“Baaah.” I laughed it off. What else could I do? I had parents who loved me but didn’t really like me. At least I was Adelaide’s favorite person…until I fucked that up too. “On a brighter note, I hung out with friends from high school last night, and that was cool. Those guys act like nothing’s changed. I’m still the gangly, doofy kid they grew up with, and I like that. They’d throw themselves off a building before they asked for an autograph.”
“I bet they wouldn’t say no to concert tickets.”
“Yeah. Maybe not. But that’s strictly because they think Iris is hot.”
Her easy little giggle loosened the knot of worry in my gut. If she was laughing with me, smiling with me, she wasn’t all the way broken.
“Sheishot, so I don’t blame them.”
“I don’t either.” I ran my hand down my abdomen, resting on my belly. “When I was out with my boys, I saw Molly. She was there, at the bar, with her friends.”
Adelaide stilled. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. That was my first time seeing her after all these years. Brought me right back to the last time.”
Made me queasy, if I was being honest. I rubbed away the ghost of the ship-caught-in-a-storm feeling from my gut.
“Did you talk to her?”
“I thought about it, but I couldn’t stop looking at her. It really felt like I’d stepped back into the past. Back then, after she cut me off, if I’d seen her, I would have had a thousand things to say to her.”
She blinked a few times. “You couldn’t stop looking at her?”
“Yeah. Seeing her made me feel like I was nineteen again. When I was so fucking in love, I lived and breathed for that girl. It was an emotional Taser, zapping all cognizant thought right out of me.”
There was no response from Adelaide. She had her head turned, watching me, an inscrutable expression on her face.
“She gave me a tiny wave, like we were neighbors or something. Her group left the bar like twenty minutes after they arrived. It was so fucking obvious she left to avoid talking to me. Just like when she blocked me back in the day.”
I scoffed. It’d been a long, long time, but I still couldn’t believe she’d chosen to go out like that, leaving me with a broken heart and questions I’d never know the answer to.
“Maybe I was a shit boyfriend, I don’t know. Why else would she have ended it the way she had? It had to be me. Ithadto be. I haven’t been able to keep a relationship going since then. Common denominator is me. I gotta think that’s why Molly, to this day, can’t stand the sight of me. I was no good at loving her, and I had no idea how bad I was doing.”
“Or maybe she’s a bitch,” Adelaide offered. “What she did to you was extremely cowardly and unforgivable.”
My rebuke was sharp and knee jerk.
“Don't say that shit about Molly.” Adelaide winced hard, like I’d raised my hand to her or something. My remorse came ever faster than the rebuke. “Sorry. Christ, I’m sorry for snapping. This is why I don’t talk about her. Istilldon’t have my head on straight when it comes to her.”
The shift was subtle, but I was as aware of her as I was of myself, so I didn’t miss it. “Honestly, I think we’re both tender right now. I’m kind of at my limit for the day.” She rubbed her chest like it physically hurt.
“Baddie—” I grabbed her hand before she could keep it from me.
“Adam, I’m not mad at you. You don’t have to say anything else. I think I just need to go to sleep so this day can be over.”
“Okay. I get that. I’m sorry I added to it.”
She sighed and fell into me, curling her arm around my middle. “You didn’t…well, except for a minute ago when you were a dick. You’ve been everything I could ever ask for in a bestie.”
I hooked my arm around her neck and pressed my face into her curls. The house I went to in Chicago wasn’t home. It was my past, my history. I’d always go back, but it wasn’t where I was myself. Home wasn’t even a place anymore. Baddie was home. Her girl-powder scent and rainbow lips and landmine feelings and fluffy dresses were my sigh of relief.
She sent me back to my place, and in the quiet of my too-big apartment, I took out my guitar and made some noise. After a while, noise turned into music. And music turned into something like a song.
Once the notes formed into something real, I had to get them exactly right.
Because they were for her.
The words weren’t there yet, but she was in the music.
I scrawled in my notebook and recorded myself playing, committing this creation to eternity.
I played until the sun rose. Exhaustion had me listing, close to falling down and passing out.
Setting down my guitar, I picked up my pen, wrote one word, then gave in to sleep, stretching out on the couch.
In my overtired delirium, I grinned at the word scrawled on top of the notes neatly lining the page.
Home.
Baddie’s Songjust didn’t have the same ring to it.