34 Days After
Sidney
Asher jogs past my dorm every morning. I saw him the first time by accident, when Ellie and I were walking to the café across from our building to meet the girls for breakfast. It’s not weird or even intentional that he runs by—my building is at a major crossroads where paths from all of the living centers converge at one of the campus’s three dining spots.
The second time I saw him, a few days after what I will always think of as the day of puke, I waved.
Like an idiot. It took a monumental effort to make my arm move, and it’s too early to know, but I suspect I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.
Someday when I’m lying on my deathbed, I’ll regret never climbing a mountain or doing something to better humanity, and that one time I waved to Asher Marin on a cold morning in the middle of September my freshman year.
Because Asher didn’t wave, but some random dude coming out of the café did.
And to save face I had to pretend I recognized him from my biology lecture, and I wasn’t hopelessly waving at my ex-boyfriend.
Look at me, making friends everywhere I go.
Between team breakfasts and this, I have officially reached social butterfly status.
My certificate’s obviously lost in the mail.
I get that I did something horrible, but I did apologize. And it’s been over a month now—weeks of me giving him space and watching him avoid me—and we can’t be like this forever. I don’t want to lose Asher completely.
Whether he saw me or not, there was no wave. Asher is normally like a distracted dog when he runs, checking out everything going on around him, but when he passes my dorm, he is laser-focused on one thing: not seeing me.
I waved four more different times when I saw him. On the fifth time, I decided I’d be proactive. I sat on a bench along the walkway, clearly in his sightline. And still, nothing.
So now, three weeks into classes, I’m finally fed up.
I pull on my running shoes. Usually I run on the track, but today I’m going to make an exception.
I’m waiting outside my dorm when Asher passes, and I fall in step beside him.
I can’t be sure, but it feels like he speeds up, and quickly I fall a step behind, and then two.
It takes a near-sprint for my considerably shorter legs to keep up with him.
Words come out of me in an explosion. “You’re avoiding me. ”
Asher raises his voice so he doesn’t have to turn around. His voice is even. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
“Okay—” He stops in front of me so quickly I nearly run into him.
And when he turns to face me, it makes my heart jump into my throat, because we haven’t been this close in months now, not even in his dorm room.
I have a ridiculous urge to touch him. “I’m avoiding you.
” He pulls up the collar of his T-shirt and wipes the sweat from his face, exposing a little of his stomach.
Do not stare, Sidney. “You’re my ex-girlfriend. That’s what people do.”
It’s a lot harder doing this when he’s giving me his full attention—I wish we could keep running.
“It’s not a requirement, is it?” Obviously I know people do this, I just didn’t expect that Asher would be one of those people.
“You’re not friends with any of your ex-girlfriends?
You have, what? At least four of them, right?
” Wow, okay, Sid. You’ve veered down a very unfriendly road.
“I mean—I’m sorry. Just. You’re not friends with any of your exes?
You said you’re still friendly with Jordan.
And you called Lindsay, she wouldn’t have helped you if you weren’t—”
“Lindsay and I were never together.” He shoves his hands into his pockets, and I think maybe it’s to keep from strangling me, because he looks like he wants to. “And Jordan’s different. It’s not the same.”
“Because she’s nicer than me? She wasn’t horrible to you for years?” I slam my hands onto my hips. “I watched you puke, I’m not the worst person in the world.”
Asher’s face scrunches up in confusion. “What? No, you’re not the worst. And I never thought you were horrible.
” He shakes his head and the words shouldn’t light me up as much as they do.
How low are my expectations when I’m excited to hear he doesn’t think I’m horrible?
“But me and Jordan weren’t … I mean … it’s just different. ”
I nod, but I can’t see how it is. I’ve never been mean to any of my exes.
Maybe I avoided them for a few days while the weirdness settled, but after that, I just treated them like people again.
I get that lots of exes treat each other like crap, or avoid each other, or whatever, I just didn’t think Asher would be one of them.
I want to tell him how much worse this is than the pranks or the jabs, but classes start in thirty minutes and the walkway is starting to fill with people scurrying toward food and academic buildings.
“Okay.” My tightening throat and the stinging in my eyes won’t let me say more.
I’m three steps away when he grabs my wrist, stopping me. The tears have spilled free so I don’t turn around. And maybe Asher senses it, maybe he can smell tears—which is a theory I have about boys—because he stays behind me. “I’m sorry, Sid. I’ll try, okay?”
I nod, and then my wrist is free, and I don’t look, but I know Asher is gone.