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He’s gone before I can tell him we’re not staying.
“Why’d he leave?” Tara asks. “Am I not supposed to be here?”
Why does she keep assuming she did something wrong? She made comments like that at lunch too.
“He thinks I brought you here to, you know, do stuff.”
“Oh. I guess we should’ve told him we’re just friends.” She walks over to the window and looks out at the people going by. “Doesn’t he know you just got out of a relationship?”
“Yeah, but a lot of people deal with that by being with someone else.”
Tara turns back to me. “Is that what you’re going to do?”
“No. I don’t use people like that. If I want to be with a girl, it’s because I like her, not because I’m using her to get over someone else.”
“I think Troy did that.” Tara goes over to my bed and sits down.
“You mean with you?”
“Yeah. After we hooked up, he told me he’d just broken up with his girlfriend.”
I don’t like hearing her talk about being with Troy, but I want to know more about how they got together. How did Troy get someone as great as Tara to date him?
“When was this?” I sit down beside her. “I mean, you said you started dating him after that party, but how long had he been broken up with the other girl?”
“They broke up the night before.” She looks down, seeming embarrassed.
“So you and him…” I wait for her to tell me.
“We hooked up the night of the party.” She plays with one of the rings on her fingers, moving it around and avoiding my gaze. “I didn’t plan on that, but we were drinking and it was late and…it just happened.”
“And that’s when he told you about his ex?”
“He didn’t exactly tell me. She showed up there and found us together. She was yelling at me, telling me Troy was her boyfriend, and that’s when he told me they’d broken up the night before.”
“And what happened? Did the girl leave?”
“He walked her out. Told her it was over. He claims he hasn’t heard from her since.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“I’ve seen texts from her on his phone, like recent texts. That doesn’t mean he’s seeing her, but he might be. With us living so far apart, it’s not like I can keep an eye on him.”
“You shouldn’t have to. You should be able to trust your boyfriend.”
“I do,” she says in a frantic tone as she grips my arm. “I totally trust him. Please don’t tell Troy what I said about his ex, or that stuff I said about him using me to get over her.”
“I won’t,” I say, surprised by how worried she is that I might tell Troy what she said. “Whatever you tell me is just between us. You know, I’m not really friends with Troy.”
She takes her hand off me, but turns more so she’s facing me. “What do you mean? You guys have been friends since you were kids.”
“I’m friends with Sean and Leo. Troy was always hanging around those guys so he became a friend by default, but I don’t really like him.”
“Why not?”
“He acts like everyone has it better than him. He blames everyone for his problems. He’s always in a bad mood. And he can’t control his anger. You never know what’s going to set him off, but when it happens, it’s bad. I’ve seen him break stuff, punch holes in walls, set shit on fire. My dad was like that and I hated it. I don’t want to be around it.”
She nods and looks down.
