He follows me down the hall to my bedroom. Elliot and I’s bedrooms are next to each other. Our headboards are against the shared wall, making it quite interesting when she has a “friend” over. She has an en suite, while my bathroom is across the hall from my room.
Like the rest of our apartment, it is a hodge-podge of thrifted and Facebook Marketplace decor. Nothing but everything goes together. Picture frames—round, square, gold, chipped neon paint, seashells, and zoo animals—litter the large wall in the hallway containing photos of our friends.
I open my door, once again pulling him with me. Inside, we disconnect. The tight grip on my hand is gone.
Cooper lies on my bed. Back against the queen-sized mattress, staring up at the ceiling fan. I turn on the light.
“Turn it off,” he croaks. “P-pl-please.”
The room is dunked into darkness, only the thinnest beams of light coming in from the cracks in my blinds. They’re like spotlights on him. On the boy who broke me, but I think broke himself too.
The carpet is soft against the soles of my feet. Sitting down next to him, the bed dips and shifts as I scoot back and lie down too.
“I like the dark. I think it understands me the best,” he admits to me, or maybe he’s admitting it to the darkness. Bonding them even deeper together. “None of me feels real in the dark. I don’t have to prove anything in the dark.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can just be me in the dark.”
“You are real, Cooper.” I let my fingers dance across my bedding, finding his, softly brushing against them, a silent request to touch him, to hold him. He curls his pinky around mine. “You are real to me; and there’s nothing you need to prove to me…or anyone else. The only person you owe anything to is yourself. What you think about yourself, how you view yourself isn’t determined by what others expect. It never has been, and it never will be.”
We lie there for a bit longer. His breathing slows, allowing us to breathe together. My head rolls to the side, cheek pressing into the bed.
“I tried calling you after the game.”
“I know, but you were with Zach.”
I swallow. Cooper can’t see me or my frown. “It wasn’t on purpose. Elliot invited him to sit with us.”
“You don’t have to make up an excuse.”
“It’s the truth.” I push at his hair with my free hand, clearing his forehead. “I called to check on you.”
He sighs and tells me everything. About the players before the game, and how he feels the pressure to win, especially this game. Mentions his parents not being there in which I remind him his mom is sick, and otherwise they would be. Besides that, I listen and only speak when he asks a question. Cooper rattles off every ‘mistake’ he made in the game, and his last few words stun me: “And…and you were there with him.”
Cooper sits up, cursing at himself.
“I already told you, it wasn’t on purpose.”
“But—”
“I’m sorry.” I don’t let him finish.
He runs his hands through his hair, interlacing them behind his neck. “Things with Zach are going well? Yeah, you’re happy?”
We’ve been through this before. “Cooper…”
“Can I take a shower or bath?” he asks, taking this conversation in a one-eighty, letting a third mention of Zach tonight fall away.
“Um. Yeah, sure.” I had assumed from his dishelved appearance when he showed up that he’d rushed to get dressed and get here…but I’m confused. Getting whiplash from him helping me date Zach, then upset about seeing us together. Drunkenly telling me he wants to be happy together and giving me his shirt to wear. I can barely keep up with my changingemotions, I can’t keep up with him, but for whatever reason, right now none of it matters. I leave my bedroom to grab him a clean towel from the linen closet. “Here.”
In the bathroom, he’s already stripped off his shirt and sweatpants. He’s in his boxer briefs. Black. Tight. Revealing.
Cooper’s XXL shirt suddenly feels like the size of an American Girl Doll shirt. Constricting around my neck, I tug at it and suck in an inhale. Then again. Digging my teeth into my bottom lip.
Stop looking, Sutton.
We don’t like him.
