Chapter 22
“Thanks for letting me crash here,” I say, walking into Ryan’s dorm.
I didn’t want to have to do this.
It’s the whole reason I moved in with Mike to begin with.
There’s about three feet of space between the extra bed and Ryan’s, and the window looks out onto the side of another building.
The whole room smells like Ryan’s too-strong cologne.
Not to mention the RA that would have our asses if he found out.
But what else am I supposed to do?
I set my bag down on my new bed and look around at the space I’m going to be living in, already missing my room at Mike’s house. The window had a view, and the man I love was right down the hall.
“It’s not much,” Ryan says from behind me, still a little awkward. We haven’t spoken in over a month, after our fight at the gym, but he came through when it mattered, so I can try to forgive him for the stuff he said.
“It’s fine.” I turn around with what I hope is a neutral expression. “I really don’t want to have to go back to Nate’s.”
“Yeah, for sure.” Ryan nods, leaning against his desk, towering over it. He looks bigger than I remember. “You can stay as long as you need.”
“I appreciate it.”
“You hungry?” he asks, pushing off the desk. “I think I got some Lunchables in the fridge. Maybe some peanut butter, but you’ll have to get some bread from the kitchen if you want a sandwich.”
I let out a breath, glad that he’s not making it awkward. Maybe he says the wrong thing sometimes, but he grew up in a town an hour away, not all that different from Rosehill. And when it came down to it, he let me in, even knowing I had a thing with Mike.
That’s more than I can say for most people.
Maybe I’ve been a little too hard on him.
“I’m okay,” I say, sitting down on my bed. I am hungry, but my stomach hasn’t stopped hurting since I left Mike for good.
Ryan sighs, crossing the small room to sit beside me. He doesn’t talk at first, putting his elbows on his knees, looking down at the floor between us.“Um.” He pauses. “What happened with—”
So much for not making it awkward.
“Can we not talk about him?” I cut him off before he says his name. “Please,” I add, because I am begging and I want him to understand that.
“Yeah.” He nods, quickly. “Of course. No problem.”
The room settles into an uncomfortable silence. Somewhere down the hall, people are laughing without a care in the world. They way you should be in college. I look at my hands in my lap, thinking maybe Nate’s house doesn’t sound so bad.
At least I wouldn’t have to answer questions about him.
I moved out of Mike’s house with absolute certainty that it was going to feel like this. I took a piece of my heart, and I gave it up. I know it was for the best. Mike deserves better than whatever shitty piece of me I have left to give.
But I’m losing all of him, and I’m not sure that’s something I can recover from.
“Hey.”
I look up.
“I’m sorry,” Ryan says. “For what I said.”
I don’t say anything.
“It was out of line,” he continues anyway. “I was being a judgmental asshole, and I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.”
He means it. I can tell he means it. I could tell when he let me move in with him after my thing with Mike ended, and he didn’t say I told you so.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “I forgive you.”
The next thing he does, I don’t see coming at all. Literally. I’m looking down at my hands, at the nail I picked too low while I was waiting for Mike to go to class so I could leave for good. And then, there are arms around me, and Ryan’s cologne is choking me and—
My whole body locks up.
It’s not him specifically. It’s contact I wasn’t expecting. And arms a similar size to Jason’s. My nervous system has something to say about that before I can get ahead of it. It’s all instinct.
Get away. Jason. Get away.
But I take a breath. He’s not going to hurt me. It’s Ryan. Friends hug in moments like this.
I make myself lift my arms.
When I think maybe this has gone on for a bit too long, he pats my back, and then he pulls back. “So,” he says, clapping his hands on his knees, unfazed. “I was thinking we could start looking for places this week. I still have a few of the contacts from before. I can see if they’re still renting.”
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
“Yeah,” I say, clearing my throat. “Sounds good.”
He reaches over and grabs his laptop off the nightstand, angling it toward me. “I bookmarked a few.”
I look at the screen of apartment listings. They’re all fine. About what you’d expect from an apartment complex that rents to college students. No beer bottles, no guitars to trip over, no kitchen where we fuck more than we—
No. I can do this.
“That one’s decent,” I say, pointing at the third one. “The kitchen’s a good size.”
Ryan’s not a bad roommate.
He never stops talking, and that can be annoying, but I remember the alternative, suppressing a shiver at the roommate from hell.
Ryan is better than him.
He talks about his classes, a girl who was looking at him in class, and the football video game he’s been playing. I don’t even have to respond to most of it, as long as I make sounds of acknowledgment occasionally.
It works.
I’ve gotten more homework done in the last week than in the entire month of December, living with Mike. Turns out it’s easier to write a paper when your roommate isn’t trying to distract you.
When there’s no chin on your shoulder, or lips against your neck, that low voice saying take a break for a little while, please, taking your hand and putting it against his hard cock to show you how much he needs it—
Anyway.
I got a ninety-two on the paper I turned in on Tuesday, and I’m not gonna think about what I could have had instead. This is what my life is supposed to look like. Homework and a roommate who talks too much.
Maybe my arms feel empty every time I wake up in the morning because my subconscious is looking for someone who isn’t there.
But it’s only been a week.
I’ll be okay eventually.
That’s what I keep telling myself.
I’ve started going to the library now that Mike isn’t waiting for me at home. I still have forty minutes before my next class, and it’s quiet this time of day, empty other than the few miserable students trying to catch up on homework.
I’ve found a corner table near the window that has a good view of campus, working steadily when I hear them.
A group of voices, louder than the others, enough that the librarian shushes them, followed by a quiet sorry from a girl and a snicker that I would recognize anywhere.
They’re coming in through the main entrance across the library, far enough away that they wouldn’t notice me yet. There’s Damon, and a flash of pink, and—
Mike.
He’s wearing a hoodie that fits this time, one he didn’t steal from me. And sunglasses inside. But he’s laughing at something Damon says, his whole face lighting up, throwing his head back, and I think I’m going to be sick.
I start shoving things into my backpack.
Textbook, notebook, highlighters, one of them rolls off the table and hits the floor, but I leave it.
My laptop goes in, and I barely fit it in my backpack, but I don’t worry about it.
Leaving it half zipped. I grab my jacket off the back of the chair, and I keep my head down, moving toward the side door.
I don’t look back until the door shuts behind me and the cold air hits my face.
And standing in the cold February air, my bag half open, coffee spilled over my hand, all I can think is…
He seemed fine.
Laughing, hanging out with his friends, he seemed completely fine.
Happy.
Without me.
My charger is missing.
It’s not plugged in by my bed or in the pocket of my backpack, where I usually keep it. I check. Over and over. I pull everything out of my bag and put it back in, and the charger is not there.
My laptop is on eleven percent.
I had it this morning, I know I did. I remember unplugging it. I packed up my stuff and went to class and then the library and—
The library.
I see it now, clear as day, grabbing my laptop off the table and stuffing it into my bag and leaving everything else behind because I was too busy trying not to be seen by my ex, if I can even call him that.
I sit on the edge, burying my face in my hands, and I try not to lose it over something so fucking small.
But a show I’ve been waiting months to watch finally dropped on streaming today, and I’ve been thinking about it all day. It’s the only thing I have to look forward to right now, and maybe that’s a little pathetic, but it is what it is.
I get up and go out to the common area.
Ryan is on the floor in front of the couch holding a controller, a game on the TV, with another guy from our floor sitting beside him in the same position.
“Hey.”
“Mm.”
“Can I borrow your laptop charger?”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t look away for a second. I’m surprised he hears me. “in the drawer.”
“Thanks.”
I go back into the room and open his dresser, assuming that’s what he meant. The top drawer is socks and underwear, no charger. The second drawer is mostly t-shirts and sweats.
I crouch down and open the bottom drawer.
It’s full of shit he should probably throw away. Notebooks, loose pens, an old calculator, some folded papers that might be last semester’s assignments. I push things aside, looking for the charger, moving a notebook out of the way, and—
I stop.
It’s a composition notebook, black and white cover, worn from use. Nothing unusual about it.
Except Ryan doesn’t use this kind of notebook. He only likes college-ruled. He spent thirty minutes talking about it on our school supplies trip last August.
But I use them.
This one, specifically.
I bought it at the campus bookstore my freshman year with three others because this is the kind of notebook I like.
Alex Wesley is written on the first page in black Sharpie, the way Nate taught me to label all of my stuff when I was a kid.
I sit back on my heels.