♫ I know I said it's kinda stupid
But it's just the way I'm feeling right now ♪
{FLETCHER—Bitter}

"Cora, shit." Delilah's voice sounded like it was stuck in her throat, muffled as she scrambled about to cover her naked self up.

Coralie's finger was still on the light switch near the door, and she considered flipping it to off so she wouldn't have to see this. Sure, she'd viewed more of Bella in her lifetime than she thought normal, and she'd been at parties where Delilah had flashed small groups of guys she wanted attention from; but to discover the two of them totally naked together was an altogether different matter.

"We can explain," said Bella, scoping the area under the sofa to find clothes.

"Explain?" Coralie's arm shook, so she lowered it to her side, averting her gaze to avoid visualizing Bella's ass as she bent down to grope about for her underwear. "Explain what? How I come home from my night to discover my two best friends hooking up in my living room?"

"To be fair," Delilah had her bra and panties on, and shrugged a blanket over herself as she dropped onto the couch, "we didn't know where you were."

"Or when or if you'd come home," added Bella, who'd given up her search for her own underwear and snagged another blanket from the floor. She wrapped it around herself and sat, but kept a safe distance from Delilah, her gaze lowered to her feet. "And when you did, we hoped you'd go straight to the bedroom and bypass the living room."

"Why the fuck are you fucking in the living room?" Coralie trembled as she removed her flats and plucked the heel she'd discarded, replacing it in her bag. She trudged a few steps into the room, but wasn't sure how close she wanted to get to her friends. Her friends that had been fucking on the couch, in the middle of the night. "Are you guys wasted, is that it? Got a little too trashed on wine and figured, oh, hey, what the heck, let's make out? I get Delilah, you're into girls, but Bel—Bella, are you into girls?" Coralie's eyebrows rose and fell and scrunched so much that they became painful to move, so she settled for a neutral position above her watery, wary eyes.

"I..." Bella winced as she finally allowed her gaze to meet with Coralie's. "I'm not restricted to any sex in particular."

"Since when?" Coralie nearly kicked her shoes towards them both; the nerve they had, fooling around in a shared space that Coralie could walk into at any moment. "And if I'd come home? I always do."

Delilah arched an eyebrow. "Oh yeah? Not lately, you don't. And yeah," she raised a hand and tutted, "you'll repeat your whole being on a break shit, but you haven't really been following that to the letter, have you? You were having lunch with Michael today, and we heard nothing from you, so we figured... and now look at you, coming home in a swanky trench coat after midnight? Come on."

"Oh, straight to that conclusion, huh?" Coralie threw her bag toward the threshold of her room. She gritted her teeth and tasted something acidic and unpleasant in her mouth. "What if I'd picked up a shift at the bar? And you mock the trench coat?" She sneered. "It's a bit nippy outside tonight, no? And I had rehearsals all day, I didn't have time to call or text either of you. I was planning on detailing that lunch meeting with Michael when I got home, but neither of you were here, so..."

"Right, so where'd you go?" Delilah crossed her arms, arming herself with one of her debilitating stares.

Coralie scoffed. "Hey, can we re-shift the blame towards you two, for a second? I just walked in on you butt-naked and playing on the couch! Yet you'll turn this around and get pissed at me for coming home to my own apartment?" She felt bad for raising her voice—Delilah's assumption had been correct, after all—but there was a time and place to discuss Coralie's mistakes. This new situation took precedence, and Delilah and Bella wouldn't worm their way out of it until they explained.

"Not drunk," said Bella, fixated on the coffee table that held a bowl of popcorn and two empty glasses of wine. The bottle was on the floor, and was only half-full; definitely not enough to be inebriated, unless a few empty bottles were hiding in the kitchen. "And since forever, Cora. I've never been attracted to any one sex in particular. Yes, you're used to seeing me with men, but this is not my first tumble with a woman, and I'm sorry if you never knew that."

"Was I supposed to guess?" Coralie removed the trench coat and went to hang it up, then dared a few more paces towards her friends. She arrived at the coffee table, this time, but struggled to look at either of them without cringing or shaking her head. "You've been my best friend for decades, but only tonight do I find out you're... pan? Pansexual, correct?"

"She can be whatever the fuck she wants," said Delilah, her voice taking on a defensive tone that Coralie disliked.

Coralie jolted towards her. "Did I say she couldn't? I agree; I only wish she would have told me so I didn't get the surprise while discovering her all tangled up with you, my other best friend, who has a tendency to run wild and free and fuck with just about anyone!"

Delilah stood up and growled. "That was uncalled for. You're no better—"

"—Shut up, both of you." Bella's voice was like a snap of lightning, and it prompted Delilah to sit and Coralie to blink at her. "Cora, sit down, you're making me dizzy standing there." She patted the space beside her, and though Coralie wrinkled her nostrils at it, because the girls had been frolicking in that area, she obeyed.

A few minutes passed without a sound. Delilah glowered at Coralie and Bella. Coralie wrung her hands in her lap, unsure whether to scream at them, slap them, or leave them be. Bella's breaths were heavy and heated, and she clutched the covers against her bosom while biting her lower lip.

"Okay," said Bella, breaking the silence at last. "Do you have questions, Cora?"

Coralie unfastened her hands and plunged them under her thighs. She was overcome with the urge to crush something in her palms, to bite into something, to kick and punch into a piece of furniture and shatter it. Was she dreaming? She thought about pinching herself, but couldn't move, too frozen in shock as the flashes of her two best friends fucking on the sofa re-rolled through her mind.

She fidgeted and finally spun to Bella; of the two, it appeared she'd elected to be the most reasonable. Delilah was steaming and on the defensive, and Coralie didn't want to deal with her in one of those moods. "Was this out of the blue? Like, you randomly decided to hook up and to figure out the consequences later?"

Delilah snorted. "Consequences? You think—"

"—let me handle this," said Bella, lifting a hand to quiet Delilah. Delilah's eyes widened, and she leaned backwards, confused, but eventually shrugged and waved at Bella to take over. "We've been chatting long-distance since your trip to London," Bella glanced at Coralie, "so definitely not out of the blue."

"Chatting?" Coralie peered between them—the jittery and jeering Delilah, and the calm and rational Bella. They couldn't be more different, and yet they'd gotten on quite well during the trip, Coralie recalled that. But she had no idea they were talking to each other after the trip was over.

"It was only friendly at first; me checking in on you, Delilah asking me if I'd recovered from that one silly night of drinking. She was a tad flirty," Bella let out a tiny chuckle, then shook her head, "but I didn't pick up on any real flirtation until a bit later."

Delilah got up and mumbled something about grabbing water from the kitchen, and Coralie relaxed with her departure. She'd never seen Delilah so fierce, barking at her as if she were a stranger. Taking Coralie's mistakes and flinging them in her face with such ruthlessness, without a care, as if they weren't roommates and close confidantes.

"We realized that despite our outward differences, we had a lot in common. We watched the same shows, listened to the same music, and had similar experiences in our relationships." Bella drew a leg up to her chest, and the cover barely kept it concealed, only long enough to droop over her upper thigh; luckily, no private parts showed. Coralie loved her best friends, but there were boundaries with what she was comfortable seeing. "So we started having video chats; and more confessions came out, and more flirting. More... look, I'll spare you the details, but there were steamy sessions."

"She knows how those go," said Delilah, reappearing with three water bottles. She handed one to Bella, tossed one at Coralie, then fell back into her seat and unscrewed her own. "Don't you, Cora? What with the video-call sex you've had with Ryan and Michael, yeah?"

Coralie wanted to leer at Delilah and ask her what her fucking issue was, but she was too absorbed in Bella's recitation of their departure from friendship to—this? What was it? A fling? Friends with benefits?

"Well, things got steamy. But also, our conversations were deeper. We realized we shared a lot of similar ideas and... we missed each other." Bella peeked over at Delilah, who softened at once upon receiving the attention of the copper-haired, barely covered-up beauty. "I wanted to visit, but couldn't get time off work... and she wanted to come to me, but it would be too suspicious, she knew."

Delilah guzzled down half her drink and put the cap back on. "Though I doubt you'd take a second to notice something going on in someone else's life, what with all your own problems—"

Coralie had had enough. She smacked the couch cushions and veered towards Delilah. "What the fuck do you want from me? I walk in on you fucking my best friend but you're mad at me? What's with the attitude?"

"You're a hypocrite, and I want you to admit it!" Delilah looked ready to hurl her bottle at Coralie's face.

Coralie scowled at her. "And you're not? I'll admit it when you do!"

"Hey." Bella stood up, squeezing the blanket to her body, but barricading between the two women. "Stop it, both of you. Del," she flipped to Delilah and offered a weak smile, "I know you're mad, but she's right. We were exposed, and we have to explain ourselves for it. My therapist said—"

"—your therapist said that I should be nice to Coralie and help her through all this, although she hasn't given a shit about my life since we moved to New York." Delilah seized one of the pillows and hugged it against herself. "So forgive me for saying your therapist is bullshit. I've been holding all this in for weeks, months. I've been pretending like I wasn't seeing someone that I care deeply about, so as not to distract Coralie from her fancy new job, or take away from her dramatic sex life. But I can't do it anymore." Her neon pink nails dug into the pillow's fabric. "I'm sorry, Cora, but you've been a shitty friend, and that's why I called Bella here. I used it as an excuse to see her, but it's the damn truth and it's time you see it."

Coralie's jaw dropped. Words formed in her throat, and she felt her vocal cords working to create a sound—but nothing came out. She couldn't move, and her grip on her water bottle loosened, allowing the plastic to tumble to the floor.

She hated how correct Delilah was. And she hated how she'd never noticed Delilah's disappointment at her. Yes, she'd voiced it on more than one occasion, but that was a typical Delilah demeanor. She criticized, she gave everyone shit, but a day or two later she got over whatever harm was done and resumed being her usual sassy self.

But tonight, she wasn't easing up. She was sharp, her comments pointed, her facade of pretending to be okay shattering. She was fed up with acting like Coralie's life choices hadn't affected her, too. And Coralie was pissed at herself for being so self-absorbed that she hadn't seen it. She hadn't seen anything.

Bella collected the water bottle. "I'd been declining to visit, but when she said your life was chaos and it was making her life chaos by default, I understood I had to come." She slid the bottle into Coralie's still loosened grasp, but Coralie's fingers wrapped around the plastic and didn't let it fall again. "I had to see her, to be with her, to determine if we could be something... and to rescue you from yourself. You walking in on us wasn't the plan, and I hope you can forgive us for that brutal way of finding out, but..."

"But things are out in the open and feelings have been expressed." Coralie rubbed her face; her make-up had long since come off, and she no longer cared if she looked like a mess. Especially not in front of an accusatory Delilah, and a Bella filled with pity. "So she was your hot date the other night, yeah?"

Bella moved the bowl of popcorn from the coffee table and sat on the sturdy surface, nodding. "Our first official date. It went well," she winked at Delilah, "so I decided to stay a little longer to help you two fix things. More so you, Cora; I think you need my... our guidance."

"What I need is sleep. I... I'm not sure how to digest this." Coralie got up and waded by Bella's massive covers, holding the water bottle to her chest. "I mean," she twisted to them, squinting, wishing she could smile but unsure she had the strength, "not you two together, no. If that's what you want, if you're happy, I'm on board. But the fact that you didn't tell me... that hurt. I never once picked up that anything could ever happen between you."

"And whose fault is that?" Delilah pursed her lips.

"Oh, it's mine." Coralie stiffened; she didn't appreciate Delilah's tone and her quick come-backs, but she had no choice but to accept them.

She needs time to cool down, and so do I.

"You're right, I've been a horrible friend. Not that I asked for what's happening to me—but I've been bad about fixing it, really fixing it. And now I see I've dragged you both down in my misery." She hugged herself and walked backwards, unwilling to cry in front of them. Not like this—not after all they'd said.

"Look." Delilah shifted about in her seat and her gaze softened—only a smidgen, but enough to soothe Coralie's mind for a spell. "I'm..." She flinched, peeped at Bella, as if asking for encouragement, then returned to Coralie. "I don't hate you, babe, I never will. But living with you lately has been a chore. A seriously frustrating one. But Bella is here to help you get your shit together, and so am I, annoyed as I might be with it. So stick to your promises, okay? Lock that goddamn vagina up."

Coralie tried not to laugh at the irony, and tried not to cry at her shame. "Wish you were here earlier to remind me of that," she said, backing out of the room before either could comment or debate what she meant.

♥♥♥