“I’m so scared, Carter,” I tell him honestly.
“I know, babe. Me too.”
He keeps his arm slung over my shoulder as we move to the wall, resting our backs against it as we sit side-by-side with our knees pulled up to our chests. I can see some relief in Carter’s face as we sit here in silence. It’s like he just needed to scream and rage and get it out of his system in order to feel normal again. I wish I could do the same. No amount of trashing a kitchen is going to make me feel better, though.
I hear the front door open and shut and a few seconds later, Jim and Drew stick their heads in the kitchen, staring wide-eyed at the mess.
“Dude, have you been snorting cocaine without me?” Drew asks as he eyes the flour coating Carter’s jeans.
“Why are you wearing shorts? Last time I checked it was twenty degrees outside,” Carter asks him.
Drew waltzes up to us and sticks one of his legs in front of Carter. “Touch it. Go ahead, touch it.”
Carter shakes his head back and forth and tries to move away from Drew’s leg. Drew just sticks his leg closer to Carter’s face until it’s practically touching his mouth.
“TOUCH IT!” Drew shouts.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?! I’m not touching your leg!” Carter argues.
Drew bends over, running his hand up and down his leg and I swear I hear him purr. “Oh, yeah, silky smooth.”
“What in the hell is happening right now?” I ask Jim, who’s standing right behind Drew, shaking his head.
“Our friend decided to shave his legs in support of Claire. Don’t ask,” Jim tells me.
“I totally get why chicks do this,” Drew mutters. “I can’t stop touching myself.”
“Please tell me you didn’t shave your legs,” I tell my husband.
He sits down next to me on the floor and shrugs. “Nah, my legs are still hairy. My balls on the other hand…”
“You shaved your balls?” Carter asks, leaning forward to look at Jim.
Drew nods, his hands still running up and down his leg. “Yep, Jimbo totally shaved his nut sack. His bathroom now looks like someone killed Sasquatch. You know, if Sasquatch was covered in pube hair.”
“Uh, did you guys do this together or something?” I ask in disgust.
“Are you kidding? That would be totally gay,” Drew scoffs.
“And shaving your legs isn’t?”
He just shrugs. “I figured we should do something in honor of Claire and I also heard that you can donate your hair to cancer patients so they can make wigs out of it. How cool would it be if someone was wearing my leg hair on their head?”
“That is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard. You can’t donate leg hair, idiot,” I tell him.
“Why the fuck not? I’ll have you know my leg hair was long and flowing. It would make a beautiful wig.”
Carter laughs and even though the idiot I married and his friend are morons, at least they managed to make Carter laugh, which is exactly what I’d hoped for when I sent them a text.
“Don’t laugh, dude. It’s your turn now,” Jim states.
“I’m not shaving my legs and for your information, my balls have been silky smooth for years,” Carter informs them.
“Oh, you’re not going to shave anything on your body,” Drew says with a smile, pulling a pair of battery operated clippers from his back pocket. “Find your pussy.”
Carter and I look at Drew in confusion until a few seconds later we hear a small “meow” from the corner of the room and Drew’s face lights up with a huge smile.
“No. Absolutely not. You are NOT shaving Claire’s cat,” I tell them.
The guys sit perfectly still, looking back and forth between each other and I have a moment of hope that Drew was just kidding and that my husband and Carter aren’t stupid enough to do something like this.
My hope is short lived, though. The poor cat lets out another “meow” and all three guys scramble up off the floor, shoving and pushing each other out of the way as they chase the cat through the house. Figuring there’s no point in chasing after those morons, I start cleaning up the kitchen while listening to the guys screaming and laughing all through the house. Eventually, I hear the whirr of the clippers starting up and Drew lets out a war cry. “LONG LIVE SHAVED PUSSY!”
Thank God for good friends. Even though they have brains the size of peas, at least they got Carter’s mind off of things for a few seconds. I wish the same could be said for me. I wish I could let my friends distract me and remember all the other stupid, silly things we’ve done together, instead of the sadness that is consuming our lives right now. I wish I could go back to a time when I actually knew how to make things better for my best friend.
Twenty-five years and nine months ago… D-Day. Or is it P-Day?
“REMIND ME AGAIN why we decided to major in business? This business math bullshit is for the birds,” I complained as I walked into our dorm room and tossed my backpack on my bunk. “Someone needs to get it through these professors’ heads that we will NEVER need to use algebra to find X at any time other than in college. X can go fuck himself right in the face if he gets lost or can’t figure out who he is.”
When Claire didn’t immediately reply back with an “Amen, sister!” I knew something was wrong. I saw her car parked downstairs, so I was pretty certain she was here. I’d been a shitty friend lately, not spending enough time with her since Jim decided to fuck with my head and my heart and I happily went along for the ride. I finally put my foot down today and told him I needed to spend some time with my girl. She’d been acting weird the last few weeks and I didn’t like it.