Bliss leaned around me. “No, he would make one and pretend it was a team logistics document.”
“He would write poetry, though,” I said.
“He would absolutely write some sick ass poetry,” Bliss agreed.
Charm’s cheeks went pink. “Both of you are unwell.”
“You’re the one defending a man’s imaginary poem,” I said.
“I am defending my peace.”
“Your peace has tattoos and a grown-up schedule.”
Charm threw a pretzel at me. It bounced off my sweatshirt and landed in the blanket somewhere near Bliss’s knee.
Bliss immediately searched for it. “Five-second rule.”
“Absolutely not,” Charm said.
“This couch has seen worse.”
I sank back between them, laughing before I could stop myself. It felt strange in my chest, like a muscle I hadn’t used in too long. The last few days had been quieter than I expected. Not peaceful. Never that. More like the silence after a fire, when everything smelled burned and nobody knew what could be touched without leaving soot on their hands.
I had thought I would feel lighter after Easton’s apartment.
That sounded stupid now. I had thought telling him enough of the truth would release something. I had thought hearing him say he loved me, even with all that anger wrapped around it, would give me a shape to hold. I had thought ending things cleanly, or as cleanly as Easton and I could end anything, would make the pressure ease.
It hadn’t.
Before, he had been everywhere. Even when he hated me, he was present. In the back corner of The Sin Bin withhis jaw clenched and his beer untouched. Across a crowded party with another girl too close to him. At the Furnace, cold-eyed and untouchable, making me bleed with the simple act of not looking. On campus sometimes, rare and brutal, because my law classes and his Ancient History track lived on opposite sides of KFU like the university itself was trying to keep us from becoming a natural disaster.
Now he was nowhere.
He was temporarily banned from The Sin Bin, a cooling-off period, as Hannah had said with the solemn grief of a woman who had lost an excellent tipper to male stupidity. I didn’t pass him on campus. I didn’t see his truck near the rink. I didn’t get a single text, a single accidental glance, a single hateful little confirmation that he still existed close enough to hurt me.
I had wanted quiet, and quiet was eating me alive.
Bliss nudged me gently with her shoulder. “You disappeared.”
“I’m literally under the blanket with you.”
“Your face left the room.”
Charm paused the movie without asking. “Do we need to discuss feelings, or can we bully Bliss about chair covers for ten more minutes?”
Bliss gasped. “I am not having chair covers.”
“Good,” Charm said. “That was a test.”
I grabbed the gummy worms from Bliss’s lap. “I’m fine.”
Bliss and Charm both stared at me.
I sighed. “I am in a healing, snack-and-ice-cream process.”
“That sounds more believable,” Charm said.
Bliss rested her head on my shoulder. “I know you miss him.”
