“Fuck, this all sucks. How long did it take you to get to acceptance?” he asked.
I snorted and made a show of crossing my fingers. “Any day now.”
“Shit. Sorry. I suppose there’s no barometer measuring when we get there.”
“If there is, I haven’t found how to read it yet.”
He reached for my hand and clasped it. The feeling was foreign to me, like I’d never held hands with a boy before. But also familiar, like Logan and I held hands all the time, and of course we didn’t. Only briefly two nights ago in my room while sitting on my bed.
We talked a bit about the other kids in group and whether we personally agreed with the stages they felt they were in when we were asked to give our self-assessments. I had said I felt out of depression, but not quite at acceptance yet. Logan said denial, since it was so fresh, as did a couple of others in the group. There was anger, of course. Bargaining seemed hard to quantify, but there were nodding heads when Marlo gave some examples that rang true.
It was fascinating. But raw. Very, very raw.
We got to the edge of campus and crossed Sturgess to the residential area and the house where Logan lived. As we walked up the uneven porch steps of his house, he said, “Looks like there are guys watching TV downstairs. Okay with you if I just do a quick intro and then we head up to my room? I don’t really feel like…”
“That’s fine. You don’t even have to stop to introduce me if you’d rather just go right up the stairs.”
He scoffed at that. “Of course I’ll introduce you. Or say hi if it’s the people you might have met when you were here that first Friday. My brother died, not my manners.”
I laughed. “Cute. Bring your dead brother into it. Way to keep it classy.”
“Truth is, he would have loved me joking like that.”
I gave his hand a squeeze, then dropped it as he reached for the door handle. He opened it, then stood to the side to let me enter first. “Manners, indeed,” I said quietly as I walked past him.
“You know it,” he said.
As soon as he let go of the door, he took my hand again, which surprised me. It was one thing to do it out of commiseration and compassion during a private walk home in the dusky light, another thing entirely to do it in front of your roommates. The ones who knew you’d had a different girl in your room… nightly? Was it nightly for Logan? Weekly? How often did he fit in the willing Cheses on campus?
None of my concern. Because I won’t be one of them.
And yet I was planning on going to Logan’s room with him and picking up where we’d left off on Monday night in my room.
But I won’t be pining for him after, like Ches.
I will notchase.
Yeah, it felt like moving the goalposts a little bit. I pushed that thought aside.
We walked through the foyer and to the opening of the living room. A bunch of people were all watching something on the enormous TV. Philly and Dex were sitting on one of the couches, his arm around her and her sunk deep into his side. A white-blond Viking, as statuesque as Logan, but with completely different coloring, was sprawled on another couch, his long legs hanging over one of the arms. And another player, whom I remembered seeing that Friday night, but didn’t meet, was in a recliner that was in the farthest position back—so low, he had to tuck his chin into his chest to see us as we entered the room.
“Hey, Straw, how ya doing? We’ve got a good one going,” he said as he pointed to the screen.
Logan looked around at them all and at the TV. His hand clenched in mine and then dropped it.
Which stung a bit, I had to admit. But I’d been surprised he’d taken it in the first place once we entered the house, so I guessed I shouldn’t have been shocked that he’d dropped it when he saw how many of his roommates were taking in his being with me.
“Hey, I know you. From the first Friday party,” Philly said. Dex looked more carefully at me, then to Logan, catching the dropped hand, and his eyes narrowed on me. “Chloe, right?” Philly said.
From the glint of humor in her eyes, I gleaned she knew I was not my roommate at all and was just messing with me. “Pittsburgh, right?” I countered.
She smiled. “Good to see you again,Megan.”
“You too,Philly. Dex.”
He only nodded, his eyes back on the TV, and Philly continued.
“I know that Chloe is your friend, not you. In fact, I looked her up when she tagged Straw eating pizza and the guys were giving him shit. I’m not surprised she’s got such a presence. She gives off very Main Character energy.”
