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Chapter 9
Hey, Harlow! Wait up!" I turned as the sound of a familiar voice caught my attention. Blinking blurry eyes, I waited as Lizzie rushed to catch up with me. After last night's meeting, I had snuck back into the dorm room late and I was tired from lack ofsleep.
Lizzie finally came to a stop next to me, but instead of leaping into whatever her reason for chasing me down was, she held up one finger and put her hands on her knees. "Just...need...a second..." shepanted.
I yawned, covering my mouth and waited. Finally, with her chest still rising and falling much faster than usual, she stood up and brushed away a few pink strands of her hair before grasping my shoulders and staring into my face. I jerked back in shock, but she heldsteady.
"Okay, girl, that's it," she said. "I can't take it anymore. I have toknow."
"Have to know what?" I stared at her—wide-eyed andworried.
"Which one of the guys is your boyfriend?" She shook me. "Come on, don't leave me hanging! Is it the hot blue-eyed playboy? The sweet one from yesterday or is it the skinnier one from lunch?" Lizzie pulled away and wagged her finger under my nose with a serious expression etched into her face. "Don't think I didn't notice. Are you stringing them along? The one from yesterday—Marv, right?—he all but admitted he wanted to be your boyfriend. And yeah, even though the playboy hit on me—" She paused amidst her tirade and flicked more pink hair over her shoulder. "Which I mean, who could blame him? But he didn't deny that you were his girl when I suggestedit."
"Um..."
"So, come on, fess up. Which one are you dating?" shedemanded.
I don't know what came over me. Maybe it was the mission, the worry, the new environment, the fact that I hadn't talked to or seen my mom in a couple of weeks or maybe it was the fact that Erika wasn't there and I felt like I really needed to talk to someone, a friend on the outside of all of it. She had always been the relationship expert and now that I finally needed her advice, she wasn't here. The truth came spillingout.
"I don't know," Iconfessed.
Lizzie blinked. "What do you mean, you don'tknow?"
I sucked in a hard breath. "They want me to choose between them and I don't know who I'm going tochoose."
Her eyes rounded like saucers. "Oh, my God. Are youserious?"
I shook my head. "It's not just Marv or Texas. I, um, I have two other friends who want me to—who are interested in, um, arelationship."
"Wait a second. What about the playboy?" shedemanded.
"Grayson?" I shook my head. "No, we really are just friends." She pursed her lips and looked at meskeptically.
"Ipromise!"
"Oh, I'm sureyoubelieve that," she replied with a smirk. "But I can assure you, playboy is definitely interested. He may have seen this package of gorgeous, but I’m not in the market for a playboy." She paused and gestured down to herself. "But boy definitely only had eyes for you. He might play around, but girl, he's got the hots,too."
I groaned and covered my face with my hands. "No," I said. Not because I didn't believe it, but because if she was right then Grayson's interest only made this whole situation even more complicated. Ugh. I didn't do complicated. What was that thing I told the guys whenever they tried to tell me something was "too complicated to explain"? Oh yeah, "uncomplicate it." Well, that saying definitely did not applyhere.
"Wow, though," Lizzie said. "That's a lot of interest. What are you gonnado?"
"I don't know," I moaned through myhands.
When I finally uncovered my face, roughly scrubbing my palms down my cheeks, Lizzie was looking at me with a mixture of awe and sympathy. And as if I couldn't already tell what her feelings were towards this, her next words clarified. "Wow," she repeated, "I honestly don't know if I'm jealous, impressed, or just plain sorry for you,girl."
I sighed. "You haven't even met Knix or Bellamy yet," I said. "They just got in lastnight."
She tilted her head to the side. "Who are they? Do they go here?" I shook my head. "Oh, um, no. They don't go here. They're, um, visiting for a littlebit."
I cursed my stupid self. I mean, I assumed that Lizzie was innocent in our mission and probably wasn't even aware of what was going on—but it was better to be safe rather than sorry. And on the off chance someone came looking for me and found her, she wouldn't know anything. I had already questioned both her and Kelsey about whether or not they had known or seen Erika, but neitherhad.
"Well," Lizzie started, tapping one delicate finger against her lips. "Do you like any of them over theothers?"
I shook my head. "No. They're all special tome."
"Which of them have you known the longest?" sheasked.
"Well, we kinda all met around the sametime."
