Written in the Stars(89)

Margot grabbed the sides of Elle’s face, forcing Elle to meet her stare. Margot’s throat jerked and she blinked fast. “You do. You absolutely do, you hear me? And honestly, you probably have lots of perfect people. Look at us. You’re one of my perfect people. You’re my best friend, Elle. You’re my family.”

Shit.

“Margot.” Elle’s nose stuffed, her throat burning like she swallowed sandpaper.

“And you don’t need to change a single thing about yourself for anyone, okay?” Margot cocked her head, black hair curling against her neck. “Okay, you need to shower and, like, open a window to air the apartment out because it smells rank in here, but other than that, you don’t need to change a damn thing.”

Elle coughed out a weak laugh.

“You deserve someone great, Elle. Someone who loves you for exactly who you are, as you are.” Margot stretched, snagging a fistful of tissues from the table. She pressed the whole bunch into Elle’s face, making her laugh a little stronger.

Wiping the tears from her face, Elle scooted to sitting. “I get it.” She touched the side of her head with the pads of her fingers before tapping her chest. “But when am I gonna believe it?”

She wanted to feel that certainty she was so used to. Positivity, that unerring ability to believe everything was going to be all right. Optimism. She missed that. She wanted it back.

Margot frowned and shook her head slowly. “I don’t know, babe. But I’ll keep telling you until you do, okay?”

“It could take years, Mar.”

Margot arched a dark brow, expression shrewd. “Are you going anywhere? Because I’m sure as shit not.”

Elle sucked in a shuddering breath and nodded. “Thanks.”

“That’s what friends are for, right?” Margot stood and reached for the ice cream that was beginning to go soupy. “You know what else friends are for?”

Elle shook her head. She could come up with plenty of things friends were for, but it was easier to ask when Margot made it sound like she had something specific in mind.

Margot headed into the kitchen and put the ice cream back in the freezer. Then she grabbed a paper bag from beneath the counter hefting it into the air. Stamped across the paper was the logo from the liquor store on the corner.

She grinned. “Tequila.”

*

Elle rolled over, trying to get comfortable, but the couch was so hard. Something dug into her side and something under her gave off a terrible, shrill squeak. She shifted away, smacking her funny bone on something even harder. A frisson of pain shot down to her wrist all the way up to her shoulder, her fingers tingling. Ow.

Cracking open an eye—ah, bad idea. Elle burrowed her head into— Styrofoam?

She tried again, cracking open her eyes slowly. Beneath her face was one of the many takeout containers. And she was using it as a pillow because . . . she was on the floor. “What the hell?”

Ew. Her tongue was gummy and her teeth needed to be scrubbed. Twice. For good measure.

Sitting up slowly, Elle squinted around her. The coffee table was still littered with all the same junk, plus a bottle of tequila . . . missing most of the tequila. Oh. She pressed a hand to her forehead. No wonder she felt like hell and had slept on the floor. Fucking tequila.

“Oh, hey. You’re up.” Margot bounced into the living room looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and not at all hungover. Not one bit. She was wearing real people clothing, black jeans and a lace bodysuit. And makeup.

“Mar,” she croaked. “What the fuck? Please tell me there’s not a tiger in the bathroom.”

“There’s not a tiger in the bathroom and I promise you still have all your teeth.” Margot winced, eyes darting over to the tequila. “Yeah. You had a lot of that.”

“What about you?”

“Me?” Margot set the glass of water she was holding on the table in front of Elle. “I drank a little, but I wanted to keep an eye on you.”

Elle tilted the glass and let the cool water run down her parched throat, soothing the burn. She was so thirsty she felt the water run down through her chest and into her churning stomach. Now all she needed was some ibuprofen and—

“What the heck is that?” Elle pointed at the floor beside the couch where a strange doll-shaped bundle sat.

Margot followed her gaze, eyes widening and lips rolling together. “I meant to get rid of that before you woke up. You . . . how much do you remember?”

There’d been ice cream. And crying. Then tequila. She and Margot had made a list of all Darcy’s most annoying attributes and . . . her memory went fuzzy. “We made a list?”

“Good, yeah.” Margot chewed on her thumbnail. “We made a list and you kind of lost the plot and started saying things you liked about Darcy so I tried to get you back on track. Which worked. You got pretty amped up and you decided to . . .”

“To what?” Between the alcohol and Margot’s reluctance to give Elle a straight answer, Elle’s stomach churned and her mind flitted from one worst-case scenario to the next, her panic escalating. She had decided to call Darcy? FaceTime her? Elle brought her glass to her lips and took a slow sip to soothe her tummy.

Margot winced. “You made a Darcy voodoo doll.”

Elle choked, sputtering water down her chin. “What?”