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She huffed. "Well, dang it. What aboutchemistry?"
"Chemistry?" I asked,confused.
She grinned at me. "Yeah, chemistry." She wiggled her hips suggestively. "You know—sexual healing and all that jazz. So, come on, which of them do you have the most chemistrywith?"
"Uhh..." My cheeks heated under her expectant stare. I looked around and even though most people were already in class or not paying attention, I knew I didn't want to talk about this here. I reached forward, snagging her hand. "Can we talk somewhere privately?" Iasked.
Her eyes widened, and a big smile spread across her lips. "Oh my God, you've already done it with one of them? Or more? Have you done it withmore?"
"No!" I insisted. "I haven't—I'm not—" I cut myself off and huffed. "Please, can we just go somewhereelse?"
She nodded. "The student center has study booths. No one will be there in the middle of the day and I don't wanna walk all the way back to the dorms because I have class in an hour, so let's gothere."
I didn't care where we went as long as it was private, so I let Lizzie lead me to the student center. When we got to the study booth front desk, Lizzie grimaced and asked if I had my ID because she had forgotten hers and we apparently couldn't request one without it. Luckily, I had it tucked into the back of my phone case and I let the attendant swipe us in before we went back. We strolled down the rows and made sure that we got a booth in a row of empty neighboringstalls.
Almost as soon as I slid into my seat, she reached across the table and grabbed my hands. "Okay," she snapped, "spill. I want to knoweverything."
My phone pinged just as I opened my mouth, but I sighed and leaned down, clicking the ringer off before I addressed Lizzie. "It's difficult to explain," Ibegan.
"What's difficult to explain?" she asked. "Either you did it with one of them or you didn't. So, which isit?"
"No, I haven't had sex with any of them," Ianswered.
She narrowed her eyes at me. "I sense a but in there. Do not leave me hanging. If there's abutand I don't get to the bottom of thatbut, then Lizzie is not gonna be a happycamper."
I raised my eyebrow at her third person dictation of herself before huffing out a breath. "Well, I mean, I've never..." I swallowed, "had sex before." I paused, waiting for a negative reaction. When she just sat there and waited for me to go on, I did. "I mean, not just with them, but I've never had sex with anyonebefore."
"Oh, honey, that's not a big deal. A lot of girls our age haven't." Lizzie waved her hand in front of her face. "The real question is do you wantto?"
"Do I want to?" Irepeated.
She nodded emphatically. "Do you want to have sex? And do you want to have sex with any of those guys?" I bit my lip, wondering if I should open up about what happened with Bellamy. My cheeks heated up once more. Her eyes zoned in on the telltale sign of mythoughts.
"Something did happen, didn't it?" Lizzie leaned forward until she was practically halfway over the table. "Come on, Harlow. I'm dying here. You have to tellme."
"Well, I mean, I—" I pulled back and pressed my spine against the booth wall. My heart thudded against my ribcage. To tell or not to tell, that was the question. The ultimatequestion.
Even though my lips froze on the words. I needed to say them. "I kissedthem."
"All of them?" Lizzie asked. I nodded. "Oh my God." She stared at me in shock before leaning even further over the table. "And then what?" she pressed. "Do theyknow?"
"Yeah," I said. "They know. They aren't mad about me kissing them, but it's only a matter of timenow."
"A matter of time beforewhat?"
"Before they expect me to choose between them," I answered, lowering my head in shame. The thing was, the more I thought about it, the more it stressed me out. I knew I wouldn't be able to choose. No matter how much time they gave me—all the time in the world couldn’t force me to make this decision. How had this even happened to me? I wondered. How did I manage to put myself into such apredicament?
"Wow, girl. That's some real-world TV drama right there." Yeah, except my life wasn't a television show. With television shows, there were always background players, writers, directors, producers—someone who knew what was going to eventually end up happening. There was an end goal. And while there was an end goal here, I wasn't being let in on the final script. I folded my arms on the table and laid my head down, feeling exhausted by not just the conversation, but by the events of the night before and my lack ofsleep.
"I just don't know what to do," I admitted. "I don't want anyone to gethurt."
"Oh, babe, someone is probably going to end up getting hurt either way," Lizziesaid.
I tipped my face up to meet her sympathetic gaze. "I care about them," I admitted. "I really do, but this..." Words failedme.
"What if you just didn't give them an answer?" she asked. "It's called ghosting or something. Maybe you just back away and they'll eventually moveon."
I shake my head. "I can't do that," I said. "That's not fair to them." Plus, we lived together—well, most of us did. Grayson was living with the guys right now, but that wasn't a permanent situation. As far as I knew, he had a house back in Charleston. Besides, despite whatever ideas Lizzie had in her head, Grayson was just a pest. An annoyingly good-looking, somewhat damaged pest whose blue eyes made me think of the swimming pools and the summer sky all wrapped up in one. I groaned into myarms.
