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Her brows furrow. “No. Of course I’m not happy. He hurt you. I’d have been happy if you’d listened to me and stayed away. Now I’m madforyou, and I want to kill the fucking guy.”
My first smile of the day appears despite myself. “I love you, you crazy bitch.”
“I love you too,” she smiles back.
“Now you’re going to have to sleep around to forget about him. Welcome to the club,” Ella beams.
“No,” Chester adds, annoyed. “You’re not that kind of girl, Alex.”
“That kind of girl?” Ella repeats.
“You know what I mean. Ella, you can do what you want, but Alex is just…different.”
“Can we please stop talking about this,” I mumble. “It’s making me uncomfortable.”
“I can’t believe you just said that, Chester,” Ella grits. “And to think I said you were hot.”
As Ella and Chester continue arguing, I watch Wren’s hand slide behind Peach, and he slowly wraps her ponytail around his fist. He pulls her head to the side and whispers something in her ear.
My insides twist solely from watching this. The deliberate roughness of his dominating gesture makes me want to have Xi’s hands all over me again. Peach’s porcelain skin dots pink and her jaw tightens. Wren lets her go, stands up, and waves us all goodbye.
Less than five minutes later, Peach gets up too. “I gotta go. Classes.”
She disappears and Ella turns to me. “It’s twelve thirty. What classes?”
I shrug, even though I’ve never felt closer to Peach in my life. I know what must be going on in her head right now. Complete madness.
“Alex, can I talk to you, please?” Chester finally drops in a serious voice. His eyes dart to Ella. “Alone.”
I look at my friend, and she shakes her head to show she has no idea what’s up with him either.
“Yeah, sure.” I grab my bag, finally letting go of Xi’s lighter. “I’ll see you later, El’s.”
Chester and I walk together across the grass. He has a class that way this afternoon anyway, so I might as well walk him. We head onto a path that follows the main road and the silence starts to stretch slowly and painfully.
“What did you think of today’s intro class?” I ask, unsure what else to say.
“Why was I not enough, Alex?”
My stomach drops. It takes me a second to realize Chester has stopped walking, and I’m a step ahead. I turn back, stress eating at me. I don’t want to have this conversation with him because I’ll never be honest about it.
“Chester,” I sigh. “Please, none of this is about you. You’re a great guy.”
“A great guy,” he snorts. He runs a hand through his blond hair and looks around us. We’re all alone, most students still having lunch somewhere. “Is that what it is? Is it because I was toonice? Should I have been more of a dick like Xi? Fuck around with other girls so you’d want me.”
His stern tone shocks me. Chester is a sweet boy. He would never raise his voice at me.
“Look,” I try to placate him. I take a step forward and smile softly at him. “We’re such good friends. So much better than when we were a couple. There’s no point comparing or dwelling on the past.”
“I was so patient with you.”
“And I’m grateful for that because I wasn’t ready.”
“But you were for him?” A spark of violence tints his voice and forces me to take a step back.
He looks down at the spot from where I just moved and takes a step forward. “If I’d known all I had to do was be an asshole.”
My brows shoot up to my hairline as my mouth falls open. I find the little retort I have in me and throw it back at him. “You’re being an asshole now and it really isn’t helping, is it? God, Chester, you’re turning into such a frat boy.”
