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“He came to drop something off,” Tara blurts out. “My, um… key. For work.”
Why is she lying? Why doesn’t she tell Troy the real reason I’m here? Maybe she thinks it’s too soon. She said she wanted to wait a few weeks before telling him about us, and although I understand why, I don’t like it. And I don’t like seeing her with Troy.
Why is he standing so close to her? Why isn’t she moving away? And why isn’t Troy leaving? He shouldn’t want to be around her after she dumped him. He should be angry and not want to see her.
“Why would Sanders have your key?” Troy asks, eyeing me with suspicion.
“It fell out of my pocket,” Tara says. “That day he drove me home.”
“And he’s returning it now?” Troy says. “A month later?”
“He just found it.” Tara looks at me. “Did you bring it?”
“Um, no,” I say, not sure how she thinks I’m going to make a key appear when I never even had it. “I lost it. Sorry. I came over to tell you I couldn’t find it. I think it fell out of my car.”
“Okay, well, thanks for letting me know.”
Troy turns to Tara. “You really think I’m that stupid?”
“What do you mean?” she says, sounding nervous.
“You haven’t worked at the pizza place for weeks. Why would they care about some stupid key?”
“I was supposed to turn it in when I left. I told them I would if I found it.”
Troy stares at her a moment, then turns back to me. “You could’ve just called her and told her you lost it. You didn’t need to come over here.” He puts his arm around Tara. I look at her, expecting her to pull away, but instead, she moves closer to him.
“You should go,” she says to me. “Troy and I are going to get something to eat.”
What the hell is going on? She’s acting like they’re still together.
She didn’t break up with him. That’s why she’s been avoiding my calls and texts. She’s still with Troy. She lied to me. She promised me she was ending it with him, but she didn’t. She probably never intended to. She just told me she did so I’d keep going to see her, buying her dinner, fixing things in her apartment. She was using me until Troy got back. I can’t believe she would do that.
“What are you waiting for?” Troy says to me. “Get out of here.”
“Bye, Jake.” Tara looks up at Troy. “Let’s go.”
I watch them leave, shocked and confused. Did that really just happen? Did Tara leave with Troy? They stop and get into an old rusty car. It must be Troy’s. He probably got it from a junkyard and used his stolen parts to fix it.
As they drive out of the parking lot, Tara won’t even look at me. She’s done with me. Troy’s back and she doesn’t need me anymore. Everything she said to me was a lie. I feel like I did when Haley broke up with me. Used. Betrayed. Like our relationship was never even real.
Back at the dorm, I go into my room and slam the door. I’m so damn angry. When I saw Troy with Tara, I was too shocked to be angry, but it hit me as soon as they left and now I feel like I want to punch a hole in the wall.
Rob’s at his desk, studying. “I thought you were staying with Tara tonight.”
“I was.” I sit on my bed, my forearms on my knees as I stare at the floor.
“So what happened? You guys get in a fight?”
“I found her with someone else.”
Rob shuts his laptop and turns to me. “Seriously? You found her with another guy? Like actually caught her—”
“No, they were leaving her building together. He had his arm around her.”
“And you had no idea this guy existed?”
“I knew.” I look over at Rob. “She’s been dating him for a few months. She was supposed to break up with him last night.”
