Page 1 of Never Been Worse

ONE

HARPER

“Do you think Jaime will be suspicious when I come home covered in glitter?” Ava whispers as we walk down the sidewalk on the street I lived on up until a week ago.

“You? No. You’re literally always covered in glitter.” When I turn to look at her, her lips are pursed, contemplating my words before she shrugs.

“That’s fair,” she admits. For once in her life, Ava, along with Jules and me, is wearing all black, her long blonde hair tucked up into a black beanie she said wouldcomplete the ensemblewith a large black tote bag over her shoulder.

“Nate knows I'm here, so he won’t have any questions about why it’s stuck to every surface for a week or two,” Jules says as our steps slow in front of a familiar house. “Not that it’s much different than a normal day, considering Sophie insists every art project needs some glitter.”

“Nate knows?” I ask quietly over my shoulder as I open the gate and walk to the front yard, looking around at the house I once thought would be my forever home with a surprising lack of homesickness.

I guess it’s okay to admit that this never felt like forever. Not really.

“Well, yeah. I tell him everything,” Jules says with a shrug. “Plus, he’d probably check my location and see I was at your old house and have questions.”

“Jaime doesn’t know. I like to keep him on his toes,” Ava says with a smile.

“That poor man,” I murmur and wince when Ava smacks my shoulder. The girl is tiny, butfuckis she strong. “Sorry! I was just joking. He loves that you drive him up a wall.”

“He really does,” Ava says with a blissful smile before going into boss mode. “Okay, Jules, do you have the glitter?”

Jules nods, digging into the giant duffel bag she brought, starting to take out container after container of glitter. Superfine, chunky, star-shaped hearts. She keeps pulling containers out of the seemingly bottomless bag. When she shifts, and the light of the moon hits her, I see she also brought seed beads, tiny bells, and sequins.

“Oh my god,” I whisper, watching her pull out a small handheld seed spreader.

“This was Nate’s idea,” Jules says with a wide, satisfied smile, and I fight the urge to laugh out loud, thus drawing attention to ourselves before we finish our task.

“Nate told you to bring that?” I ask incredulously, and she nods.

“He said it would be easier to evenly disperse it if we used this.”

Ava wastes no time, opening and dumping containers into the plastic tub one by one. “Harp, go in my bag. There’s a bottle of dish soap. Start squirting that everywhere,” she says in a quiet order.

“Dish soap?” I ask wide-eyed, and Ava’s face transforms, a wicked grin spreading over her lips.

“If he tries to wash the glitter away with a hose, it will all suds up.”

“You’re insane, you know that?” I ask with a smile, but at the same, grab the blue bottle, uncap it, and start liberally squirting it all over the grass. Ava comes behind me, turning the handle on the spreader and sending a fine mist of glitter over the yard. When it plumes out like magical smoke, I laugh out loud before covering my mouth to hide it.

“You’re sure he still doesn’t have cameras?” Jules asks, looking around as she starts to take a box of forks out.

“Yeah, they’re banned in this HOA, thanks to Jeremy complaining that theyinvade his privacy. If you install one, you get a huge fine.”

“It was probably so he could fuck his side piece without you knowing,” Ava says under her breath.

My hands still as the thought tumbles through me, her words ringing with truth. But as quickly as it comes, I push the thought away. The hurt and confusion can be inspected tomorrow. Tonight is for payback.

“Ava!” Jules says in a hushed reprimand as she starts stabbing forks into my ex-boyfriend’s lawn. We picked it out together, but since we weren’t married and my credit is shit, I’m not on the title.

“What? It’s true,” Ava says with a shrug, continuing to coat the lawn in glitter.

“That doesn’t mean we should just spit it out there. This is all very fresh for Harper,” Jules says as if I’m not even there.

“Can we please keep it down so no one hears arguing and then decide to come check on things?” It’s too dark to see Ava’s eyes roll, but being her friend as long as I have been, I know they’re well into the back of her head.

“Everyone in this neighborhood hates Jeremy and loves you. No one is going to say a word even if theydosee.” That’s true, considering Jeremy was constantly calling the HOA on his neighbors about the most basic things, like children laughing too much or having a play sprinkler in the front yard during a heat wave.

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