Page 11 of Rumor Has It

She’d planned to tell Katie first. Then maybe, eventually, Katie would help her figure out how to tell her parents. But after seeing Wren’s social media, Rebecca had spent the next several hours crying in the shower. When she’d finally talked to Katie on the phone the next day, she’d talked herself out of opening herself up to potentially losing anyone else. The risk wasn’t worth the reward if the reward was just a cheater and a broken heart.

She had, of course, eventually come out to Katie their senior year of high school, but she had done so without having to ever acknowledge Wren or the devastation she had caused.

But now, she couldn’t hold it in any longer. She pressed dial and waited. Katie’s familiar North Carolina accent rang through, wrapping her up in a warm blanket, feeling like the safest part of home. “Hey, Becky.” She sounded tentative, hesitant even. Becky realized that she had probably seen the news articles of her flicking Wren off at their team photo shoot.

“Hey, Katie.” Becky could tell that she sounded off. She knew that Katie would know that something was seriously wrong immediately.

“Are you okay? You sound upset.”

Becky took a shaky breath and decided to launch straight into the heart of it with no real preamble. “So, you know how Wren Eames and I always seemed out for blood in college?” Katie had come to most of Becky’s home games throughout college. Becky had made a comment once when they were in high school about how her family only showed up for things if they could turn it into a networking event. After that, Katie had gone to any and every game she could, and Becky had done the same for her. Katie had done theater in high school, and Becky had never missed a play. Then in college, Becky went out of her way to show support for her best friend in other ways: namely, showing up outside of her classroom doors with an ice cream cone after big tests.

“Yeah. She was a psycho. I saw the news. Are you in trouble?”

Becky swallowed nervously. “I never told you the truth about why…”

“Why what, Becky?” Katie asked, three steps behind in the conversation.

“Why we always seemed out for blood.” There was a long pause on the other end. Becky could hear movement. She wondered if she had caught Katie at a bad time. She had been so distraught that she had just launched into her story without checking. Danny, Katie’s longtime boyfriend, could be over. Becky cringed, hoping she hadn’t ruined a moment. “Sorry. If you’re doing something, I can call you back. I should have checked.”

“What? Becky, no. I was literally washing dishes. This just felt like a moment I should be seated for, so I sat down. The floor is yours.”

Becky couldn’t help but smile at the expression. They had been using that since they first moved in together. Everyone had told them not to, that living with your friends can only ruin friendships, but they had done well. If they could sense something was wrong with the other person, they would just say “The floor is yours” and listen without interrupting until the other person was through.

“I don’t really even know how to start. Remember that summer before Junior year when I went to that soccer camp in California?”

There was a pause. Usually the other person didn’t speak at all after giving up the floor. It was clear Katie was waiting until she was certain that Becky wanted acknowledgement. She finally spoke, “Yeah, I remember you coming back from that and saying, and I quote, ‘I hate California. It’s just a bunch of hippies, and it can’t decide if it wants to be hot enough for shorts or cold enough for jeans.’ And then every time I would ask you about camp, you would change the subject.”

Becky felt like she was ripping duct tape off her skin. “Wren was there.” She spit the words out as fast as possible.

“Wren Eames was at that camp?” Katie repeated, clearly surprised.

“Yep, she was there. She was my roommate for it.” Becky braced herself for the next bit of truth.

“Jesus, did she bully you the whole time or something? Is that why you always had like a bloodlust for her?”

“No, the opposite. I fell in love with her.”

There was a clearly confused heavy exhale on the other end of the phone. “Wait. So… did you get rejected? Or?”

“I thought we were going to be a thing. No,” Becky shook her head. “I thought we were a thing. She… I mean we… I mean that, when I… so we hooked up. Like, as in, we had sex. But then when I got back from camp, her Facebook was filled with this other girl.”

“Hold on. I thought you lost your virginity freshman year of college to Juliana Quijas?”

Becky was silent for a long time. She had known that Katie thought that. She had just never bothered to correct her. “I didn’t come out to you until senior year of high school. What was I supposed to do? Call you right after I got home from camp, drop two bombs at once, and then have you send Wren nasty messages via Facebook?”

“Ummm, yeah, that’s exactly what we should have done. But okay, that’s besides the point. You went to this soccer camp, fell in love, lost your virginity, got your heart smashed. That explains a lot about y’all’s college rivalry, and holy shit, I just realized that you’re on a team with her now.”

“Worse, I’m stuck being her roommate for the year.”

“What? No? Why?” Katie sounded aptly horrified. Becky was immediately embarrassed to admit that she had honestly caused the photoshoot mishap.

“Because she pushes all my buttons. Intentionally. Then, yesterday she made this stupid bet with this other girl on the team that she could sleep with a Victoria’s Secret model. Then today she was on the phone with some woman she kept calling “Baby.” So, clearly she’s just an all-around shit who doesn’t care about the people she’s sleeping with.”

“What a bitch!”

“Right? And so I called her on it. Of course I called her on it. And now, now when I go back to the hotel room, she’s going to be there. And she has the audacity to just look and act confused about all of this.”

“Okay. Hang on. I’m looking her up now. Everything says she’s single. Google says she’s single. Her Instagram is like, all soccer. I would have to go serial stalker to get some dirt on her, but I totally will for you if you want.”