“Hey, I’m being honest. Somebody had to.”
“You’re being an asshole.” Damon sets his sticks down, ready to fight.
Trent raises his hands in surrender.
I look at Zara, who’s watching me with wide, concerned eyes. And Damon, who shakes his head in disapproval and picks his sticks back up. “From the top?”
“Yeah,” I agree, anything to move on fromthisconversation.
We play the song again. I play it well. I’ve been playing for as long as I can remember, and my hands know what to do even when I’m not able to think about it.
When my heart feels like it got ripped out of my chest and stomped on for good measure.
Because yeah, Trent’s a dick. We’ve established that. But this time, I can’t say, with complete certainty, that he was wrong.
Now
The ball goes up in the air again.
Up. Down. Catch. Up. Down. Catch.
Damon got here ten minutes ago, and he looked at me and looked at the ball and sat down in the armchair without saying a word about it.
His freshman of the month is in his lap.
I don’t know her name, but she’s pretty, with brown hair and tan skin. She seems nice enough, laughing at a video on her phone, Damon’s chin on her shoulder.
When I look at them, all I feel is hot jealousy.
I know that’s fucked up.
But that could be Alex and me.
Zara’s on the armrest by my feet, while Trent, who’s already on thin ice, is standing in the corner by the window like he doesn’t even want to be here.
The ball goes up.
“You know what the funniest part is,” I say to no one in particular.
“I thought he might have been the real deal.” I catch the ball. Throw it back up. “And I don’t say that lightly. I wasn’t exactly looking for love.”
“I know,” Zara says, patting my foot.
“And then this dude moves in, and he’s so—” I wave my hand holding the ball. “He’s so quiet, right, but when he talks, he always says something funny. Or smart. Or hot. And he’s so good. He’s such a genuinely good person, and he has these dimples—”
Up.
Down.
Up.
Down.
“I thought I meant something to him.” I laugh even though there’s nothing funny about it.
“And then god forbid, I try to switch it up in the bedroomone time, and that’s enough for him to completely abandon me.” Nobody says anything, and I feel like such a fucking loser right now, but my eyes are prickling with tears over that asshole.
“I came home and—” my voice cracks.
