Chapter Forty-Four: Regrets

Leah was sprawled on Marissa’s sofa like a goddess of ruin, hair an absolute disaster of glorious coils and knots, her mascara smudged like war paint, and one heel still on for reasons she couldn’t explain. She clutched a mug of black coffee like it was a sacrament, glaring into the middle distance with the expression of a woman freshly returned from battle.

She groaned. “Ugh,” she muttered nursing a strong mug of black coffee. “How did I end up back here?”

“You told your Uber driver I was your emotinal support dyke, and to drop you off here.”

Marissa was at the kitchen, working on breakfast.

“I vaguely recall being in the backseat of a Prius,” she said as she stayed lying down.

“You tried to tip your driver in lip gloss.”

Leah grunted. “It wasn’t my La Mer, was it?”

“No. ChapStick. Vanilla mint.”

“Damn. I must’ve been wasted.”

“You tried to climb into my fridge,” Marissa added, sliding a spatula under a perfect fried egg.

Leah blinked slowly, considering this. “What was I looking for?”

“You said, and I quote, ‘the leftovers of my last failed situationship.’”

Leah let out a wheezy laugh, then immediately winced. “Don’t make me laugh. My brain is soup and my liver’s filing a restraining order.”

She finally sat herself up, which took greater effort than it should have. She looked to her friend fussing about in the kitchen. It bothered her how good Marissa looked.

Marissa was in leggings that made her ass look criminal, stood at the stove flipping eggs with irritating grace. Her hair was in a perfect braid. Her skin was glowing. She looked like the annoying lesbian in every indie movie who has her shit together and grows her own herbs.

Leah squinted at her. “How are you… like this?”

“Black girl magic,” Marissa said simply, plating avocado toast like she was preparing an offering.

“No, fuck that. You look like you went to yoga and lit a candle. I look like I fought God in a parking lot, and lost.”

“Well, you were at the club for a long time.”

Leah groaned and cradled her forehead. “Yeah, I remember the lights … and some woman … I think glitter was involved.”

“That tracks.”

“But you,” Leah said, eyes narrowing as she tried her hand at standing up, and decided it was not worth it. “You disappeared on me. One minute you’re sitting at the bar, side eyeing the bitch who stole your wife. And the other, you’re gone.”

Marissa sipped her coffee, before she looked at her suspiciously. “And so was Samantha.”

Marissa froze just a beat too long at the sink.

Leah noticed.

“Oh no,” she said slowly, sitting up straighter. “You’ve got that look.”

“What look?”

“The ‘I did something emotionally reckless but morally ambiguous and now I need carbs to process’ look.”

Marissa said nothing. Just sipped her tea like it might erase memory.

Leah’s eyes widened. “Oh my God. Did you hook up with Samantha?”

“What? No,” Marissa said, a little too fast.

Leah squinted. “I mean… I get it. Samantha is hot. In that uptown princess, Yale-educated, probably smells like rosewater and disappointment kind of way.”

“She smells like expensive shampoo,” Marissa muttered before catching herself.

“Aha!” Leah crowed, pointing like she was on Judge Judy. “So you did get close enough to sniff her. That is proximity, bitch. That is emotional danger zone levels of closeness.”

Leah looked positively delighted, like her hangover had been momentarily exorcised by the power of gossip. “This is messy. Like, HBO pilot messy. She slept with your wife.”

“Soon to be ex-wife.” Marissa sighed.

“Oh so it doesn’t count?” Leah asked with a smirk.

“Look, it wasn’t like that,” Marissa said defensively “She looked uncomfortable all alone, and then someone got a little too close-“

“And your inner Lesbian Superhero kicked in? Babe, it’s not natural for you to want to save everyone.”

“All I did was get her away from glitter cheekbones.”

Leah raised her eyebrow, she knew there was more to the story, “And?”

Marissa bit her lip and hesitated. “And invite her out for a drink.”

“A drink?”

“Hot chcolate.”

Leah collapsed backward on the couch like she’d just been told her therapist was moving to another country. “Oh my God. That’s worse! That’s intimacy in a mug! That’s ‘tell me your trauma and I’ll wipe away your mascara’ levels of emotional involvement!”

“I didn’t even touch her,” Marissa insisted.

“But you emotionally caressed her with whipped cream and sympathy!”

Marissa groaned and pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. “It wasn’t like that.” She turned off the stove before she burned down her house. “Anyways she made things awkward.

Leah perked up like a raccoon who’d heard a trash can lid shift. “Awkward how?”

Marissa hesitated.

Which was all the permission Leah needed to sit upright, one foot tucked under her, eyes narrowed like a woman who had never once respected the concept of boundaries.

“Did you tell her you slept with Daniel?”

“No, of course not,” Marriea said rubbing her temples. She still didn’t know why she’d told Leah about it.

“Unprotected, nasty, heterosexual sex with her husband,” Leah continued. “God, did you tell her about the Reddit and tumblr posts?”

“I’m gonna throw something at you.”

Leah cackled with the unhinged energy of a woman with nothing to lose.

Marissa crossed her arms, bit the inside of her cheek, and looked at Leah. “We talked about why she did it. Why she slept with Olivia. And… let’s just say I didn’t like her answer.”

That did it.

Leah sobered instantly. The name Olivia hadn’t come up in a while. Not directly. Not like this. It was like invoking the ghost of a woman who hadn’t even bothered to haunt.

She stood up, somehow more surefooted than she had been moments ago. She came close and embraced Marissa in a tight hug.

When she let go she looked at her, “You doing all right? I mean with everything about the divorce.”

Marissa gave a small shrug, but there was a flicker of something real in her eyes. “Yeah. I mean… I’ve got a top-tier lawyer. Woman’s a shark. Wears all black. Looks like she could kill a man with a fountain pen.”

Leah smiled at that, brushing a stray curl from Marissa’s face. “Good. That’s what you need. Some mean, terrifying bitch with a vengeance kink and a J.D.”

Marissa huffed a laugh.

Then Leah’s grin turned feral. “So. You burn all Olivia’s shit yet?”

Marissa laughed, a chuckle that caught her by surprise. “My lawyer advised against that.”

“Pssh,” Leah waved a dismissive hand. “She just doesn’t understand lesbian catharsis. Come on,” she said, already heading toward the hall like she owned the place. “Where’s Olivia’s old flannel, the one she wore to that mountain retreat.”

“You’re insane.”

“No, babe. I’m loyal. There’s a difference. Insane is setting it on fire inside the apartment. Loyal is doing it safely in your backyard with tequila and a Bluetooth speaker.”

She rummaged through the hall closet with the righteous fury of a woman who had once keyed an ex’s car for ghosting her and stealing her tote bag. A moment later, she emerged, triumphant, holding up the offending flannel like a cursed relic. “Ah-ha! Behold! The Shirt of Betrayal.”

“Hey, by the way… you text Daniel?”

Marissa froze halfway to the coffee pot. “What?”

Leah’s smile sharpened like a knife on a whetstone. “Oh please. His wife is on a sapphic soul-searching bender, you rescued her from Glitter Cheekbones, and you don’t want to tell Daniel? You know the guy who gave you the best orgasm of your life and then got ghosted like a Casper extra?”

Marissa rolled her eyes. “It was not the best. And it was a one-time weakness. A single lapse in judgment.”

Leah dumped the flannel into the bucket with the glee of a woman sacrificing to the Goddess of Emotional Growth. “You’re not stalling, huh? Then call him. I dare you.”

Marissa sighed. “What would I even say?”

Leah lit the flame like a priestess anointing holy fire. “Start with: ‘Hey, sorry I left you naked and emotionally raw. Want to grab tacos?’ Boom. Human connection. Closure. Maybe a little casual emotional entanglement. Spice it up.”

Marissa folded her arms, arching a brow. “He hates New York tacos.”

Leah grinned wider. “Then call him and offer to fight about it. Men love that. Especially the soft ones with guilt complexes.”

Marissa stared at the flickering flame and the shirt slowly curling into ash.

“Besides,” Leah added, voice smug, “you and Daniel clearly speak the same language: grief, chaos, and incredibly bad timing.”

Marissa took a sip of her coffee, watching the shirt smolder. “You are the worst.”

“And you love me for it.”