The Worst Friend Then You Can All Lose My Number novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Boxes by the Door

Jared arrives to collect his things and Carys hands him a ledger of $6,210. Joss pays at once and warmly, and Caleb texts that the sheet already said zero before he opened it.

I slept on my sister's couch and woke up angrier than I had gone to bed.

Megan made me eggs at six in the morning.

She had just come off a night shift in the ER, and she did not sleep when she was angry either.

"He said what, in front of who?" she asked.

I told her again.

She put her fork down.

"Tell me you cancelled everything."

"Every hotel. Every pass."

"Good. Now go get your apartment back."

By nine I was in my own hallway, packing Jared's life into liquor store boxes.

His running shoes. His protein powder. The framed jersey he had never once hung straight.

Megan sat on my kitchen counter in her scrubs and puffer coat and watched me do it.

"You pay all the rent," she said.

"I know."

"He has lived here fourteen months and bought you one plant."

"It died."

"Because he never watered it."

I printed the sheet at ten o'clock.

I had kept it for three years in a spreadsheet, because I keep everything.

Every trip was in it, and every booking.

So was every time Jared had said he would get me back next week.

Four trips. Six thousand, two hundred and ten dollars.

I set the page on top of the last box.

The knock came at ten thirty.

Jared stood in my doorway with two guys from his gym, and Joss behind him with a cardboard tray of coffees.

"Morning," Joss said, softly. "I brought you a latte. Oat milk."

I looked at the cup.

It was exactly my order.

"I'm not here to fight," she said. "I only came so nobody says anything stupid. I feel awful about last night."

Megan slid off the counter.

"Then you shouldn't have filmed it," she said.

Joss looked at her, then at me.

"It was a game, Megan. It got out of hand."

"It got out of hand on your TV, in your apartment, on your phone."

"Let it go," I said.

I picked the printed sheet off the box and held it out to Jared.

"What's this?" he asked.

"What you owe me. Lisbon, Santa Fe, the cabin, and Mexico City. Six thousand, two hundred and ten dollars."

He laughed.

It was the same laugh from the couch.

"Carys. You offered. Nobody forced you to put it on your card."

"You said you'd pay me back."

"I said it to be nice."

One of the movers looked at the floor.

"Pay it today," I said, "or I file in small claims on Monday. I have every receipt."

Jared took the page and held it so everyone could see he was not reading it.

"You're going to sue me over a vacation."

"Seven vacations."

"I'm not paying for rooms you picked," he said. "Do you know what Lisbon was like? I'd have slept in the car."

"You were in the car. I was driving."

Behind him, Joss made a small noise.

"Jared, stop," she said. "She's right."

He stared at her.

She took out her phone.

"I'll cover mine right now, so it's done. Carys, I owe you fourteen hundred for Lisbon and the cabin, right?"

"Fourteen hundred and twenty," I said.

My phone buzzed in my hand.

Joss had sent it, with a note. Sorry it took so long. You're the best, always.

She smiled at me, a little wet in the eyes.

"See? It isn't hard," she said to Jared. "Just be a grown man."

Jared did not move.

For a second I almost felt sorry for her.

She had paid and apologized, and she was still standing in my hallway holding a tray of coffee.

Then Jared crumpled the page.

He dropped it on the box.

"I'm not paying," he said. "You're the one who wanted the trips. You like being in charge. You can eat the cost."

"Give me your key," I said.

"Carys."

"The key. Right now."

He pulled it off his ring and put it in my palm.

He did it slowly, so the movers could see he was being generous.

Megan held the door.

The two guys carried out the boxes.

Joss went last, with the tray.

"I'll talk to him," she whispered at the threshold.

"Give him a few days. He loves you, you know."

"He said it fine last night."

"He was tired," she said.

She touched my arm.

Then she followed him down the stairs.

I shut the door and stood there in the quiet, holding the key.

"I don't like her," Megan said.

"She paid me."

"She was the only one who did."

I did not have an answer for that, so I looked at the floor where the boxes had been.

My phone buzzed against my hip.

It was Caleb, saved in my phone as Caleb S., from a thread that had only ever been about airport pickups.

I didn't vote because I never got the chance.

Joss had already typed zero next to your name before she showed me the sheet.

She did it Friday, the day before the party.

I stared at the screen.

Another message came in while I was reading.

I should have said so in the room. I'm saying it now.

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