New Plan: Shitfaced today, drive home tomorrow.

Staying is starting to seem dumber and dumber. What's it gaining any of you, to be here and have a terrible time? Your last memories of your little trio are going to be depressing enough as it is. Are you really looking to take an already pathetic situation and worsen it by whatever degree another ten days of hell will afford?

So yeah, fuck staying.

But also, fuck this stupid fight of theirs that neither of them will explain to you. Because now that you're chewing on that again, that's some real unfair shit, isn't it? That is the stuff of cowardly little boys, to spend months expecting you to act as if it's fine and normal for a best friend triangle to suddenly have two broken legs, with no apparent explanation. They kind of owe you, for all this secretive bullshit.

You close the patio door a little harder behind you than you intended when you come back in, and it startles Scott awake on the couch. "Hey," he says, squinting at you and stretching a little under his blanket. He yawns big, then scratches his head and relaxes against the pillow, watching you on your way to the kitchen.

"Hey." You take your bowl to the sink and fill it with water, then leave it to soak. "Any idea where Dex is?" you ask when you curl up in the large plush chair next to the couch a moment later.

Scott shrugs. "I think he's been going down to the jetty in the mornings. Probably be back before long."

"Good." You tuck your feet into the space between the chair side and the cushion, then say, "I think we should go home tomorrow," managing a much more confident voice than you actually feel right now.

"Yeah?" Scott seems to be considering his words carefully. "Why's... that?"

You give him a skeptical is-either-of-us-this-fucking-dumb? look.

He revises the question. "Did something new come up that made you decide you don't want to stay after all?"

You shake your head. "Just the fact that it's hellishly awkward, and the weather's been terrible, and everyone's fucking miserable. Why stay?"

"Because you wanted this trip so badly," he says, propping himself up on one elbow to get a better look at you. "We know how important it was to you."

"Yeah, but I wanted the trip because I was stupid enough to think I could fix you guys. Apparently being at home with Mom and Dad for five months melted my brains because I promise I'm not that fucking dumb usually."

Scott gives you the same vaguely pained look he's been using any time anything.

"We're not having that bad a time," he says, then at least has the grace to look away when you roll your eyes. "Why tomorrow?" he asks. "Why not today?"

You shrug. "I got shit I wanna do."

"Like what?"

You jerk your head toward the liquor cabinet. "Like get fucking wrecked. By myself if I have to because I'm so done with this shit that I either want both of you or neither of you."

"I think we can safely call that a, neither, then," declares Dex as he closes the deck door behind him.

For some reason there's a packet of the dino egg oatmeal sitting on the end table next to you. You immediately grab that and fling it at him. The cereal packet hits him right in the chest, where he catches it reflexively, looking a bit startled.

"I was gonna eat that," Scott complains. You both ignore him.

"Sit down," you order Dex, and when he eyes the couch with Scott on it warily, you sigh and stand up. "Take the chair, then," you say, and Scott sits up and swings his feet over the edge of the couch to make room for you.

Dex stares at you a second, then takes a **** seat at the edge of the chair, setting the oatmeal packet back on the table.

"I want to go home tomorrow," you tell him. "That's what we were just talking about."

"Why wait for tomorrow?" Dex says, half-rising from his seat, "I can be ready in a half hour--what?" he asks when this makes you grab the oatmeal and throw it at him again.

"Sit your ass down!" you tell him. He does, though he wisely doesn't put the oatmeal back where you can reach it.

Scott, who's barely spoken, is leaning his elbows on his knees and staring at his feet.

"I have a list of demands," you inform them, "but it's a short one. Ish. Short-ish. One, I want one more night with all of us. Two," you go on, ignoring how little they both like that idea. "I want us to get stupid wasted and make some food together. In whatever order. And maybe go down by the water and just be drunk and mess around. This is my ever last chance to do something idiotically adolescent and irresponsible with you guys."

The silence that follows makes you heave a huge sigh of frustration. "Look," you say, "as I see it, you both spent the last five months bullshitting me and making me question myself about what was wrong, was it my fault somehow, why else would you both be so secretive about it, and on and on. And fine, I get it. It's been made clear. Everything's over and we're never going to be friends again. Okay. But unlike you guys I never got any closure about the fact that we're just over. I didn't even get the luxury of knowing that was already a done deal, because you two assholes both faked me out so hard."

Both of them look away uncomfortably, at that.

"Yeah. So I'm not actually an idiot," you tell them. "The reason I thought this was fixable is you both went out of your way to avoid telling me absolutely anything. So if this is it, do you think you can find it in your hearts to fake it through one more night so that I can have both of you as my friends for one last time? Because I feel kind of cheated out of getting to mourn us breaking up. And apparently neither of you is ever going to tell me what happened, so I get to just wonder that forever, or something. Pretty lame. You could at least give me a sendoff, or something. Or tell me the truth."

You shut up here, because you're actually feeling a bit shaky now, having said all this aloud.

Scott and Dex trade a **** look, and some silent negotiation takes place between them that makes you feel even more left out of whatever their shitty secret thing is.