49. Lydia #2
Atlas: We’re rolling out Friday morning. You in or what?
Lani is telling Simone she refuses to wear anything with cutouts because “for who,” and Simone is defending cutouts on the principle of style, and I’m staring at the text that looks like an open door. Houston is distance and noise. Distance is quiet for my head if I dose it up just right.
Lydia: Probably. I’ll let you know tomorrow
Three dots.
Atlas: Cool. We’ll make it a thing. It’ll be fun
Simone sits up again, softening now when she looks at me. “We’re okay?” she asks me, looking more like my person again and less like a judge.
“We’re okay,” I say, and mean it in the same breath I don’t. I’m scared to lose her…I’m more scared I’ve already lost myself.
“Wait…” I narrow my eyes back on Simone. “What the hell happened with Tyler?”
Simone drops her head, and for a second, I’m scared she’s going to tell me he actually dumped her. “Um, yeah, about that…turns out he didn’t want to break up,” she says, picking at a thread on her sleeve.
“That’s good? Right?” The hope in my voice sounds stupid the second it’s out, wanting to take back everything I said to her, and none of it be true.
Simone’s face falls. “Not really. He wanted to talk because he…told me he slept with someone.”
Everything in me goes still. “Oh,” I breathe, and then, “Oh, Sim.”
Her mouth wobbles, and she tries to keep talking through it, like maybe if she keeps the words moving, they won’t hurt her again.
“He said it ‘didn’t mean anything,’ and he was ‘so drunk,’ and he ‘hates himself,’ and he ‘doesn’t even like her like that,’ and all the other Greatest Hits you’d expect from a cheater. ”
I’m already sliding across the bed to her, gathering her into me before the tears actually fall.
She folds, forehead against my shoulder, breath hiccupping.
I rub slow circles on her back, wanting to crawl backward through time and swallow the awful things I said, the knife I threw because I was bleeding.
“I’m so sorry,” I say into her hair. “I was such an ass that day at the party. And I didn’t mean any of that shit.
I wanted everyone else to hurt the way I was hurting, and you’ve always been my safe space, so I took it out on you…
and that’s so fucked up of me. If I had known this was real, I would’ve—I swear I would’ve ripped the words out of my mouth with my bare hands. You don’t deserve this.”
She pulls back and looks at me through watery, mascara-smudged eyes.
And it makes me want to fight the entire male population just for her.
“I dumped him,” she tells me quietly. “Even after he begged me to stay with him. I’m not stupid, though.
I saw how things had changed. Ever since he left for college, maybe even before that.
He started having different phone habits, and was never really present with me anymore when we were together.
I hate that I noticed all of that and still hoped I was wrong about the gut feelings.
I didn’t even feel like we loved each other anymore.
But I thought it was just a phase we were in.
We were supposed to get past it. We were—“ I hear her voice starting to break and wish I could take the pain away. “—We were supposed to make it.”
“That’s not on you,” I say, needing her to know that this isn’t her fault. “That’s not ‘stupid,’ that’s you caring about someone and giving them the benefit of the doubt. He’s the one who didn’t protect what he had; he’s the one who ruined things. That’s all on him.”
She tries to nod, but the tears still come.
“He said it was because we were ‘in a rough patch.’ As if that makes it…I don’t know, acceptable.
Like I should take some of the blame because I wasn’t everything he didn’t communicate that he needed while I was adjusting to a whole new life in college and keeping up with so much myself. ”
“Absolutely not.” I take her face in my hands to force her to look at me, even through the tears and heartache.
“If there was a rough patch, you plant more care. You don’t go looking for a new garden.
That’s not how this works.” My throat gets tight with emotion seeing her be hurt.
“I thought he was one of the rare good ones. I really did. And I’m so, so sorry he wasn’t. ”
I tuck her under my arm and just hold her there.
“I wasn’t the picture-perfect girlfriend, though,” she says. “I could have done more, or made more of an effort—”
“No,” I cut her off. “When the right person has you, trust me, they’ll never want to let go or look in any other direction, I promise you that. You’re the fucking catch of a lifetime.”
“I hate that it was me,” she whispers. “I hate that it’s a part of my story now.”
“I know.” I close my eyes, knowing too well how she feels, how heartbreaking being cheated on can feel, what it does to your head.
“But it’s not the headline. Not even close.
You’re still Simone. You’re still the funniest, loudest, softest-hearted person in any room.
You’re not less because someone was careless with you. ”
She is quiet for a long time. The only sounds in the room are the air conditioner turning on and the bed creaking from my leg bouncing against it.
After a while, she finally says something. “I just kept thinking if I had been more…I don’t know, more exciting or more fun, or more available for him, or whatever he was looking for, then he wouldn’t have—”
“Stop,” I say it gently, but it comes out a little aggressively because I’m mad.
“There’s no version of you that makes cheating okay.
You don’t have to make yourself change into some perfect girlfriend to keep a boy who doesn’t know how to be kept.
You’ve always been too good for everyone around you.
Please don’t ever sink yourself for a boy. ”
She looks up at me and almost lets a smile slip through. “You’re getting good at these speeches.”
“Shut up and let me be the wise one for two seconds.” I tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear.
“And for the record, I didn’t know this was coming just because of the things I said that day; I meant none of it, and it makes me hate myself even more now for saying those things to you.
I’m sorry for hurting you more when you were already hurting. ”
She finally relaxes into me, letting her shoulders and the tension drop. “I forgive you. I knew even then it was your pain talking, doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt in the moment, but…I knew.”
“Thank you,” I tell her, not feeling like those words will ever be enough. “I’m going to spend forever trying to make up for that one.”
“Just…don’t disappear on me again, okay? Even when you’re spiraling. Especially then.”
“I won’t,” I promise. “I’m trying to learn how to not do this alone anymore.”
“Good,” she says, and wipes her eyes one more time. “Because I need you…and you’re stuck with me.”
“Tragic,” I say, deadpanning, and she swats my arm.
We sit there for another minute, and then I clear my throat. “You sure you don’t hate me?” I ask, the self-doubt creeping back in a little.
“Couldn’t if I tried.” She yawns so big it looks fake. “I’m going to bed before I change my mind about the Kaylees.”
Lani turns off the desk lamp. “Noon,” she reminds me. “I’m dragging you out by your hair if you try to flake.”
“Rude,” I say. “I’ll be up…probably. Just kick me if I’m not.”
Lani smirks a little.
“I’m joking…don’t do that.”
We all move around the room in that easy choreography you learn when you love the people you live with—handing over borrowed chargers, turning off lights in sync, swapping throw pillows, telling each other goodnight.
I crawl under my blanket and stare at the ceiling until my eyes blur.
The room is warm and comforting. I’ve missed it.
I’ve missed them. I listen to Simone’s breathing even out, and Lani’s mattress creaking when she turns.
I close my eyes and see highways cutting through dark; I hear Atlas’s laugh; I watch my hand hang out the window catching the passing wind; I feel that brief, blissful numbness that comes when you hand your brain the perfect off switch.
My limbs feel restless, and I can’t get comfortable. I never can on my own anymore. The sheets feel wrong on my body, like I’m too hyperaware of them touching me. My stomach knots, and my heart flutters a little.
I just need enough to fall asleep.
I pull the Altoids tin out from my backpack beside my bed, opening it up and searching through the mints for the hidden pills, pulling two out and popping them.
I slide the tin under my pillow and lie back, waiting for the off to come.
Doesn’t take long for it to finally kick in and calm the heightened sensations.
My eyes start to feel heavy, and a familiar warmth spreads through my limbs, causing them to itch a little.
My brain never focuses on it for too long before it pulls me somewhere else.
Every sentence I try to form in my head keeps losing its thread mid-thought.
I slowly let go of them all and fall into the only safe place in my mind—the unconscious one.