Chapter Twenty-Three - Thalia
I KNOCK HESITANTLY on the door of Blake’s dorm room. “Blake? Is it cool if I come in?” I don’t hear a response, so I open the door anyway. She’s sitting on the bed, absorbed in her homework, with headphones in. I guess it is good that I came in because I’d be standing out there all day if I didn’t.
You can tell where the separation in the room is between her and her roommate. The other side is a complete disaster, filled with all things sorority. Blake’s side is spotless and very…Blake. The same textbooks I helped her pick up the first day we met are stacked on her desk.
I climb onto her lofted bed, scaring the hell out of her as she gapes at me.
“What the fuck, Lia? A little warning next time,” she says, holding a hand to her chest. “I think my heart stopped beating.”
“If you didn’t want anyone coming in, you should have locked the door.” I roll my eyes and lean back against the wall. “When I saw Owen with a clean-shaven face this morning before they left, I had to come and find out if you were the reason why.”
Blake sighs, putting her hair up. “I broke up with Thomas,” she confirms what I suspected, and I give her a sympathetic smile.
“Kinda figured. Does this have something to do with your trip last weekend?”
“Two weekends ago,” she corrects before nodding. “I love Thomas; I think I always will because he was my first love. He isn’t the same guy he used to be, or maybe I’m not the same person I used to be. It’s not fair to him if I’m here falling for someone else while we’re still together.”
This is the first time Blake is acknowledging anything about reciprocating Owen’s feelings. I wasn’t expecting this today.
“Don’t look at me like that. I know I’m a horrible person.”
Okay, clearly, I need to fix my face faster. “No, Blake. I don’t think you’re a horrible person. Distance is hard. It’s okay for people to outgrow each other. I’m surprised. I didn’t know you felt that way about Owen?” I fumble over my words, possibly trying too hard to overcorrect from the shock on my face before.
“I know he’s your brother, so I’m sorry if this is weird. I’m being stupid; I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
Blake looks back down at her textbook, wiping tears away, and my heart hurts for her. “You’re not being stupid. I’m sorry you guys broke up, but that doesn’t mean you have to jump into anything. My brother’s an idiot, but he cares about you. I think he would wait for you to be ready, and if he doesn’t, it’s his loss.” Oh, if I could kick my brother right now, I would. I need to talk to Bash and have him tell Owen to break this shit with Amelia off. I know he cares about Blake. I have no doubt he’d jump at the chance to be with her, but will Blake want to be with Owen after how weird he’s been acting lately?
She doesn’t miss a beat with his idiocy, pointing out the very thing he will regret. “I can really tell how much Owen cares. He cares so much he went back to Amelia! She cheated on him!”
I can’t help but laugh because it is an excellent point. “I told you he’s an idiot. I’m by no means an expert at relationships; I actually suck at them. I can’t explain the whole thing with Amelia, but the way Bash tries explaining it to me is Owen is or was sexually frustrated?” I make a face, disgusted that I have to defend his stupidity right now. “I don’t think he’s actually with her if that makes things better?”
“So if I don’t sleep with him right away, he’ll keep sleeping with her?” she asks, and I realize I probably could have worded that better.
“No, that’s not what that means. It’s what? October? I think he’s doing his best not to pressure you into making a decision regarding your now ex-boyfriend. Owen has been interested in you since I first brought you home. I don’t try to understand my brother, but my best guess is that Owen needed to take his mind off you to prevent crossing any lines. Now, why hasn’t he ditched her yet? He’s being a boy and thinking with his dick.”
Blake runs her hands over her face. “I’m such an idiot.”
I shake my head, laughing. “No. I hold that title. I teased Bash for weeks and then got mad when he hooked up with another girl. That same night, I stole his car and then asked him to have sex with me at a later date because I thought that fucking Sebastian would help me get over him. Jokes on me.”
“I still cannot believe you stole his car. You’re insane!” Her face scrunches up as she thinks harder about the timeline. “Wait—is that what you were so excited about the day Owen and I looked at my internship? I was your cover, and you didn’t even tell me what was happening! I thought you told him you changed your mind—actually, no. I’m torn between wanting to ask questions or plugging my ears so I have plausible deniability when your brother asks if I knew.”
I shrug, grinning stupidly. “Fine. I won’t tell you anything other than he conceded first by asking if it didn’t have to be a one-time thing. What can I say? I must be pretty mind blowing in bed.”
It at least gets Blake to crack a smile and laugh. “You two are a disaster, but I think you’re good together based on what I’ve seen. When are you telling Owen?”
“After my birthday in three days. I currently have a love-hate relationship with our bubble,” I say, considering the possibility that popping the bubble too soon will kill the relationship faster than anything. I can’t think that way, or I’m going to self-sabotage. I like Sebastian. I want to be with Sebastian. It doesn’t matter how badly my brother flips out. “We’re not done talking about you. We can talk about Bash later; I want to know if you’ll be okay?”
She cringes and shuts her textbook, finally accepting that I won’t let her get any studying done. “I’ll be fine. It sucks because a part of me misses Thomas, even though I’m the one who ended it. It’s all so confusing. I can’t make sense of any of it.”
“You’ll figure it out. I have faith,” I reassure Blake confidently. If Bash and I can make it work after every reason we have not to be together, then whenever Blake is ready for something with Owen, they’ll make it work too.
“I blame you for this. If you hadn’t run into me, I never would have been at your apartment and met your brother. Owen wasn’t kidding when he said you were a force of nature.”
I grin at the thought of him saying that to her because it’s what my parents used to say about me when we were kids. “Funny enough, that’s not the first time I’ve been told that.”
“I can believe it.”
~
Jake and Penelope are hitting it off rather well. Landon brought a Kappa he met last weekend while we danced after Bash and Owen’s football game. I was pleasantly surprised by both, but I’m more surprised by how much of my night I’ve spent with Vera. The Vera I’m with tonight is the one I remember before leaving. It’s only succeeded in further confusing my brain about what is going on with her. I held my tongue at the bar last weekend, but if she says something remotely close to that again, I’m not sure how much more I can take before I snap.
“Lia, do you remember when we were at the library for a project when we found a bottle of vodka hidden behind the biography of Abe Lincoln? We stuffed it in your backpack to go back to your house to try it.” She doubles over in laughter before she can finish the rest of the story of the first time we got drunk.
We were so stupid. “Yes! The guys found us wasted in the basement.”
Vera grins widely at me. “I thought they were going to tell on us, but all they wanted was the rest of the bottle.”
“I can’t believe that happened. Those were the days,” I say wistfully, thinking back. We used to have quite a bit of fun. Everything seemed so simple back then. I don’t know what happened. Maybe I’m simply making things up and seeing things that don’t exist.
“They were.”
Vera takes a drink of her beer, and I do the same, even though I despise the taste of it. Sober me wouldn’t be able to face Vera without asking what went wrong with our friendship and why she’s being so manipulative.
Penelope’s been giving me weird looks all night that I’m doing my best to ignore. I know exactly what she’s thinking, but I hope whatever was going on with Vera before might be over now. Is it wrong of me to want things to go back to how they used to be? Things haven’t been the same; maybe they aren’t supposed to be. I could take my own advice that I gave Blake yesterday when I told her that sometimes people outgrow each other.
What if all I’m doing is clinging to the memory of a person that no longer exists?
“I wonder how the game’s going? Owen said it was going to be a tough matchup,” I say, replacing Sebastian’s name with Owen’s as Penelope slides into the open seat beside me.
Today’s game was all Sebastian would talk about before they left because he was nervous. I told him whether they won or lost, there were lessons to learn no matter what the outcome was. It was the right thing to say because he finally shut up about football and kissed me.
Penelope looks at me with a knowing smile. “I don’t think it was Owen who said that. Must have been that boyfriend of yours,” she teases me in French. I roll my eyes, but I can’t stop the smile from forming. It’s nice hearing someone else call Sebastian my boyfriend.
Vera looks confused, so I switch back to English. “Sorry, she was just saying something about Owen being too cocky for his own good.”
“She has a point. It wouldn’t surprise me if he stared in a mirror daily to tell himself what a pretty boy he is.”
“At least he finally shaved his awful beard. It was driving me nuts.” I pretend to gag, and Penelope giggles.
“It was terrible,” Vera agrees. “Why did he even bother growing one in the first place?”
Shouldn’t she know the answer to that? Owen said that she hung out with them quite a bit. Stop. You are reading too much into this. I can’t look at Penelope, or Vera will ask why I’m being weird. “Who knows? It was there when I got back from France.” I try to shake off the strange feeling I have.
Then she says another thing that throws me for a loop. “Do you know who Bash is seeing? He said something the other night about seeing someone.”
I maintain the easy smile I’ve had on my face all night, but now my guard is further up. There’s something I’m not piecing together. Does she have feelings for him? Is that what all of this is about? “Why do you think I’d know anything? I can’t stand him, but I pity the poor girl stuck with him.” I feel slimy saying it, but it’s a necessary evil now. Underneath the table, Penelope bumps me with her knee.
Vera looks at me skeptically, clearly not buying it. “But you guys live together now? He hasn’t brought anyone over?”
She does have feelings for him! It makes sense. I always suspected she had a crush on him in high school, but Vera never admitted it.
“I don’t pay all that much attention to his comings and goings.” I pick at the peeling label on my bottle to play off my disinterest. I pay a lot of attention to his comings, especially that hitch in his breath before he loses control. Penelope bumps me again, and I force a smile as Vera refuses to let the matter drop.
“Have you guys seriously not made up yet? I figured by now he’d be done being mad about the party, and you’d be over the beach trip.”
“Nope. We’re both excellent at holding grudges.” It takes everything in me to bite my tongue about the party. The party Vera threw. If I wasn’t sure before, I am now.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize things were still bad between you. It didn’t seem like it the other night, but he was in a mood then too,” Vera continues, but my face must not reflect what I think it is, so she changes the subject. “Are you excited for your birthday? What is the plan?”
The plan is not to tell you anything.
Penelope seems to be the only one with a working brain right now, so she answers the question for me. “We’re having a small party that night at the apartment.”
I feel instant relief that Penelope left out the beach day we’re planning. Owen told me before they left for their game that their coach had already promised that afternoon off if they all came in early before morning weights to watch game film. I think this beach trip will go much smoother.
“You’re going to be twenty-one, Lia! There has to be more that you want to do. We could go shopping that afternoon if you want to get a new outfit for the party. Penelope, you’re more than welcome to come too,” Vera offers, and I see a glimpse of my friend again.
I hate this. It’s confusing, but I can’t let myself fall for it. There are just too many other things that don’t add up. Sebastian is what this is about. I have questions, but it’s not like I can ask Vera. Did she ask him out? I mean, why else would Sebastian tell her that he’s seeing someone? It’s the only thing that makes sense, but I think he would have told me if that was the case. It’s not as if I can call Bash right now and ask if my childhood best friend asked him out.
“I’ll have to talk to Owen and see if he has anything planned, but for now, I think it’s just the party,” I say, leaning back into the couch as Vera continues chatting about my birthday. I let her because I don’t trust myself to say anything right now.