"Sel."
Selene groaned and rolled over on her queen-sized mattress. Cold Vancouver air filtered through the window and hit her bare legs and shoulders. Her black grid duvet spread over some of her body and spilt onto the floor. "What the fuck Zoë?" she asked her best friend. "Get the eff out of my house."
"It's an emergency."
"You know where I keep my tampons," she waved her off, wanting to get back to sleep.
Her best friend let out a whine, aggressively shaking her awake.
"What?" she asked, burying her face in the pillow.
It was a Saturday morning. The one day she could sleep in until noon when she would get up and go to Zoë's house where they would do homework together.
"Declan broke up with me."
Well shit.
Selene craned my neck to look at her.
Zoë's dark eyes, a shade of brown so deep it was hard to distinguish between the iris and the pupil, filled with tears.
She immediately woke up and pulled her onto the bed and into her arms at the same time.
The pastel-haired girl wrapped her arms around her best friend's shoulders as she sobbed.
Declan Grey and she had been together no longer than nine months and in that time, Zoë had not only fallen for him but given her virginity to him. Everyone had been talking about how she had changed him from his player ways and how they would probably date until at least graduation.
Selene held her tightly, her pastel pink hair momentarily blocking her vision.
She had always thought Zoë was much prettier than her. If the Chinese girl's pastel pink hair didn't turn eyes it was her smooth and blemish free olive skin, mesmerizing curves or her bubbly personality. While Sel had to spend the past year, working out to maintain a size five figure that was slipping between her fingers, Zoë, on the other hand, was incredibly skinny despite her often pigging out.
As she held her, she breathed in the scent of lavender. A scent that seemed to follow her as there was always lavender incense burning in her house. Her hand ran over Zoë's dyed hair as she muttered that everything was going to be alright and that Declan was a piece of trash anyways.
Her heart ached for my best friend. Though she had never approved of Declan, he had made Zoë undoubtedly happy.
"What happened?" she asked once she was sure that Zoë had calmed down enough. Though she pulled away, she kept a hand on her ripped jean-covered knee to comfort her.
"He just," she paused, taking a gulp of air, "he just said that he was done, that he didn't want to be with me anymore and some bullshit about there being way too many differences between us and how he wants to focus on school. Which makes no sense because he wants to take a year off after graduation anyways."
"What a prick." She squeezed her best friend's knee. She reached over to her nightstand and plucked a tissue from the box. It was quickly emptying due to the fact that she cried at practically every character death in any show she binge-watched.
Zoë mumbled a quick thank you as she took the tissue and dabbed under her eyes. Her best friend did not look her best, her eyes were swollen and puffy, her entire face red from crying along with her eyes.
She hugged her best friend again, unsure of what to say in this situation. Though tears practically flowed from her eyes, Zoë rarely ever cried.
"Want me to cut off his balls?" she asked.
Zoë shook as she laughed. "No, but thank you."
"No problem." She stood. "Come on, ice cream always helps." She tugged down the silk camisole she had worn to sleep and adjusted the matching shorts.
They headed downstairs, Selene's fingers in her hair as she unbraided her Dutch braids.
Her dad sat at the kitchen island, sipping coffee from a mug that proclaimed he was the world's best dad which she had gotten his far too many Father's days ago. Her dad's hair was black and thick, parted to the side of his face, his glasses on his nose. Her father had gotten her mother pregnant when he was barely eighteen and her mother about sixteen, though he had done a great job at raising her even after her mother had given up custody. He was just in his mid-thirties with pale skin that matched his daughter's and the same brown-green eyes.
"Good morning girls," he greeted, his slender fingers typing on his MacBook.
"Hi, Mr Calloway," Zoë greeted back.
He used his head to gesture to the oven. "Carter made breakfast, eggs and bacon," he said, talking about his boyfriend. "And I made coffee, though I doubt that helps at all."
A smile graced her lips and she kissed the stubble on her father's cheek as she headed to the oven. "Merci."
Sensing they wanted to be alone, her father got up and headed to his office.
"Tell me when Carter gets back from the gym," he told her.
She nodded.
Carter was half a decade younger than her father, still pursuing the last year of his PhD while her father had already established his place as superintendent of her school board.
After setting up two plates and evenly distributing the greasy meal between them both, they sat at opposite sides of the island and begun to eat.
Selene had finally taken her hair out of the tight plaits and her hair fell into loose waves around her face. The dark brown highlighted with a golden blond she had gotten done a few weeks prior, the colour slowly growing on her.
"So when did he do it?" she asked carefully, not wanting to Zoë to cry again.
"This morning," she said, scooping up eggs with her fork. "I stayed over last night and he broke up with me this morning."
"You stayed the night and he broke up with you in the morning?"
Zoë's cheeks coloured pink.
"No, Zo," she sighed.
"Hey, I wouldn't have sucked his dick if I knew he was dumping me."
"Christ."
"Don't judge me."
"Never did, never will," she responded easily. Her image of Zoë had never changed throughout the years that they had been friends, meeting at summer camp in middle school and keeping contact up until they had gone to the same high school and started seeing each other practically every day.
Zoë smiled back at her, an endearing gap between her front two teeth showing.
"Plus I've done much worse," she added. One incident during her freshman year was enough to make her swear off boys until university.
She quickly changed the topic when she saw a pitiful frown form on Zoë's face. "We have to make him pay," she said. "No one gets to break my best friend's heart and get away with it."
Zoë raised a thick brown eyebrow, intrigued by the prospect. It went up so far it almost hid behind her pink bangs. "What do you have in mind?"
She shrugged. "I still say chop off his balls."
"Jesus Christ," Carter said.
They hadn't even heard him enter but he walked past them, heading to the fridge for a bottle of water, his dirty brown hair sticking to his forehead with sweat.
He took large gulps, half of the bottle done when he lowered it from his lips. He ran the back of his hand over his lips to wiped away droplets. "Who pissed you off?" he asked.
"Declan," Zoë responded.
"Grey?"
"The one and only," she answered.
"Aren't you dating him?" he asked Zoë.
"Up untilâ" she checked her phone for the time "âtwo hours ago."
Carter winced. "I understand chopping his little Declan now."
Selene snorted. "We would but, I don't look good in those orange jumpsuits."
"Well," he said, "living your life, is the best revenge. Being successful, moving on; that will kill him."
"That takes too long, I don't have that kind of patience."
Selene laughed and headed over to the freezer to make sure they had Zoë's favourite ice cream stocked up. She had figured that after she showered and changed and they had started their homework, they could binge on the raspberry goodness.
Two unopened pints of the sour raspberry ice cream stood proudly.
"Dad wanted to know when you came back," she said, closing the freezer door. "He's in his office."
"Thanks," Carter nodded before heading to the office. "Good luck Zoë."
Her thanks were mumbled as he left, Zoë too enthralled with her phone.
"What's up?" she asked.
"Give me your phone," Zoë demanded.
"What's going on?" she asked as she headed for the counter.
She usually left her phone to charge in the kitchen overnight, knowing it would distract her far too much if it was just at her bedside. There were no trust issues with her father or Carter looking at her phone as they frankly didn't care. She unplugged the charger from the outlet next to the coffee maker then the white cord from the phone and slid it across the granite to Zoë.
Zoë didn't have to ask for the password, their passwords were the other's birthday so it wasn't hard to remember.
"I knew it!" Zoë exclaimed. "The fucker blocked me on Instagram."
"Declan?" she asked, heading for the other side of the island to see.
Zoë nodded. "That freaking prick. I'm watching his Insta-story, do you mind?"
She shook her head as she stood behind her best friend, Declan's page on the screen. "Go ahead."
She pressed on the circle of his profile picture, the story loading before it opened.
A girl with a million tiny tight-looking braids in her hair, held his phone as she posed with Declan in the background. His eyes weren't on the phone and his mouth was slightly open as he talked to someone out of frame. The next story was a video, the brown-skinned girl smiling as she aimed the camera at Declan to gain his attention. When she had finally caught it, he smirked, one corner of his lips lifting. The clip had no audio.
The top of the screen showed that it was from only twenty minutes before.
"Fuck me," Zoë groaned.
"What? Why? Who is she?"
"That's one of his ex's."
She blinked. "You're going to need to be more specific."
"Nyx, the one who goes to that all girl's school."
"That's Nyx?" she asked, leaning in. She tilted her head. "She has great boobs."
Zoë rolled her eyes. "I know, she was sending Declan nudes the entire time we were together."
Her eyebrows rose. Dating in high school was so complicated. After losing her virginity freshman year to a senior, she had sworn off boys until university which was really for the best looking at Zoë's situation.
"And Declan didn't block her?"
"Their families are friends, there's no way to block her without their parents getting involved. His parents didn't even like us together and there's no way to prove that she's sending him nudes because it was snapchat."
"Shit."
"Yeah, and it looks like it was working."
She took her phone back when Zoë handed it back to her.
"He's such a prick," she mumbled, her eyes watering. "I should have listened to you. He's such a player."
She frowned upon seeing her best friend cry and quickly headed to the freezer to get the pints.
They would just have to be eaten earlier than planned.
She sat back down and they dug into the sweet cream at the same time.
"You know what the worst part about this is?" Zoë asked.
She raised her head but said nothing, knowing that silence was better when Zoë wanted to rant.
"He doesn't give a single fuck. I told him I loved him, Sel. I lost my virginity to him. I thought he felt the same way but clearly not. I'm just another person for him to screw over and I was stupid enough to fall into it."
"He's going to pay."
Zoë snorted bitterly. "No he's not, he's invincible. We could ruin his reputation but that wouldn't even hurt him the tiniest bit."
"No one's immune to heartache," she said.
Zoë glanced at her, spoon halfway to her lips. "What are you saying?"
"We break his heart. Make him feel a fraction of the pain he put you through."
Her best friend smiled. "Have I mentioned I loved you recently?"
She shook her head. "But its fine, I already know."
A/N:
Welcome to the first chapter of HTBAHB.
Happy Valentine's Day. I hope you loved this chapter and enjoy the rest of the novel.
Any predictions yet? Share them in the comments.
See you next week with a new chapter.
MWAH. LUV YA. BUH-BYE.