I am running through the snow, with Sabin falling farther behind with each step. I want my room, my bed. I want away. Zach appears and forces my hat on my head and my coat over my shoulders while Sabin swears up and down. When we get to my dorm, I shake off my coat, locate my key in the pocket, and fumble hopelessly with the lock. Sabin tries to take it from me, but I shove his arm away. “I can open the fucking door by myself!”
It takes a minute, but I do. They follow me silently to my room, and I can practically hear them flinch when I hurl the keys across the room and they hit the wall. I sit on the bed and take off my sopping wet shoes. Then I throw them one at a time at the same wall.
“You could have at least aimed for Neon Jesus,” Sabin whispers.
“Shut up. You’re lucky my hands are empty now.” I take a deep breath. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Throw whatever you want,” he says.
Zach sits down next to me, and Sabin squats in front of me. I can’t look at either of them.
“Will you two just go, please?”
“No,” Zach says. “We’re not leaving.”
“Please go. I’m embarrassed enough.” I look at Sabin. “Please, Sabin.” The more I talk, the more difficult it is to control my voice. I do not want to fall apart.
Neither of them say anything for a minute, and I’m hoping they’ll give up.
“Blythe, I’m so sorry.” Sabin takes my hand.
I look up at him and feel my eyes sting.Fuck.“How long?”
The pause before he answers me is excruciating. “Since a few weeks… after.”
“A few weeks after we got back to school?” I wipe my face with my sweatshirt. “Have you known the whole time?”
“B., we didn’t know how to tell you…”
“No, no, it’s okay.” I shake my head. “And it’s fine.I’mfine. Really.” I stand up and step around Sabin. I locate my sneakers and calmly go and set them on the heater, keeping my back to the boys as I look out the window and start babbling. “These are going to take forever to dry out. I might have to use my backup pair if I want to run tomorrow morning. I’ll have to get up early because I still don’t have that statistics stuff down, and I also have about a million chapters left to read for lit class. Actually, I should get to sleep if I’m going to get up early.”
“It’s six o’clock,” Zach points out.
We’re all quiet again, until I finally turn around and crumble.
“Sabe…”
My friend lets me fall into his arms, and he strokes my hair and tells me over and over that it’s going to be all right. “She’s just some stupid girl, Blythe. She’s not you.”
“He doesn’t want me.” I keep my face pressed into him, hiding my eyes under the flap of his leather jacket. “But I can’t be upset, because we agreed we weren’t going to be anything else. I just thought that later… we would. I’m just so messed up still.”
“Chris is the one who is messed up.” Sabin holds me tighter. He is my rock right now.
“He said… he said he didn’t want a girlfriend. Sabin, that’s what he said.” I lift my head, and Sabin rubs his thumbs under my eyes. “She’s not just some girl. She’s his girlfriend, isn’t she?”
He doesn’t need to answer me.
I step away and go to the sink to wash my face. “What’s her name?”
“Jennifer.”
“I assume she’s nice?”
They don’t say anything.
I throw water over my eyes and pat my face dry with a towel. My bed is screaming my name, so I crawl past Zach and lie down. “You can say she’s nice. It’s okay.”
Zach lies down next to me. “She’s fine. There’s nothing particularly wrong with her.”
