Free Like Clockwork by Patrick de Moss

Like
Clockwork
    By
Patrick de Moss
     
    “Where u at b1tch?” Smiley face.
    That was how Evie found Adam: sitting at a
bus stop, on the curb, in the rain.
    It was two in the morning. Evie saw the
message, and was about to finally give in and tell Jenny where this b1tch was truly @. That she was @ the bus stop, soaking wet, her makeup a mess, her
hair a mess, and that she’d had enough, and she was going Home. No, she di-ent
want a drive. Or a cab. She was tired, weary, weaving a little, but that last
was okay. Her hair was clinging to her face, and on top of everything, her
stupid phone was getting wet every time she had to pull it out of her purse
when it chimed. This had been going on for a good twenty minutes now, and she
was tired of lying, as tired as she was of Jenny’s lunatic shorthand. Honestly,
it would have taken her just as much time to type “bitch” as b1tch. Besides,
she was drunk, and hated lying (and filling in vowels) when she was drunk since
she was so terribly, awfully, bad at it, even under the best of circumstances.
Which this wasn’t.
    She liked Jenny, really. She liked Jenny
and Ames and even Tori from collections (even though Tori could be a real,
authentic b1tch). She wouldn’t have gone out with them if she hated them,
obviously. But she did hate being called a b1tch. Hated seeing that
stupid one in the middle, and the obligatory smiley face at the end. She
pretended she didn’t mind, and even, occasionally, full of self-loathing,
replied in kind. But she just … she just hated all of it in the end: the high
fives, the ass-checking with high fives, the endless tilt o whirl of hugs and
hugs and shots and hugs and b1tches b1tches b1tches that was a ‘girls-night-out.’
It sort of, kind of, like, you know, really wore her out. Maybe it was where she
was a little older than them and hadn’t wanted to be a snobby b____, so she’d
just left. And when Jenny had sent her a text to find her in the bar (wr u @?)
she’d said she was in the bathroom, then on the dance floor, and then out on
the patio, when really she’d been walking (stumbling, really, let’s be honest
here) to catch the bus. It had been so crammed in the bar that all of those
lies had been plausible. But by now it was two, the bar was emptying out. The
jig, so to speak, was up. It’s a fair cop , she thought to herself, and
smirked in the rain.
    “OMW Home. Threw up.” Sad face. She hadn’t
though; she seemed particularly obsessed with lies tonight for some reason. But
the reply made her feel quite vindicated.
    Sad face. “Boston wz l00king for u” winky
face. She made an actual face herself, and snorted, but it turned into a sneeze
instead. Sad face back. Boston. God. Thank god she was out of there. Meathead.
    She’d thought he was nice to begin with.
Boring, but nice. Jenny had elbowed her, and nodded to his ass with an ’okay’
sign, and he’d looked back while she sat there, mortified, and came to talk to
them at their table. He had that Red Sox hat on backwards, but he wore it well,
and brought his own little cadre of smooth criminals on their own ‘Guys-night-out’
with him. He was in construction, concrete and cobble, really, and
blah-blah-blah. “Creeper” was the guy that kept bumping into their table while
he looked down Ames’ top, and another guy in a Misfits t-shirt told a few
jokes. Well, maybe not jokes, though Tori had laughed way too loudly. They were
more like … bon mots , really. Though not even that. They were mal
mots , but he told them with a wink that Tori seemed to like.
    Her phone buzzed again.
    Sad face. “C u l8er!” She smirked at it. Mal
mots . That wasn’t too bad. Just another girls-night-out.
    But not really. Not for her. She’d actually
done her hair in really nice curls tonight. Christ , she thought, wiping
one thick, stuck auburn lock from over her eye, what a waste of time that had been. She’d slipped into one of her favorite dresses, a blue oriental
print number that