Page 10 of What’s Left of Us

“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.”