Chapter Five #2
As he turns out of the neighborhood, my phone buzzes again, and when I look down, Mom is trying to FaceTime me. I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Jamie?”
He groans. “What are you about to ask for?”
“Hey, I didn’t force you to do this! I said I’d Uber!”
“What, what, what? Spit it out.” He waves a hand at me like, Get to the point.
I grab his wrist and force his hand back to the steering wheel. He rolls his eyes.
“I need you to stop somewhere first,” I say weakly. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t expect to have to do this, but it’s unavoidable.” I need to get it over with anyway before Mom gets more suspicious.
Jamie sighs. “Fine. Just make it fast.”
“Of course.” It’s not like I want to spend any more time in there than I have to.
Not like I’m sure they’d even let me.
As I plug the address into my phone and direct Jamie to his next turn, that anxiety drowns out everything else. Neither Mom and this FaceTime, nor Jamie telling Sawyer about the apartment, can rival the stomachache that accompanies the thought of seeing my best friends right now.
I’ve only been to the house once before, when Leni’s parents brought us up to see it for the first time. Leni, Starr, and I traipsed through it, shrieking over the size of the bedrooms, the breakfast nook in the kitchen, and the crown jewel: the sunroom.
Now the thought of stepping foot inside is enough to give me an allergic reaction. I feel distinctly itchy, like I’ve been standing in a field on a hot summer night.
“I don’t want to hear a single word about this,” I say to Jamie as he parks at the curb. “In fact, don’t even watch. Close your eyes.”
“Blair.”
I stare at him, arms crossed.
He heaves a gusty sigh. “This is so stupid.” He closes his eyes, and then, for good measure, dramatically slaps his hands over them. “Good enough?”
I raise a hand and flip him off. When he doesn’t snap at me, I say, “That’ll do. I’ll be right back.”
On the sidewalk, I’m hit with a deep ache as I stare up at the house that was supposed to be my place for the next four years.
I hate that I still want it. I hate that if my friends called tomorrow, I’d do anything I could to break my lease at UGH. I hate that no matter how angry I am with them, how hurt, I miss them. And more—I miss what could have been. The promise of the next four years together.
My chest tightens as I head up the front walk and knock. I was supposed to have a key to this place. I was supposed to belong—
The door swings open, revealing a girl I don’t recognize.
She has pale skin and sleek black hair to her waist, and in one black-manicured hand, she holds an ice pop—the fancy kind that Leni likes.
She exudes the kind of pretty-girl energy that immediately intimidates, and I have to steel myself against taking a step back.
“Um, hi?” she says after a moment, her voice low and husky in a way I’ve only ever achieved during a bad cold. “We aren’t buying anything, so—”
It takes me a moment to shake off the dazzle. “I’m—I’m not—I’m sorry, who are you?”
The girl stares at me. “Excuse me?”
I look to the driveway, where Leni and Starr’s cars both sit. “Do you… know Leni and Starr?”
“My roommates?”
I whip my head around so fast, hot tingles shoot up my skull and down my neck. “Your what?” Blood rushes loud in my ears.
“Izzy?” Leni’s familiar voice calls from deeper in the house. “Do you want chocolate chips in your pancakes—” She comes around the corner and stops short, her mouth forming a perfect O of shock. “Blair.”
She must say my name loud enough, because I hear Starr’s pounding footsteps before she appears, spatula in hand and eyes wide.
I swallow hard. “Hi.”
“What are you doing here?” The accusation in Starr’s voice burns through me.
I give a soft laugh. “What happened to we’ll stay friends?” I ask. But I think I already know exactly what happened to it.
Still, knowing doesn’t stop the sick feeling from swooping through me, turning everything inside me to slime.
“I mean, you still have to call,” Starr says, sounding exactly like someone who was hoping to dodge those very phone calls. “You can’t just show up—”
“Starr,” Leni says softly.
“Who’s this?” I ask, jerking my thumb at Izzy, who makes an insulted little noise in response.
“Our roommate,” Starr answers stoically while Leni stares at the floor like she’s wishing it would swallow her up and leave Starr to handle everything. Because of course she wants that. Leni never wants to handle anything for herself.
“That fast, huh? You found someone to replace me in a week?” But the confused look on Izzy’s face tells me I’m wrong. It wasn’t a week. I don’t even need to see the way the color drains from my so-called friends’ faces.
Whoever Izzy is, she knew she was moving into this house long before I found out I wouldn’t be.
“Ah.” My throat tightens, and the threat of tears burns behind my eyes. “Okay. Well, I—I guess I’m here to ask for a favor, then. Because my mom doesn’t know I’m not living here, and she’s asking me to FaceTime. So… can I come in and call her?”
None of them respond. Starr’s expression has turned stony, and Leni still stares at the floor. Izzy looks like she wishes she hadn’t answered the door.
I sniff, trying desperately to hold back my tears. “I think it’s the least you could do after you left me scrambling, right?”
Leni looks up then and gives Starr a small nod.
“Fine,” Starr says. “Come in.”
I try not to look too closely at anything as I step inside. I already strained my stitches on the walk up. I don’t want to pop them now and bleed out on the beautiful hardwood floor.
“I’ll just be a second. You don’t have to be in it.” After a moment’s hesitation, I add, “I’d prefer you weren’t, actually.”
I don’t look at them in case I catch regret in one of their faces—or worse, don’t. I’m not sure which would hurt more.
Starr motions for Izzy to follow them, and Izzy gives me one last incredulous look before they all disappear around the corner. I wait until I hear the TV turn on in the next room before I hit the button to FaceTime Mom.
She picks up immediately. “There you are!”
I try to act loose and relaxed, then remember my car was towed and Mom already knows that. I shift quickly to tense and anxious, which comes very naturally.
“What took you so long to answer?” Mom asks.
I try to keep my voice low without seeming like I’m whispering. “Sorry, I was just trying to get ready so we can go get my car. Um, I’m sorry about that. I promise I’ll pay you back.”
Mom rubs her forehead. “How did this even happen? Where were you parked?”
This is the question I should’ve planned for. Of course Mom wants to know all the details. She’s a fixer. She wants to make sure it never happens again. She wants to be especially sure someone didn’t take advantage of her daughter’s na?vety on move-in day.
Which means I have to make myself sound like a real idiot right now. Not exactly far from the truth.
“Well, I parked in front of a fire hydrant without realizing. The police must be really vigilant in our neighborhood, because they towed it sometime last night. But that feels kind of nice, right? Very safe.”
Mom isn’t distracted by my bullshit about police presence. “You parked in front of a fire hydrant? Blair, you need to pay attention—”
“I was excited to get here! That’s all. I swear it’ll never happen again.”
“Your text said you misread a parking sign.”
My body floods with nervous heat. “Y-yeah, I thought that’s what happened at first, but then I saw the fire hydrant.”
“Oh, Blair.” She sighs but seems to accept this answer, even if she’s disappointed. “Well, since I have you, let me see it. The dream house!”
I exhale slowly. Something has leached out of me now, and my limbs have turned to jelly—the way you feel after narrowly missing a car accident, or seeing a cop car’s lights flip on when you drive by.
“Just for a minute. We really have to go.” I turn the camera around, showing her the room.
Mom oohs and ahhs as I walk her through the empty entryway, where Leni’s backpack is already sitting open by the front door, and the main bathroom, where the bath mat is still in the narrow space on the floor, ready to be trampled by any shoes that come through.
The counter is strewn with makeup, which I assume was for a night out.
Mom makes a face. “Wow, you girls wasted no time.”
I try to shush her, even though I was thinking the same thing. The place is already halfway to sty country, but I don’t want to give Leni and Starr any more reason to think they were right for what they did to me.
I avoid the kitchen, where they’re having a whispered conversation, and I don’t remind Mom about the sunroom. My heart feels like a papercraft model someone took a hole punch to. The setting of my most fanciful college daydreams might crumble its unstable frame altogether.
“Let me see your room,” Mom urges.
“I can’t yet,” I say. “It’s a mess. I’ll show you when it’s all put together. I need furniture and—” The words clog in my throat, like a pipe with a slow buildup. Something you don’t notice until your sink suddenly won’t drain.
For months, Starr and Leni and I talked about furniture shopping. Flea market and thrift store finds, painting and swapping hardware, and then filling in the rest with Ikea furniture customized with hacks Leni had been saving up from social media.
I won’t be a part of that now, either. It’s amazing that I can still find things that prick in this situation—a dropped glass whose shards I keep cleaning up, only to step on another one every time I tread this ground again.
“Listen, I have to go,” I say, swallowing down my hurt. “We need to get my car. I think they charge by the hour.”
Mom frowns deeply. “That’s highway robbery.”
“Well, yeah,” I agree weakly.
Mom’s voice goes thick as her eyes turn watery. “I’ll let you go, then. I miss you already. I missed you as soon as you pulled out of the driveway.”
My throat tightens. “I miss you, too.”
When we hang up, I stand silent in the entryway for a minute, gathering myself. My eyes sting; my throat is so aching, it feels swollen. I can feel the start of a throbbing headache.
“Done?” Starr asks from behind me.
I pocket my phone without looking at her. “Yep.”
Leni doesn’t come out of the kitchen, and I don’t thank them.
Starr trails me to the front door, and I spot a change in her expression when she opens it. “Is that… Jamie Atwater?”
“Yeah, well,” I answer stiffly, stepping onto the porch, “I had nowhere else to go.”
I start down the front walk to my car. Jamie still has his hands over his eyes, but I see him watching me through his fingers even as my vision blurs with tears.
I get in and put my head down, crying freely as he pulls away from the curb without saying a word.
We’ll still be friends? Yeah fucking right.