No Tea, No Sanity (Part 3)

"YouTube will stop paying me, and I'll have no money to do anything."

"Why don't you get a job like the rest of us?" Bethany asks.

"I can't work for somebody." The thought of me working forty hours a week for modern-day slavery makes me cringe. "I'm my own boss."

"Did your sugar daddies kick the bucket or something?" Agnes says, giggling. She's such a sadistic bitch!"

"Well, I can't have an abortion, my family will be furious."

Beth nods. "And it's illegal!"

"Even though I don't have mine anymore," Agnes adds, "they were still the best thing that ever happened to me. I left them alone ONCE and BAM! They get taken off me to live with their dad and his new trophy wife." We all look at her in disbelief.

"It was more than once." Bethany waves her arms around as she speaks. "How many times have I come around your house and you're not there?"

Agnes nods. "Okay, it was more than once. I'm only human. We all make mistakes. I just needed one more chance to prove myself."

I hear Bethany hold back a laugh. I bring up the good night we had. "I thought the reason you lost custody of your kids was that you got drunk one night you started humping every traffic light you could see." We were naughty. If it weren't for the aftermath, we'd be bragging with pride now.

Bethany buries her head in her hands. "Please, we're not allowed to talk about the traffic light incident!"

"Jesus Christ!" I nudge Bethany's elbow. "Calm down!" The reason she hates it when we bring up the traffic light incident is that she wet herself in front of her crush, and the pee went on his sneakers.

"I've wanted to have a baby so so long," Bethany says, tucking into a burger. "But you lot can just get pregnant just like that."

"So?" I sigh. She can always adopt a kid if she's that desperate. She can go on Tinder and hook up with someone on there. My stomach always churns when she talks about her desire for a baby. She gets mad when we say that we're pregnant.

"You don't even like children," Bethany snaps. I can see where she's coming from. It is true. I hate kids, but mine is an exception of course. My cousin adopted them all. Her maternal instinct is better than mine. I can see Abdul at the counter laughing at our banter. "You just dump them at your cousins."

Ivy shrugs her shoulders and raises her cup. "I don't want kids."

We all stare at her as if she's crazy. She says nothing all the time, then comes up with this. I don't blame her, though.

"I don't believe in it," Ivy explains, "what's the point in making kids when we can't look after the kids already in the world? I've got no maternal instinct. Rita's kids are beautiful, my god-children are great, my nieces and nephews are awesome, but I wouldn't want them myself."

"What if you change your mind when you're older?" Agnes asks.

Ivy shakes her head, bringing her coffee closer to her lips. "Believe me; I won't! By the way Lavender, I'm sorry to hear about Christian."

"I'm sure I'll get over it," I lie. Christian and I have broken up and gotten up together so many times. This time, I think we're over for good. Breaks my heart that he couldn’t look me in the eye and say he didn’t love me anymore.

"Does that mean I can have him?" Agnes asks. I hope she's joking. Surely friendship is more important than swooning over a hot guy!