive look.

  “Riley,” Liz slowly began. “What the hell happened last night?”

  “For the hundredth time, I have absolutely no idea,” Riley muttered as she bit into a soggy, cheese-smothered chip. “I don’t even have any recollection of watching TV, remember?”

  “Oh, God,” Liz groaned out miserably. “Oh my God, I’m an idiot.”

  “Don’t say that,” Audrey brightly replied. “You’re actually very smart—”

  “Look at this!” Liz shrieked out, turning her phone around and shoving it in her friends’ faces. “What the hell is this?”

  hpws it feel tp no longfer be myftiend

  I hate yoi

  Only ur mother ciuld love u

  Riley hjates ui too

  I dint even havr the fuckibg flu BY TGE WAY its nit fuckinh flu seasom

  I saw you

  Yiu cant hide

  Fyi I dint have stds no thxz ti you

  “Holy shit,” Riley whispered, staring down at the string of texts in shock.

  “Wow, your drunken texts are pretty good,” Audrey commented with an encouraging nod. “Mine are terrible. They look like they’re written in Dutch, or hieroglyphics—”

  “What the hell is all of that?” Liz repeated, her face drained of any color.

  “You know what they say,” Audrey began as she shot the two of them a pointed stare. “‘That tequila’s one chatty bitch.’”

  “Tequila changes people,” Riley quietly agreed.

  Liz’s phone vibrated to signal a newly arrived text message, prompting her to look down at it with a pained expression on her face. “He wants to have a talk with me right now,” she told them before letting out a heavy sigh. “What do I even say?”

  “Good riddance?” Riley offered.

  “Yea, weren’t you going to break up with him anyway?” Audrey reminded her. “Now it won’t be as awkward! Or maybe it’ll be more awkward. Or, I don’t know, maybe it—“

  “Ugh!” Liz groaned out, downing the rest of her mimosa before reaching over and finishing Audrey’s glass.

  “You can’t possibly be considering the idea of staying with him,” Riley said with a scoff.

  “You should talk! You want to get back together with Noah too!” Liz cried defensively.

  “That’s different,” Riley insisted, waving her hand dismissively. “We were together for a decade!”

  “For the last time, six years does not equate to a decade, Riley,” Liz said through gritted teeth.

  “Both of you, stop!” Audrey firmly instructed, frowning down at her now-empty glass. “You guys are both better than this! Why would you want to be with losers who cheat on you? You deserve to be happy!”

  Liz and Riley shifted uncomfortably in their seats as Audrey let out another huff of exasperation before continuing. “I might not have the best luck with guys, but I do know that both of you deserve to be with people who appreciate you. So don’t either of you dare think about settling for those two bastards ever again. Got it?”

  Both of them slowly nodded
their heads in agreement, embarrassed smiles creeping onto their faces. Audrey was right—why were they crying over two guys who were hardly worth their tears? Noah had completely disregarded her feelings while acting on his own selfish ones, so why was she dedicating 50% of her time to pining over him?

  Ashamed at herself for having taken so long to come to this epiphany, Riley resolutely decided that she would no longer so much as entertain the idea of reuniting with Noah. He was an untrustworthy, self-absorbed, shitty person, and it was finally time for her to accept this fact and move the fuck on.

  Riley half-listened as Audrey proceeded to give Liz a pre-confrontation pep talk that apparently required the mentions of divorce rates, Persian cats and weight gain. Pay attention, Benson! she scolded herself, forcing her ears to take in Audrey’s spiel. You don’t want to end up an overweight, cat-hoarding divorcée either!

  And, as if the universe didn’t seem to already have it out for her, Riley’s own phone let out a ringing noise as Audrey went off an a tangent about meditative yoga. Glancing down, she couldn’t help but feel as if her heart had dropped down into her stomach as her brain processed the string of words displayed on the screen.

  Noah Cohen

  Hey. Can you talk?

  Thirteen

  “It’s over,” Liz announced as she dug into her bag and threw her iceberg of a ring onto the table. “He admitted to everything. And then he had the audacity to say that he didn’t realize we were in an exclusive relationship! As if I’m the one who’s being unreasonable for getting upset!”

  After their therapeutic brunch session, Liz had dragged her feet to go perform her vehement swan song for Henry. Meanwhile, Riley and Audrey had retreated to a nearby bar to continue drinking their troubles away, as 21-year-old girls were naught to do whenever troublesome ex-boyfriends pulled the kind of preposterous shit that Noah just had. The two had engaged in a distressing game of tug-of-war with Riley’s phone, which was now locked away within the safety of Audrey’s bag, far from Riley’s bipolar reach.

  “You’re kidding me,” Riley muttered under her breath, thoroughly annoyed with every member of the male species at this point. Was the act of cheating on your girlfriend before making her feel like it had all been her fault some sort of initiation into the bastard brotherhood?