The Heart-to-heart

Sabrina had been glaring at me from her place on the couch while aggressively crunching on the nectarines from the plate on the coffee table beside her. After she arrived at my apartment with an obscene amount of take out—all of which we ate—I was pressured into telling her who was wanting to meet her so badly that they'd have me call her in the middle of a 'jam sesh'. 

No matter how hard I'd tried to avoid her question and make it seem like it was just another fan of hers, she'd managed to corner me and reminded me of the fact that she wasn't well known in Los Angeles, which is where I'd mentioned that Andrew was from. Eventually I caved in. When Sabrina threatened to cut off her ear and frame me for it, I spilled all of the details of what happened with Andrew's visit to my office. 

When I say all the details, I mean every. Single. Detail. I told her about how Andrew and I used to be friends while I was dating Jason, and I told her about all the times he'd lied to my face while covering for him. Sabrina was displeased, to say the least. She understood why I didn't want them to meet, but she was still pissed off about how I'd been so nice to him. 

I told her my theme was to kill them with kindness, to which she replied by saying "bullshit" and that was that. 

"I just don't get it. You've always been so careful and now you're throwing it out the window," Sabrina was sitting on my sofa with a box of pad Thai noodles in her hands looking woefully at my tv which was playing Stranger Things on mute. I sighed for the umpteenth time, heavily regretting ever telling her that tomorrow would be my first day buying groceries for my boss. 

"It's literally not a big deal, Sab. He won't even be home!" 

"Then how do you expect to get in?" Even without looking at her, I could tell that she was staring at me, and the longer I kept silent, the harder she stared. I didn't know how to tell her that he'd given me a key to his town house so I could get in if his maid wasn't home. If she found out, she'd eat me alive.

"He has a maid," I shrugged casually and shovelled fried rice into my mouth to avoid answering any further questions. Sabrina was more intelligent than me by a million percent, and I'd forgotten that she knew when I was lying to her. 

"Your ear twitched, you're lying." 

'Dammit Amaria, you honest fool!

"He does have a maid!" I defended myself urgently, "she'll be the one to let me in!" It was technically the truth, so the nerves in my stomach were absolutely pointless. 

"He gave you a key, didn't he? That's why you're not looking at me. Oh my god, he absolutely gave you a key!" She scoffed and took a big bite of noodles. "Unbewiebable." 

I could only sit silently as she droned on angrily with a mouth full of noodles. I knew Sabrina was only looking out for me, which is why the will to protest wasn't in me, and yes, I knew that I was basically walking into the lion's den, but what was I supposed to do? This felt like a step in the right direction for me, so I took it. 

"It's the right thing to do, Sabrina." 

My best friend became silent and just sat there looking at me. She knew me so well, and she knew how I operated. I wasn't as intelligent as she was, but strategy was my forte—hence, my job— so she knew I could keep myself from being hurt again. 

"Whatever. You owe me a bikini shopping trip," she grabbed my remote and turned up the volume of the show. Eleven's voice filled the emptiness of my living room. "And we need to get you a new bathing suit too." 

"For what?" My closet already had an area full bathing suits, I was sure that there was no need for a new one. 

"The vacation, remember?" Sabrina reached towards the coffee table and grabbed the sriracha bottle. She had an unhealthy addiction to putting sriracha on everything, and it inherently ruined the taste of whatever she was eating. "I've decided to tag along this year." 

"Really?" That was new. I invited Sabrina every year the opportunity to go became available to me, and she always turned me down. For her to want to go all of a sudden seemed suspicious. "Why?" 

"I need some away time from New York with Luke. We haven't been seeing much of each other lately." 

The sad tone in her voice made me feel for her. "I keep telling you to just move in together, but nooooo, you need your own space," I chucked a piece of carrot at her, which she caught perfectly in her mouth. 

"I'm a very independent person, I can't share a bathroom with someone," the very idea of it made her shiver. "No thank you. This is why I'm never getting married." 

"Well we're not getting any younger," I stabbed a piece of chicken and bit into it. 

"Which is why I'm hoping Jack is the one? I need nieces and nephews." 

"Don't be ridiculous," I rolled my eyes at her. "You're the one who will give me nieces and nephews. I'm done trying to have children." 

"You're not done until I say you're done, you hear me? You're twenty-nine, for goodness sake, you still have time." 

"So do you," was my counter. The secret here was that Sabrina really wanted children, whereas I, did not. The only reason I wasn't an aunt was that Sabrina wanted to make sure her relationship was stable enough for when she began to try. She was too intelligent to bring a child into the world without cementing all her bases. 

"I'm thirty-one, I'm running out of time as we speak," she snorted and continued eating her pasta. It was just like her to underestimate herself. "Besides, I don't think Luke wants kids, so I have to figure that part out." 

I liked Luke, but their relationship was wobbly and he seemed to have no interest in fixing it. The fact that they were sleeping with other people meant nothing on their emotional grip on each other, but Sabrina was the only one who seemed to understand that. 

It made me feel for her. She had too much on her plate to be dealing with by herself, and it made me feel bad for being a terrible best friend. Here I had been, with my petty ex-boyfriend problems, and there she was, not once complaining even though there was nothing Sab hated more than uncertainty. 

"You're staying the night, right?" I asked her, reaching into her container for some noodles before settling back into my seat. 

"Of course, you're not getting rid of me yet."