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Lux doesn't even mention her name but I still tense, still feel that tug in my chest. “No.”
Lux huffs. “Have you tried?”
I shake my head.
“Have you even seen the girl?”
I shake my head again. Not quite a lie but not quite the truth.
In the beginning, I steered clear. She made it obvious she didn't want to see me—or hear from me or talk to me or be around me—so I obliged. I went two, maybe three, long fucking months without seeing her once.
But it's hard to avoid someone completely. Especially when you're used to constantly seeking them out. I started getting glimpses of her again, her disappearing around corners, spotting her across campus. Not enough yet too much.
She dyed her hair. A light brown threaded with highlights that catch in the sun. She looks healthy. She looks happy, which fucking kills me as much as it pleases me. She's doing better than I was, than I am, and that's all that should matter to me but the selfish little asshole nagging at the back of my mind hates it. Wishes she was as much of a mess as me. Wishes she felt as fucking lost as I did, as I do.
But apparently not.
And I'm fine with it, really. If she's okay, I'm okay.
Really.
* * *
I hate this house.
I remember last year when I loved it. When it seemed light years ahead of our previous house because the floors weren't rotten and the walls didn't have mold.
If I’d known what would happen, I never would’ve resigned the lease.
All these months later and there are still little bits of her everywhere.
I still find herbal tea hidden in the kitchen cupboards. Blonde hair everywhere, stuck to my clothes, little strands in my hairbrush. Some of her clothes and a toothbrush tucked in one of my bottom drawers that she either doesn't remember leaving here or doesn't care enough to get.
But some things’s continued presence is my fault. The framed drawing on my desk that I couldn't bring myself to trash. I took down most of my drawings of her because keeping them up felt creepy, but a pair of sketched blue eyes still lurk. That godawful Bob Ross mug contains an array of paintbrushes, and the handmade one from Isla still holds my morning coffee.
Yeah, I'm a weak man.
I'm contemplating just how fucking weak I am, alternating between staring at that fucking mug and the half-done drawing on my lap that has unconsciously started to bare a resemblance to her, when my bedroom door flies open and three bodies pile into my room.
“Get up,” Nick demands, snatching my sketchbook from my hands and tossing it aside. Ben goes straight to my chest of drawers and yanks them open so he can rifle through my clothes. Cass dramatically shoves the shit piled up on my desk aside and sets down a bottle of alcohol and four shot glasses.
Fucking hell, it's like they rehearsed this.
“What is this?” I regret asking the question before it's even fully out of my mouth. My friends collect at the foot of my bed, peering down at me, and suddenly I feel like a kid in trouble. Is this what Ben feels like when we gang up on him?
“This is an intervention,” Cass states, folding his arms over his chest and hitting me with a hard look.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
First Lux, now the guys. I can't catch a fucking break this week.
“Guys…”
“No.” Nick holds up a hand to stop whatever excuse I'm struggling to come up with. “We're going out.”
“I really don't-”
“Don't want to let your best friends down by being a buzzkill?” Ben finishes for me with not quite what I was going to say. He presses a hand to his chest, his lips jutting out in an exaggerated pout. “Aw, Jackie. I'm so glad we're on the same page.”
