60 Days After
Asher
On Wednesdays I have classes from eight-fifteen straight through until two o’clock, so by the time I get back to my room I’m ready to eat my World History textbook, and I only have forty-five minutes until I need to be at the pool for practice.
I make a quick stop at my room for my practice bag and as many protein bars as I can grab.
Ryan usually walks over with me, but when I open my door I don’t find my roommate.
I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking at.
The first thing I see is the web of string, densely crisscrossing from every wall.
Then I see the tiny little hooks secured to the wall …
the little peel-and-stick kind. And while I really wish I could think this was Ryan, I know it wasn’t.
Luckily, my practice bag is in my little closet, which is just next to the door.
My protein bars, on the other hand, are clear across the room in my desk drawer.
Getting to them would mean dismantling this web, and I’m going to leave that to the person who let this happen.
When I get to the locker room, Ryan is standing by the bench, and it’s clear he’s waiting for me. A giant grin spreads across his face when he sees me.
“So? Tell me what happened.”
“You can see when you get to the room.” I set my bag on the bench and pull my shirt over my head. “You’re cleaning it all up.”
His face drops for just a second. “It can’t be that bad.”
“It is. And you shouldn’t have let her in our room.”
Ryan shakes his head at me. “A hot girl wanting into your room seems like an okay deal to me. You’re just hangry.” He punches me in the shoulder.
“This isn’t any hot girl, this is Sidney.
And it doesn’t mean what you think it does.
” I don’t want to get into this with him in the crowded locker room.
For Sidney, pranking me was just getting all of her frustration out.
For me, pranks were the only way for me to connect with her after she shut down at the end of that first summer.
We didn’t prank each other when we were actually together, and I can’t go back to that.
Maybe I can’t let myself admit that pranks wouldn’t turn out the same way this time around. “Just don’t let her in again, okay?”
Ryan doesn’t get it, but he nods anyway. I have to see Sidney at practices and in the dining hall, and around campus, but my room is the one place I’m safe from this new reality.