Chapter 19
Valentine’s Day was that weekend. Lily had a date with Lucas, so Syd and I had planned to go to a party wearing semi-slutty red dresses, and looking to hook up.
But at the last minute, she had to work, so I sat in our room and studied, even read ahead for a couple of the classes.
I could have gone out with others. Girls from our floor were always popping over and inviting us out.
Well, inviting Lily out. She was the most like all the other girls here. But Syd and I came as part of the package deal, so they invited us too.
But Syd was not “Bribury material” to many here (snobby bastards), and I kind of scared a lot of the other girls away. Probably because I called people out on their bullshit.
And there was a lot of bullshit at Bribury.
So I stayed in, and kept my fingers away from my phone.
It wasn’t like I’d actually text Stick to see what he was up to, but I did keep the phone on the other side of the room, out of easy access.
And yes, I did nearly twist my ankle jumping up to get to it when it buzzed.
But it was only Lily saying she wasn’t coming home and to not worry. Lucas was still staying with his mom and little brother to help out with the rent, so I knew she wasn’t staying there with him.
They’d probably gotten a motel room somewhere. Or Lucas had taken her to the apartment he’d shared with Stick until last fall, when he’d moved to his mother’s apartment.
I wanted to text and ask where she was, but I didn’t. I wanted to take Yvette for a drive, but it was snowing out, and I hadn’t driven her on snow yet. I started to text Stick that it might be a good time for a lesson with the new snow, but deleted it before I even finished.
It wasn’t like me to just sit in the room when I wanted to be out, doing something—anything.
But there were a whole lot of things I was doing lately that weren’t like me.
Find her. Be her…and let the rest of the bullshit go. Montrose’s words came back to me again.
The guy was like some Buddha or something. I even considered downloading his oh-so-acclaimed novel and reading it, but in the end I just lay on my bed and stared up at the ceiling.
I must have drifted off to sleep at some point. Around four a.m. I heard Syd in the bathroom. She took a long shower, and when she’d been done for about ten minutes, I got out of bed, grabbed my comforter and made my way to her room.
“Hey,” I said as I entered the room. I moved to the empty bed her former roommate Megan had used.
Megan had gone home to Nebraska after the first week because her mom had died. She’d thought she’d be back for this semester, but she didn’t show in January.
Syd might still be in touch with her, but I wasn’t.
“Hey,” Syd said, her back to me. She was fiddling with something on her desk. “Sorry I woke you.”
“You didn’t. Or I don’t think you did.”
She looked over her shoulder at me, saw me still dressed in leggings and a sweatshirt, not my pajamas. “Were you out?”
I shook my head as I sprawled out on Megan’s bed, wrapping my comforter over me.
“No, I stayed in.”
“Sorry I had to work,” she said. She left the desk and went over to her bed. She’d thrown on her pajamas after her shower and put her long black hair into a wet ponytail.
“Lily with Lucas?” she asked. I nodded. “That’s nice, that he was able to get Valentine’s off and that they can be alone together.”
“I guess.”
She sighed, stretched out on her back, flinging her arms over her face. “It’s so easy for them, hey? They both know they love each other. There’s no drama. No should-they-or-shouldn’t-they. It’s nice, right?”
Syd hadn’t been a fan of Lily being with a townie at the beginning, so her words were surprising. And a bit uncharacteristic.
“Well, it wasn’t easy at first, remember?”
She waved a hand, as if Lily’s broken heart at having to break things off with Lucas had been a minor hiccup. In a way she was right.
But I’d shared a room with Lily when she’d cried herself to sleep. I’d seen—more so than Syd—how devastated our friend had been until she’d worked things out with Lucas.
And it had scared me.
At the time, I’d filed it away—with my mother’s perpetual desperateness—as two places I never wanted to end up.
I would not be the type of woman who was desperate to keep her man. So desperate she’d do anything. And I would never fall apart over losing a guy the way Lily had.
I didn’t think less of Lil for it—I felt deeply for her. But I just knew that would never be me.
“But it was never because she didn’t trust her feelings, right? It was just shit that got in their way,” Syd said, still covering her face.
If I’d been more on my toes, I’d have been suspicious of Syd’s mood and the things she was saying. Normally I would have pushed and prodded, and gotten to what Syd was really saying.
But I was distracted with her words as they applied to me.
And my feelings for Stick.
It was time to stop denying that I wanted him to kiss me, that I felt something for him. But I wouldn’t romanticize it and put it in a “Lily and Lucas” kind of love category either. Stick pushed my buttons, and I liked it. It was as simple as that.
And I very much liked when he kissed me—hard.
But that was all it could ever be—some stolen kisses, maybe a little more. Hopefully a little more.
I would never put myself in the position my mother had for all those years—begging for crumbs from a man. Or where Lily was now—helplessly in love.
“It’s just so hard, you know,” Syd said. I don’t know if she was talking about anything in particular, but I murmured my agreement.
We lay in silence for a bit more, then I got up to make my way back to my room.
At the door, I saw a beautiful scarf lying over Syd’s coat on the back of a chair. It was brightly colored and expensive looking, and did not at all look like something Syd would pick out. She was all about blending in, trying to look like the Bribury Basics. And this scarf stood out.
I bet it looked great on her, though, with her dark coloring.
“This new?” I asked, holding up the scarf.
She peeked out from under her arms and nodded.
“Just got it.” She kept her arms down, propping herself up on her elbows, watching me as I held up the scarf.
It wasn’t quite a paisley pattern, nor floral.
It was really unique, like nothing I’d seen before.
I did most of my shopping in thrift stores and consignment shops, loving older, funky, retro stuff.
But I’d also had to tag along with my mother to enough high-end stores in Baltimore to know that this was quite a scarf.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, meaning it. It wasn’t something I’d pick out, but I could certainly appreciate it.
“Thanks,” she said. Her eyes followed the scarf as I held it up to the light, then draped it back over her coat on the chair. I couldn’t quite read her expression—kind of pensive, like maybe she’d spent way too much money on it or something.
“Good thing you picked up a second job,” I said as I turned to leave.
“Yeah, good thing,” I heard her say quietly, more to herself, as I walked out of her side of the suite.