So maybe I wasn’t such a saint after all.
TWENTY-FIVE
SASHA
Roman was gone by the time I got up the next morning.
I wasn’t surprised, even though I wasn’t happy about it either. I felt like he and I needed to talk in a way we hadn’t yet.
Up until that point, all we’d done was a lot of arguing. I felt like I had a small piece of the puzzle the night before, but we needed to keep going to reach some agreement. He confirmed that he had feelings for me too, but he wasn’t going to let anything happen for a multitude of reasons: I was too young, because of Chloe, because of our family, or the excuse of him not wanting to ruin my life by being a part of it.
The feelings hadn’t gone away, so something needed to be done. I didn’t know what.
To me, the only option was for the two of us to give in and be together. I knew there was no way I’d be able to live there and ignore my feelings. They were eating me alive. Roman wasn’t the type to bring women home. He never wanted to take the chance of having Sophia run into his fuck buddy for the night. But I was sure that he took women back to his apartment, which was closer to the office.
I was eaten up with jealousy as I thought about him with other women. Even if we weren’t together, he was still mine. Inmy head, at least. I thought that he felt the same way about me, too, though. I could tell how jealous he’d get when I told him I was with my friends. He was sure that Lance wanted me. The difference in me hanging out with Lance and him being with all those women was that I didn’t want Lance. I didn’t let him touch me. But Roman, he was touching all those other women. He was doing more than touching them. Why would he allow himself to be with all of them except me?
I was surprised that I didn’t feel as bad as I thought I would. I guessed that my body had finally started to get used to dealing with hangovers.
Yes, I was tired, and yes, I had a headache, but I didn’t feel the need to lie in bed all day to recover, either. Instead, I wanted to get up and start my day.
I pushed back the blankets and stood, still dressed in my clothes from the night before. I stretched as I moved toward the attached bathroom, then stopped at the vanity and popped a couple of Tylenol. Stripping down, I climbed into the shower.
My day was full of things to do: laundry, homework, taking care of Sophia, and making dinner while doing some cleaning around the house. I hoped to see Roman, even though I didn’t expect to. He never ended up coming home. Sophia and I had dinner, just the two of us, and on Monday, he still wasn’t home when we left for school.
I headed toward the courtyard to meet up with my group of friends like I always did, but Lance saw me approaching, and before I could close the distance between us, he walked away. I came to a stop in front of Trevor, Addison, and Parker.
“Hey, guys. What’s up?” I asked, pulling my bag up higher on my shoulder.
Trevor pulled his eyes from mine. “Guess I’ll go too. I’ll catch up with you later, baby.” He kissed Addison and rushed off, leaving just the three of us.
“What’s going on?” I asked them, feeling the strain as it seemed like they were refusing to look at me.
“Addi? Want to fill me in?”
She bit her bottom lip as she picked at the skin around one of her fingernails.
“Parks?”
She sighed. “This is stupid. I’m just going to tell her.
“Parker, no!” Addison said, but Parker didn’t care.
“Lance is pissed at you.”
“At me?” I asked, pointing at my chest. “Why is he mad at me?”
“For whatever happened the other night.” Parker shrugged.
I scoffed. “Are you serious? Nothing happened the other night. I told him that I didn’t want to date. He’s pissed at me for that?”
She shrugged. “I guess he feels like you’ve been toying with him, you know? You two have spent a lot of time together. I guess he figured that at some point, you two would start dating.”
“Well, he figured wrong. That makes it my fault?”
Neither of them answered me.
“I didn’t want to date because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. I knew if things didn’t work out, this would happen. And now look, we didn’t date, and this is still happening.” I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head. “I guess you guys aren’t supposed to talk to me either?”
