Page 122 of Midnight Confessions

“Yeah, well, he could have called you…” Dottie murmurs. “Or texted, sent a bat-signal, a damn telegram perhaps.Anything. It would have been better than doing nothing. Asshole ghosted you like, well, an asshole.”

“You guys, I’m good. It’s been a month, I’m fine.”I’m not fine.“I love all four of you. Dottie’s vajeen is our fourth in case you were wondering. See you tonight. I’ll bring wine.”

“Bye, honey.” “Bye, Win.” “See ya, Winter,” they all say, simultaneously before I hang up the phone.

* * *

Climbingthe stairs to my apartment, I decide to grab my shopping bag, then walk to the market up the street to buy a bottle of wine for Sondra’s dinner party tonight.

My phone vibrates in my pocket so I pull it out and see a text from my brother Bennie.

Bennie: Hey, did you get dad anything for his birthday?

Me: Of course. I got it like two months ago.

Bennie: How good is it?

I laugh, rolling my eyes. Every year, Bennie hounds me about what to get our dad for his birthday. So every year I end up buying it for him to stop the barrage of whinny calls and texts. Because, you know, Bennie’s the baby.

Cal gets my dad the same thing every year: Dodgers season tickets. They go together. It’s their thing, their tradition. I get something really sentimental, and Bennie texts and calls me nonstop until I give in and take care of it.

Me: I got him a new leather messenger bag for work. The one he’s using is coming apart. I had his initials and a tiny dragonfly engraved on the inside.

The dragonfly is for my mother, she loved them. And for all the ways my family ignores her absence, her glass dragonfly collection still decorates our house—theentirehouse. They’re everywhere.

When I was about eight, I saw my dad pick one up, study it, then sat it back down with the largest grin on his face. Even at a young age, I knew that tiny figure stirred emotions in him. I needed to know what. So, I stepped into the room and asked him why he was smiling. Why did he likethatdragonfly so much?

He told me he got my mother that one when they were on their honeymoon at Lake Jocassee, in South Carolina. He pointed to another one and said he got it when they bought their house together. Another one when she had the twins. Another she saw at an antique consignment store when they were taking a drive up the coast.

I always assumed the dragonflies wereherthing. As it turned out, dragonflies weretheirthing.

He said the dragonfly represented change, adaptability, self-realization. And that many cultures believed the dragonfly meant clarity and understanding a deeper meaning of life. I was enthralled, hanging on his every word. I had grown up with these glass figures around me and never wonderedwhyuntil that moment.

“When she crossed my path, she stopped me dead in my tracks. Life around me stilled to a stop. Nothing else mattered but her,” he said. “Everything became clear; my path, my purpose, my place in this world… I was supposed to experience it all with her. Whatever we did, I knew we were supposed to do it together. She was my turning point, my fork in the road, my dragonfly.”

I got my first lesson in romance that day. I fell in love with the idea of the little glass figures and wanted to know the story behind each one of them. My father sat and told me about the day they met, making me fall even more in love with love.

Bennie: Shiiiiiiit. That’s good. I’m screwed.

Bennie: ...

I laugh, pushing my phone into my back pocket. I toss my keys on the kitchen counter, and head into my bedroom to grab my canvas shopping bag. Maybe I’ll buya fewbottles of wine to take to Sondra’s. And maybe some mini bottles of booze to line my purse with.

I love my friends, they’re my family. But now, every time I look at Sondra and Preston,especiallyPreston, I see Aleck. I see the resort. I see a dumb plan to give the most addicting man I’ve ever known my heart temporarily. I see heartache.

It doesn’t help that Sondra and Preston are so mind-numbingly happy. And I’m happyforthem, truly. They’re both deserving of all the love. It’s just a little hard to be around it at the moment.

I walk back into the kitchen with my canvas bag and grab my keys and wallet when a knock at my front door changes my direction. I amble to it and peek through the peephole, then laugh when I see Bennie.

Opening the door with a grin, his pouty bottom lip stares back at me.

Bringing his hands together as if he’s praying, he whines, “Please…”

I shake my head, holding my door open wide, letting him in. “You’re helpless.”

“I’m adorable,” he says, striding into my apartment. He hops over the back of my couch, landing on his back, then crosses his legs and stretches his arms, bending them behind his head.

I close my door and head toward my couch to join him. “You’re impossible.”

---