.10

It's over.

We broke up.

And strangely, I feel alright.

Not as normal as I usually do, but like everything is going to be okay.

I explained to Seth that I didn't like how we couldn't talk.

He agreed.

I said he talked to Savannah just fine.

He said we were growing apart. 

I agreed.

We parted ways mutually and I would like to say, someday, we could be friends. But that day isn't today. He told me to call him once I was ready. 

I laughed and said, "Not a chance."

I have more important things to worry about-- like my upcoming internship interview.

.09

Em says the magazine she works for needs interns, including an open spot as assistant to their fashion photographer. Can 26 year olds even be interns anymore? Don't they have to be like, 19?

I want it, though.

Time to freshen up my portfolio.

.08

I was hired to take pictures at one of those Upper East Side birthday soirées. The guest of honor was turning 13. She yelled at me to take at least 30 pictures of her designer outfit, "and one of them better be good enough for Instagram!"

Her mom organized and controlled the party with all the power of the pentagon, crushing disturbances under her pointy high heels in a millisecond. 

I stayed out of her way.

The birthday girl was given a black diamond bracelet and a walk on role for some Disney Channel TV show. I snapped picture after picture and tried not to throw up my gourmet lettuce wrap.

It was a nice distraction, but I swore I'd be better than 13 year old birthday parties, celebrating rich, bratty kids.

What happened to me?

.07

People don't like rough edges.

They like shiny, prepackaged, perfect people. 

Haven't seen Seth in three days. 

I'm convincing myself I don't care by spending my days getting lost in the city-- watching people without any flaws, taking pictures of dirty things like muddy puddles and leaves all clumped together.

06.

Peyton came to see me. She apologized with homemade French fries and season 6 of Sex and the City. (Her idea of a good time, not mine, but who am I to turn down a peace treaty?)

"If it were Jeremy..." Peyton started, bringing up my predicament without me prompting it. I feigned annoyance, but in reality the only thing I wanted to do was talk about it.

Still, I rolled my eyes so hard at the sound of that name I thought they'd get stuck, holding in my sigh because we were finally getting along.

"...I would ring his neck." Peyton finished, flashing a saucy smile.

I grinned too, loving it when my sister showed the spine we'd inherited from Dad.

"No but seriously, you need to say something." Peyton shoved popcorn into her mouth, golden blonde hair escaping from her low bun. She was so pretty, kind of like Katherine Heigl in a romantic comedy, it made me mad to think she threw her life away with Jeremy Baylor of all people. 

"At this point, Seth probably doesn't even think you love him."

"Dude, why is it my fault my boyfriend is cheating on me? He watched the same movie every week for three months but you didn't see me scouting Okcupid for guys."

"I didn't say it was your fault Harley, but you won't even talk to him about it and that indicates a problem to me, considering you guys have been dating for two years and all."

I sighed.

I hate when she's right.

05.

"It's probably nothing, right?"

I probably asked this question about thirty times while I had brunch with Alexis and Emma today. I couldn't stop myself even when I saw the looks of worry on their faces. I was never like this, usually I'd get out of relationship with a shrug and a halfhearted meh. 

"Dude, just talk to him. For the love of God." Alexis tossed her phone into her purse.

Emma reached across the table and took my hand, looking into my eyes for a long time before speaking. 

"Harley, he loves you."

I barely even registered what she was saying, I just watched her lips while they moved. She was wearing this really cool new red lip stain that looked absolutely flawless, without a speck of red on her pearly whites.

"I know he does. But maybe he's just tired of me."

That makes two of us, Seth.

04.

Remember when I said Seth wanted me to move in with him?

I casually looked through his phone last night while he was in the shower. He never minds, and I don't care when he looks through mine. He was texting some girl named Savannah, and she sent him pictures of Victoria's latest Secrets.

Dude, not Seth.

Anyone but sweet, sweet Seth.

I remember when we met, at a local show. I can't remember the band-- they weren't going anywhere anyway. Originally, Seth had wanted to talk to Alexis, and I was going to help him. We ended up drinking at the bar and he told me about Iowa, so I told him about California. Then I told him about Melbourne, where I was born but only spent two years of my life. I told him about my parents, and about my sisters and about how I was going to be a bum forever. Seth listened so patiently, swirling his drink in his cup, and then asked if we could talk again.

Even if he is cheating, this shouldn't bother me right? I mean, I've been talking about getting bored of him for forever. I didn't even want to move in with him! What kind of crappy girlfriend am I?

Two plus years down the drain, it seems.

How am I supposed to ask him about this?

03.

Seth wants me to move in with him and I must be the only person who isn't thrilled. I even interrupted Alexis pre-yoga session to tell her the "good news" and she didn't even yell at me.

Remi and I have lived with Alexis for over a year now, and we learned pretty quickly that interrupting Alexis' yoga -- or pretty much anything else she did -- was a one way ticket to a barrage of Spanish swear words and Alexis lifting her hand like she was going to smack you around. Which, don't take that lightly, she'll totally hit you.

Anyway, I kinda feel like a burden after the girls took the news so well. I mean, I've never been able to pay what they can for our apartment-- Alexis instructs actual celebrities in yoga and Remi works for a high fashion magazine I can never remember the name of.

I tried to call Peyton to talk about it but that goes somewhere between, I-believe-abortion-should-be-legal and I-voted-for-Obama on the list of horrible conversations. I still remember her silence on the line:

"...Peyton? You there?" I was pacing like a mad woman, and chewing the sleeve of my sweater.

I could hear her suck in a breath before she responded. "Yeah-- so are you going to say yes?"

"It would be kinda cool I guess. Easier than packing up in the morning and wearing his shirt and a pair of boxers on the subway."

"Gross Harley." I could see Peyton wrinkle her nose in my head. "You know how I feel about living together before marriage."

"Maybe you missed the part where I said that I've slept over at his place already?" Furrowing my eyebrows, I leaned against the kitchen wall. "Besides, last I checked, Billy was born five months before your wedding."

Peyton got deathly quiet again, then sighed. "Harley do you like living like this? I mean, honestly, you don't even have a real job-- no family-- nothing.."

I snorted a laugh, shaking my head before I could even bring myself to answer. "And here I thought, you were my family."

Then I hung up the phone.

02.

Except that's not true. I kind of have an idea of what I want my life to look like.

I think I want to write.

Can't say for sure, but I think that's what it is.

I definitely don't want to end up like my sisters:

Not Peyton, with her perfect Christian husband and three kids-- she's only 29 but she looks 39.

Not Carson, on the brink of death, sick all the time and taking care of a toddler and a deadbeat husband. She's only 21, for God's sake.

Not even Andie, the most grounded out of all of us (she takes after Peyton). At 17 she's the youngest, and since the rest of us are screwing everything up she has the whole world on her bony shoulders.

Mom says we were the most beautiful kids. All of us naturally blonde, there's a picture of us on the mantel back home in white dresses with sunshine in our hair. Peyton and I used to be super close-- I was always kissing her face or she putting dandelions in my hair.

Everything is different now.

I'm pretty sure we hate each other.

01.

Dude, I need a job.

My name is Harley Gibson. I'm 26 years old, a native of California, and yeah, I'm a girl. My parents thought it would be really cool and edgy to give me and my three sisters typically masculine names, so instead of Rose, Suzy, Margaret and Laura, we're named Peyton, Harley, Carson and Andie.

Right now I live on the east coast-- the Big Apple. I followed Peyton here about four years ago, with $50 to my name, a backpack full of denim cutoffs and those circular Lennon sunglasses I bought from the airport gift shop. I spent the first night with two college freshmen boys, drinking beer and playing Halo, because I had nowhere else to go.

Now I take pictures for a living. Being a college drop out doesn't exactly prepare you for much, especially not the hard fall to the pavement when it's time to wake up. I live with two highly accomplished women, and I have a boyfriend who's just as aimless as me. They ask me what I want to do.

I don't know what to say.

Guess I kinda like where I am.