4. now
now
“You’re lucky this worked.” Hayden holds a strand of my blonde hair between her fingers. It’s not exactly the color it was before I dyed it, but it’s pretty damn close. “That blue did not work for your skin tone.”
I tip my head back to look at her.
“Can you braid it?”
“What am I, your personal servant?”
“Yes.”
Hayden playfully tugs my hair, then gets to work. She’s in school for a marketing degree, but I’m convinced she missed her calling as a hair stylist. No matter what look she attempts, it always comes out perfectly. Exhibit A: she got my hair 95% back to normal with one box of UnDye.
“There, you’re beautiful.” She twists a hair band around the end of my braid and pats my head.
I grin at her in the mirror. Where I’m tall and lean, blonde and blue-eyed, Hayden is short and muscular. Her brown hair is cut just above her shoulders in a flawless bob she did herself. Even without makeup, she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.
“Are you going out tonight?” I twist my head from side to side, studying the French braid.
“Obviously, it’s the first weekend. I assume you’re not?”
“Why, because I had you braid my hair?”
“No, because you’ve been moping ever since you got here.” Hayden abandons me in the bathroom, and when I find the motivation to get up a few minutes later, I follow her to the kitchen. Something’s cooking in the microwave, and she’s halfway through a bag of plain potato chips.
It’s been three days since I came back to campus and two weeks since Phoebe’s wedding. Hayden hasn’t pressed for details, which basically sums up who she is as a person. She’s the type of roommate you pray to the Housing Gods when applying for college.
We’d been randomly paired as freshmen last year. Now, as sophomores, we live off-campus in a little yellow house. Hayden, bringing delightful chaos and a live-and-let-live mentality. Me, bringing doom and gloom mostly, but also excellent taste in movies and a custom-made chore chart.
“I’m not moping.” I stand at our round dining room table and thrum my fingers over its scratched surface.
Almost everything in here was thrifted. This table with its mismatched chairs.
The yellow couch and its abundance of colorful pillows.
The coffee table and the cutesy fake flowers in the vase at its center.
“No?” Hayden removes a Hot Pocket from the microwave and fiddles with its wrapper. She doesn’t say anything more.
“No. I’m just…” I shift on my feet. Glance out the window at the leisurely streets below. We’re far enough from campus that there are more families in our neighborhood than college kids. “It was weird. Seeing him.”
“Your ex?” Hot Pocket in hand, she crosses the kitchen to sit at the table. She blows on her food before glancing up at me. “Sit down, Violet. You’re stressing me out.”
I slump into one of the chairs and tug my knees to my chest.
“Jonathan, right?”
I nod. Hayden isn’t the type to snoop in someone else’s business, but I didn’t know that when we had our first heart-to-heart last fall.
I was terrified I’d tell her Atlas’s name, and she’d track him down on social media.
With a name like Atlas, he’d be too easy to find.
Using his middle name seemed like the safer option.
Now, a year later, it’s too awkward to correct her. The fact I’m talking about him at all is embarrassing enough.
“Did you talk to him?”
“Only a little. He…he wanted to talk more. Hash it out, I think, but it’s done. There’s nothing left to say, you know?”
Hayden doesn’t reply. She takes a bite of Hot Pocket and looks out the window, chewing noisily.
She’s the type of cool girl that most of us are taught to hate growing up.
Bold and brash, sexually confident and endlessly funny.
In movies, she’d be depicted as the mean girl, when that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
She’s self-assured, and society despises women like that.
Ever since I met her, I’ve felt inspired to be a bit more like her. Loud. Weird. Unapologetic.
So maybe it’s her fault I dyed my hair blue for Phoebe’s wedding.
“I don’t know why I’m still talking about him. I wish I’d stop, if it’s any consolation.”
“Well, you know what they say: the best way to get over a man is to get under a new one.”
“I tried that last year,” I point out. I’d slept with two different men during my freshmen year. The guys were nice and the sex wasn’t terrible. And yet here I am, talking about the high school boy who broke my heart. It’s beyond pathetic.
“Come out with me tonight.” Hayden takes another bite and proceeds to talk with her mouth open. “We’ll meet some guys, and you can just distract yourself for a bit. Flirt and get free drinks and have a man drool over you.”
“Next weekend, I promise. I need this weekend to prepare for classes.”
Hayden quirks an eyebrow. I wait for her to call me out—who needs to prepare for syllabus week anyway?—but she doesn’t.
“Next weekend,” she repeats. “In the meantime, you say the word and we’ll have a mopey-movie night. We can watch The Titanic and The Notebook and whatever other shows make you ugly-cry.”
“Deal.”
It’s almost noon before Hayden strolls out of her bedroom the next morning.
I’ve already had a productive day at this point.
I made and drank a breakfast smoothie, took a shower, finished decorating my bedroom, and I’m halfway through making lunch when she joins me in the kitchen.
My hair is in its neat braid, while Hayden’s is frizzy in a messy bun.
Last night’s makeup is smeared beneath her eyes, and she’s still wearing her skintight red dress.
“Have fun?” I look up from the grilled cheese I’m making.
“Please tell me you have enough to share,” is her only response. She’s got her head in her hands. “Actually, maybe I shouldn’t. There’s a good chance I’ll puke.”
“Damn.” I let out an impressed whistle. “You had a great night.”
“I can’t remember the last time I drank that much,” she admits.
That’s saying something, coming from Hayden.
When I arrived in Aberlena, I’d only drank a few times.
She, on the other hand, was already a professional at partying.
She knew her limits and the types of alcohol she liked.
She knew how to play beer pong and could win a game of pool with her eyes closed.
For her to be hungover means she had at least ten drinks. If I did that, I would die.
“I’m going to make you one.” I flip my grilled cheese before rummaging through our cabinet.
The kitchen is too small to have any real organization.
As it is, our cold meds are mixed with plastic lunch bags and our dismal supply of seasoning (salt, pepper, oregano, and a long-expired cayenne pepper).
Snatching a bottle of iBuprofen, I shake a few into my palm. “Take these first.”
“Four,” she says when I offer two. I raise my eyebrow but add a couple more. She takes the pills in one swallow, without so much as a sip of water.
“Gross, Hayden.” I slide my mixed Red Bull drink across the counter. “At least wash it down.”
She hums happily and takes a long chug. I’ve never liked coffee, and I can’t stand the taste of straight Red Bull. Add in blackberry and blue raspberry flavoring though, and I could live off this alone. I take a sip as I turn back to the stove.
I’m swallowing when Hayden proclaims, “I found your future husband.”
I swear, she did it on purpose. She wanted me to choke, and I do. I cough as I face her again, and it takes several seconds before I can breathe normally. Hayden grins at me all the while.
“Are you trying to kill me?” I ask once I’ve regained my breath.
“Get your grilled cheese.” She nods toward the stove, and I startle at the tiny wisp of smoke curling from the pan. I flip the sandwich onto a plate and cut it in half. Diagonally, because I’m not psychotic. I hand Hayden half and keep the other for myself.
Hayden moans as she takes a bite, letting the cheese stretch. “Oh my god. This is the best grilled cheese I’ve had in my entire life.”
“I know.” I hop onto the counter and take a bite. “So. You met my future husband.”
I do my best to act nonchalant, but I’m sure it doesn’t work.
It’s clear rebounds aren’t going to help me get over Atlas…
but someone with genuine potential? Hope trails up my spine, and I find myself pathetically desperate for details.
Unfortunately, Hayden has lost the plot.
She has her eyes closed and her head tipped back, smiling softly as she chews an oversized bite.
“Focus, Hayden.” I tear off a piece of bread and chuck it at her. “Or I’ll take away your sandwich.”
She growls—literally growls—at me. Luckily, it’s enough of a threat she pauses before taking her next bite.
“He’s perfect. Tall. Handsome. Kind.” She takes another bite. “There are so many handsome men, but kind men? It’s rare. I talked to him for, like, five minutes, and I just knew. It was love at first sight.”
“But not for you?”
When Hayden’s eyes open, they’re clouded with darkness.
“You know I don’t do that.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know why. You’ve never—”
Hayden cuts me off with the sharp wave of her hand.
Few things bring this reaction out of her.
Typically, no topic is too embarrassing or shameful or weird to discuss.
She’ll openly talk about painful diarrhea and lousy sex and the fact she cheated on tests all through high school.
But a few things—like love and her insomnia—are off the table.
I press my lips together. Part of me wonders if I should push Hayden for more, to encourage her to trust me the way I’ve learned to trust her. But I don’t. I can’t. Sometimes, it’s better not to know the darkest parts of people. What you don’t know can’t be used against them.
“Anyway, he’s great. I don’t know much about him, but he’s single. And he’s got the best green eyes. Sexiest I’ve ever seen, I swear.” Hayden finishes off her sandwich and grins at me. “He’s one of the sexiest men I’ve ever seen, period.”
“Fine,” I let out a heavy exhale, like the thought of meeting an attractive man is excruciating. “You can introduce me to my future husband. If we end up getting married, you have to be my maid of honor though.”
“Perfect! I’ll set it up.” Hayden hops off the counter and throws her uneaten crust into the trash. “His name is Atlas. I didn’t catch his last name, but I’ll figure it out. Then we can stalk his socials, and if you agree—”
“Atlas?” I interrupt. I’ve only met one Atlas in my life, but there’s no way this is my Atlas, right? He’s at the University of Montana. He’s two states away from me and this little seaside town, so there’s no way he’s here.
“I know. It’s a little weird, but I kind of like it.” Hayden shrugs as she heads for her bedroom. “You will too once you see how hot he is.”
I can’t bring myself to respond, but Hayden doesn’t notice. She disappears into her bedroom, and I remain in the kitchen, spiraling until I finally, finally convince myself there’s no way Atlas Blake is here.