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“Well, no one told you to eat four.”
“They’re crack!” Peyton looks at Skyler before falling back on the couch. “Order some more red velvets.”
“He did text me again.” I tell them.
“What did it say?” Skyler asks.
“Thinking about you.” I close my eyes, staring at the ceiling as a tear slides down my temple and into my hair. I snort and shake my head “Funny, because I can’t stop thinking about him.”
“Leigh…” Skyler grabs my leg and rubs it under my blanket. “I’m going to go change, and then we can order some food?”
Skyler heads out of the room and I look over at Peyton. “Am I being a bitch for not responding?” My lips form a straight line as I realize what I asked and more importantly who I asked. “Right. Know my audience.”
She flips me off before sitting up. “You’re not being a bitch; you did ask for space. But I also know you do love him, so I don’t think responding would hurt. Maybe you could just say ‘same.’” She shrugs. “But I know you’re worried about getting sucked back in. I know you can get wrapped up in the whirlwind, but you’re in control of this situation, Leigh. Only you can decide what’s right for you. When you talk, if you decide to meet up, if you take him back. But, I will say, all of this back and forth isn’t healthy. If you take him back again, you need to say the past is in the past and take everything that comes in stride. Accept his faults and his mistakes and forgive. Maybe it’ll be hard to forget, or even impossible, but you have to forgive. You can’t punish him forever.”
I’m shocked at Peyton’s insight and she rolls her eyes at my shock that I know is written all over my face. “Don’t look at me like that. I do take some things seriously. Just because I don’t have any interest in being in a relationship doesn’t mean I wouldn’t know how to be in one.”
After a weekend of vegging out on my couch with my two best friends, I don’t feel anything except a few pounds heavier in my stomach and in my heart. I’m walking through campus, my earbuds jammed in my ears, as the sounds of Britney Spears Toxic blare through them. I close my eyes and it’s almost like I’m back at my senior prom dancing with Everett in that gorgeous ballroom in the hotel in downtown Phoenix. We’d decided to go together our senior year when neither of us wanted to take a date. We spent the night dancing and laughing and sweating and then fucking in a hotel that we’d convinced our parents it would be mucheasier to stay at instead of coming home after the after party. A party that we’d ditched anyway.
How had I not noticed then that he loved me?Looking back, the signs were all there. The way he touched me and looked at me and cared for me. His love for me was so obvious that I feel stupid for not noticing it sooner. If I had, we would have avoided this whole situation. There’d be no Alli, no baby, no breakup. I pull my bag up higher on my shoulder and my eyes scan the South quad for Peyton or Skyler. I’m supposed to meet them for lunch, but I don’t see them anywhere. I sit at a table by myself, setting my stuff next to me and letting my head fall in my hands as my elbows rest on the table. A cool April breeze whips through the air and I feel a chill shoot through me. I pull my coat tighter around me, grateful that I’d brought it despite the promise of sixty-degree weather today. God D.C. weather is fickle. I miss Arizona. Everything about Arizona.
I look around the quad again looking for either of my friends when I spot him at a table far away, staring straight at me. I turn away from him, the tears springing to my eyes and not being prepared to see him. Especially now. Makeup-less, my hair pulled into a messy, dirty bun, and a sweatshirt under my coat that I may have slept in last night.
Not that Everett cares. Every time Everett’s ever told me how beautiful I am, how perfect I am, how he’s never seen anything so beautiful comes flying into my brain like a montage and my heart flutters. I turn my head back towards the table and frown when I don’t see him there anymore. I turn over my other shoulder, looking for him and for a moment I wonder if maybe he wasn’t ever there. Perhaps I’d imagined him and my mind was just playing tricks on me.
“Looking for me? Sorry, I’m so late. I had to stay after and talk to my professor.” Peyton pushes her sunglasses to her head and sits down across from me, pulling out her Smartwater and a burger from the dining hall. “Shit, it’s cold out here though. Wanna eat inside?”
Fuck, she looked pretty, I think as I head off the South quad. It had taken everything in me not to go over and talk to her, but when she turned away from me, I took it as a sign that she definitely didn’t want to talk.
Is she done with me for good?
I saw her shiver when the wind blew, and I wanted nothing more than to warm her up in my arms. I’m heading towards my car when my phone rings. I let my head fall back when I see who’s calling and reluctantly answer. These days I screen her and let her text me if it’s really important, after the last two calls were just calling to say hey and do you want to grab dinner and talk?
“Hey, Alli.”
“Hey, Everett. Listen, I have a doctor’s appointment next week, I was wondering if you’d be able to go with me?
“Yeah, I…I think that’s a good idea.” I close my eyes and hear my dad’s words in my ear. He was skeptical but until I have proof that the child isn’t mine, I need to step up.
“Great, thank you,” she says and then she’s silent.
“Was there something else?” I ask her, already regretting asking because I know it’s going to be something that involves meeting up now.
“Well…yeah, I just…I was wondering if you were busy right now?”
“Yes,” I tell her, “I have to study.”
“Well, we could study together or…”
“No, I’m heading home, and I just want to be by myself.”
“Oh…I mean, you can just say you’re hanging out with Leighton. You don’t have to lie.” She chuckles nervously.
“Leighton and I are taking some time apart.” As soon as I say it, I don’t know why I told her that. Maybe because I want her to know the chaos she’s brought to my life. Or that we both brought to my life. Maybe a part of me feels like she should feel bad, or that I want her to feel guilty.
I know I need to stop thinking that this is her fault when it isn’t. But in the deep dark crevices of my mind, I do feel like that. I blame her, myself, and everyone for this shitty situation that has taken over my life and cost me Leighton as well as my goddamn sanity.
“Oh. I didn’t know.”
