I don’t know how many days it’s been now since he came to my room, but I do know it’s been a while since I thought about anything that isn’t him.
36
Connor
I’mpregamingwithGeorgieand Tank. Technically, they’re pregaming, and I’m drinking vitamin water, but it’s still a really good time. I love watching their inhibitions erode. There’s a predictability to it that’s oddly satisfying. Their personalities are becoming exaggerated by the minute. For his size, Tank has absolutely no tolerance, and as always, Georgie is drinking him under the table.
She handed in a big assignment today. Getting it across the line has been stressing her out for a few weeks, so she’s in the mood to let her hair down. Tank is on his phone, rounding up people like penguins gather pebbles. Messaging and calling, inviting them to meet us at The Pardon.
“Yeah, you should come, bro,” he says, “Georgie will be there.”
Georgie blinks hard, and when she opens her eyes, she looks like an exclamation point. A shocked interjection at a loss for words. “Was that Griff? Did you seriously just call Griff and tell him I’m coming out tonight?”
“Sure did.” A smug, sleepy smile creeps lopsidedly up Tank’s face.
“Oh, Tank,” I say. “Tank, Tank, Tank.”
“What’d I do?”
I stare pointedly at Georgie’s hair, but it goes over his head. Georgie has had a massive crush on Griff for months, and there’s no way she’s going out without straightening her hair if he’s going to be there.
“But, but, I like the way your hair looks,” says Tank, confused. “All, like, fluffy and puffy and big.”
“Frizzy,” snaps Georgie, with a pointed side eye. “I think the word you’re looking for is frizzy,Levi.”
Tank flinches like a scolded schoolboy at her use of his government name. Georgie is good-natured about most things in life, but the one notable exception is her hair.
She gets an assortment of clips, round brushes, a comb, and her straightener from her room and plugs it into the outlet in the corner of the room. She sits cross-legged on the floor, aggressively sectioning her hair and straightening it with what I think is a little more gusto than is wise.
Perhaps a good friend would mention it to her, but so far, I haven’t plucked up the courage.
Instead, I take my phone out of my pocket and pull up my messages again.
“Why’d you keep looking at your phone like that?” asks Georgie, never one to miss a damn thing even when she has hair in her face and a smoldering iron in her hand.
I raise my brows innocently and quickly tuck my phone under my leg. “Like what?”
“Like this,” says Tank, affecting a lovestruck, gooey grin that I’m positive is a gross exaggeration.
It’s been a couple of hours since I received the message. I’ve been keeping it in my pocket like a secret. Like something rareand precious. I liked it like that, something that was only for me, but judging by the way Tank and Georgie are looking at me, that’s not going to fly.
“Okay, but it’s not a big deal,” I warn them. “Don’t make it into a thing.”
Georgie gestures at my phone authoritatively, still in no-nonsense hair-taming mode. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
I wake the screen and turn it toward Tank and then Georgie, showing them the message from Lennon.
“Look at the time stamp,” I say before they’ve had time to read it.
Seven twenty-nine p.m.
Don’t forget to take your meds.
Tank reads the message and scoots his mouth to the side. “Aw, you’re right, Con. He is nice.”
“Soooo nice,” teases Georgie, making a hand gesture that all but insists I hand the phone to her. “Give it. I can’t see it properly from here.”
I hand my phone to her obediently, and she reads the message back a few times.
