Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93785 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93785 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Because she will ask, and she will make it weird. They all will. And so far, they all have.
I woke up this morning to headlines that Drake was cheating on me with a model from Argentina. His face is plastered everywhere alongside a beautiful woman with a body capable of stopping traffic. He saw it before I was out of bed and called me to explain that he knew her once upon a time and hadn’t talked to her in years. Even if he had, he hasn’t spoken to her since he met me, so how is it any of my business?
Unfortunately, the world thinks it’s their business, and I can’t log on to Social without seeing post after post speculating on my emotional downfall. Fun times.
“Thanks for taking my call, Gianna. And for what it’s worth, I’m Team Gianna. Real girls stick together.”
I close my eyes. Lord help me.
“But what I need to know is who to trust,” Claudia says. “My friends or my heart?”
“I’m gonna need a little context, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure. So I’ve been dating this guy for about five months now. I’m in love with him. He checks all the boxes, and I gave him a thorough interview before we even started dating to make sure that I wasn’t wasting my time. He had potential, so we started seeing each other, and I fell madly in love with him. The problem is that my friends hate him.”
“Ouch. Do we know why?”
“Not really. One says he has bad vibes, which—what does that even mean, right? The other says he’s controlling, and that I’ve changed since we started dating, which I don’t understand. But we’re supposed to grow up and learn and evolve, aren’t we? So even if I have changed, that’s growth.”
Claudia already knows the answer. Her boyfriend needs to go. She’s just hoping that by some miracle, I’ll agree with her, and she can use that as justification when her friendships fall apart.
Francine gets one less Christmas present for putting this call through.
I take a deep breath. “Let’s start with your friends. How long have you known them?”
“I’ve known both since middle school. I’m twenty-three now.”
“Are they in relationships?”
“Yes, they both have boyfriends.”
“What are their relationships like?”
“Good,” she says. “One just got engaged, and the other is seeing a guy. It’s pretty new, but she seems happy.”
“All right. Tell me about your guy. What’s he like? What do you do together?”
“He’s gorgeous,” she says, her voice loaded with excitement. “He’s from a nice family. He loves dogs and has two rescues, Tequila and Sunrise.”
My brows pull together. For being so in love with someone, the best thing you can come up with is that he’s from a nice family and has two rescues … with those names? Not that he tells her that she’s pretty, that he’s nice, or that he loves her and takes her on trips to see the actual sun rise?
Not a good start.
“What is he like to you?” I ask.
“Oh, he’s great. We hang out in his shop a lot because he works so much. He’s a mechanic and owns a shop with his best friend. He takes me to Zeroes every Friday for date night,” she says, as if taking her to a biker bar is the sweetest thing in the world. “He had this big party planned for my birthday, but he got sick the night before, so he had to cancel. I was so touched that he took the time to do that for me. Guys don’t do that.”
Apparently, he doesn’t do that either, Claudia.
This is as bad as I figured it would be, and the only good thing about it is that it proves my intuitions are correct. None of this passes the vibe check. Her friends are undoubtedly seeing the big red flags waving in the air—the same ones that I see all the way over here—because they’re not looking at it through an emotional lens.
Claudia’s guy is in this for himself. Every choice from where they hang out to where they go on dates—it all benefits him. Maybe he has good qualities, but she’s not sharing them with me. And canceling her party because he can’t go?
Drake would never.
“I have two best friends—shoutout Astrid and Audrey— and because they’re my best friends, I value their opinions. I believe they want what’s best for me. If I didn’t, they wouldn’t be my best friends. So if they were telling me that they noticed a change in me for the worse, I’d think about that. If they had concerns for my happiness, I’d listen. Because who wants more for me than my girls? Real girls stick together. Isn’t that what you told me?”
Claudia sighs. “Yes, and you’re right. I do listen and trust them. But if they were really my best friends, wouldn’t they try to like him? Because they’re not giving him a chance.”