"This is absolutely not fucking okay," Cyn seethed. She slammed the manuscript on Maryam's coffee table. Hard. "She violated my personal life. My real life. Not my imaginary, fictional character life."
Maryam took a delicate sip of her Earl Grey tea. "Talk to her. Not me." She tried not to twitch; that table was an antique.
"Bitch."
"Hey." Maryam looked hurt.
Cyn waved her hand. "Not you." She scowled. "I can't believe Willa. She appropriated my entire life and wrapped it up in some sob story about a disease to throw us off."
Maryam didn't say anything, which Cyn took as agreement. The truth was, she'd really enjoyed No More Mrs. Nice Guise. She just didn't like that Willa had liberally used alterations and variations of Cyn's life to write it. It was two days after dinner at the Little Sunflower, and Cyn had ensconced herself in her apartment to read, emerging only to high-tail it straight to Maryam's for sympathy.
"She didn't even tell us," Cyn continued, agitatedly shoving her hands in her hair. When she pulled them out, the pieces of her white-blond hair which had been mussed fluttered softly back into their pin-straight status quo . "She must have known she was fucking up, right?"
Maryam took a deep gulp of her tea, even though it was too hot and scalded the back of her throat. She didn't want to answer. Getting in the way of two friends was never a good idea, especially when one of them was Cyn; she was like a tornado, standing in her path would leave no survivors.
"Right?"
Maryam looked up, realizing that Cyn expected an answer. "Yeah," she said finally. "You're right."
Cyn settled into Maryam's white couch, still looking pissed off but marginally placated. "What a bitch move," she repeated, tucking her legs under her. "Should I text her? Or do it in person?"
"That depends on how hostile you're going to be."
"Well, what's the use of beating around the bush?" Cyn demanded. "Besides, a text wouldn't convey how uncool this is. And I don't want to send dumb emojis with steam coming out of their ears. It has to be in person."
"Great." Maryam nodded energetically. Finally. She loved both her friends, but constantly being the buffer in between them was hard on a girl, after all. As long as her friends were figuring it out with minimal bloodshed, she wouldn't need to intervene.
Cyn jabbed at her phone. "Voila. Done." She drained her mug, putting it back down on the coffee table, ignoring the coaster like it was optional and that rings on wooden furniture didn't make Maryam twitchy. "Can I have another?"
"Don't you have to leave?" At Cyn's blank look, Maryam added slowly, "to meet Willa...?"
Cyn's face cleared. "She's coming here."
"Here?!" Maryam half-screeched. "Why isn't she going to your place?"
"I don't know." Cyn looked annoyed. "Does it matter? We're over here all the time anyway and it's not like I wouldn't have told you everything after." Sensing Maryam's discomfort, she huffed loudly. "Just think of it as getting a front row seat."
Yeah, Maryam thought grimly. Just like the Roman spectators got a front row seat of blood and gore when the gladiators fought in the ring.