Ladies' Choice (re-uploading SOON)

CHAPTER THREE

At 3 am, my eyes itched. Rubbing the corners, I blinked hard and opened my dewy eyes to zero relief. Exhaustion hung across my body, and I held myself up with my elbow on my desk. One of my monitors played a DIY video on how to make my envelope out of construction paper (my fifth time watching because I had the dexterity of a four-year-old with finger paint). My second monitor played Notting Hill. It was my third Julia Roberts movie of the day. I had never seen one of her movies before, but I googled "best romcoms" and she kept popping up.

I also stumbled upon Erin Brockovich, which I quickly learned wasn't a romcom at all. However, it did teach me a lot about hexavalent chromium. This also led to a lot of googling about litigations and other large settlements.

My door clicked and my hand whipped to the corner, changing the romcom to the nature documentary I had queued up just for the occasion. "Zoey?" My mother called, peeking through my door and letting a stream of golden hallway light in. "Are you still up?"

"Uh, yeah," I made my voice light and fixed a smile to my cheeks. "I'm fixing up a work cited page."

Her face pinched with confusion and the aversion to light. She shook her head. Going back to bed was better than having this conversation. She got up earlier than me for her job. I guess we looked alike, but I didn't see it. She was tall too, taller than my dad. Her late-night fashion was a robe, slippers, her mess of a choppy pixie cut, and the look of disapproval in her eyes.

She asked, "Why didn't you do this earlier today?"

"I just wanted to do some tweaking."

My answers and explanations were quick.

I've already rehearsed all my answers.

"Well..." My mother lingered. "Go to bed soon, Zoey. You have school."

She said, like I didn't already know. Still smiling, I nodded and promised that I would go to bed. That satisfied her enough, so she finally left. Closing the door behind her, I was encased back in the darkness.

A year ago, I might reach for my phone and text my sister that mom was being annoying and pestering me too much. I might've sent her a selfie of my face, bracing the audacity of the situation. I might've walked into her room and groaned until she asked me what was wrong. Acted like a baby as much as possible until she comforted me.

But a year ago Jess was here.

A year ago I wasn't staying up at 3AM.

Looking down at my letter to Mona, the words turned into incoherent scribbles. I blinked until words started making sense again. Back to making an envelope and researching romcoms.

#

This is my plan:

1. Pick Mona up alone (Elena and Skipper have agreed to take the bus).

2. Get coffee (that I have already ordered because I memorized her order).

3. Go to school.

4. Walk Mona to class.

5. Give her my letter asking her to the dance.

The next step depended on her answer. My stomach was in knots from the moment I woke up from my two-hour nap to walking out my front door. Before I could put her address into my GPS, I noticed a text from Mona.

MONA: [Good morning 😊]

MONA: [Just wanted to tell you that Allison is picking me up today!]

Mona might as well just drop me into the middle of the ocean because I was lost. Checking the time, I took a step backwards, but changed my mind, walking down the porch steps to just go back into my house again. Going for coffee felt dumb now. I went inside for my father's famous drip that came out liquid but tasted like sludge. A pharmacist by trade, a magician in the morning.