Before you begin reading please check out What to Expect From Isla. I hope you enjoy the story!
My name is Isla Vander Hey.
That’s Isla like ‘island’ without the –nd.
Not ‘izz-la’ or ‘iss-la’. Isla.
By the end of this you’ll probably hate me.
But honestly, I don’t give a f***.
CHAPTER ONE: The Low Down
Like I said, I’m Isla.
My Instagram feed will tell you I’m pretty much a B.W.B. —basic white bitch. I love overpriced coffee, photo filters, and syncing my selfies with over used inspirational quotes.
My Tinder profile will tell you my interests are yoga, shopping at Target, and of course mentions coffee as well.
Facebook is/will be the history book of my best friend Nicky and I’s adventures. We’re tagged in more photos than I could count (1,372 thanks Facebook for counting for me!), always checked into the same location, and no matter how repetitive it is I feel obligated to tag him every time I post about our weekly movie date night.
Nicky and I didn’t start off best friends. Flash back to freshman year of high school and you would have seen an extremely irritated me walking into my second day of history class to find my perfect seat stolen by a new kid.
He wasn’t actually new they had just changed his schedule and he now found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, subjected to my resting bitch face and over-the-top sigh directed at him.
“Is this your seat?” He started scrambling for his things. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” I rolled my eyes as I sat two seats away, and then refused to stop my glaring.
“I didn’t know.” He stood up and moved over.
“Thanks,” I huffed and resumed my rightful place. I wouldn’t make eye contact with him for the rest of class.
Luck would have it we had mutual friends from middle school and wound up at the same lunch table. I felt bad for a nanosecond about being a bitch, but apparently he didn’t care. Before I knew it we were chatting it up and instantly bonding over out similar taste in indie pop rock music and reality TV shows.
A few weeks together in history class and lunch led to us unknowingly starting our life-long adventure together as BFFs.
Nicky, Nicholas Michael Foster if you must know his full name (it always sounds so weird to me), is the kind of guy you rarely find wearing anything but gym shorts and a t-shirt. He was a tall, gangly, goofy looking kid. Not ugly per say, just needed to grow into his features.
We spent hours walking the mall or listening to music at my house. It went without saying our friendship took priority over other relationships. We may have been dumb high school kids, but we knew, even then, it was more likely that we would stay friends than it would be to wind up marrying a teenage boyfriend or girlfriend.
Boys came and went, well more like one boy came and went, but Nicky was always there.
Like most major events in my life I dragged Nick house hunting with me the summer after graduating college with my frivolous degree in hospitality. I’m still not sure why I chose that. It was only the second rental house we’d looked at, but I knew it was the one.
“It’s perfect!” I squealed.
The landlord looked taken aback by my enthusiasm. “Great, so I’ll get y’all two applications.”
“Oh, no, just one. Nicky is here for moral support only.” I hooked my arms around him and gave him a tight squeeze. “We’re not together.”
She nodded her head slowly indicating, like most people that encountered us, she didn’t believe the whole ‘we’re just friends’ thing. We’d learned over the years to ignore the questioning eyes. We knew the truth. Nick was simply the best friend I’d done nothing to deserve.
I released him from my grip and ran to the pantry. “I still can’t get over how much space is in here.”
Nick stepped into the kitchen with me while the landlord shuffled through papers.
“We’re gonna throw some sick parties here,” I whispered not wanting my plans to ruin my chances of getting the house. “Maybe you should move in with me.”
“My parents would never speak to me again.”
“Screw them!” Seven years of friendship without any serious trouble and his family still thought I was a bad influence.
“Besides,” he started in his serious I know-what’s-best-for-you voice. “You need to do this on your own. You didn’t live in the dorms for college. You’ve never been away from your parents for more than a weekend. You need to figure out who you are.”
He was trying to be sensible, but in my mind I already knew who I was. What 22 year old doesn’t think they have their life under control?
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