Maybe Tristan is too.
A knock on the door makes me jump. God, I’m just staring at a blank screen thinking about Tristan. Once again, he’s distracting me from my fanfic. After setting my laptop down, I hop out of bed and walk toward the door. My roommateprobably forgot her key again. When I open the door, I nearly jump out of my skin.
Harper.
“What are you doing here?” My voice sounds like it’s coming from far away.
“I need to talk to you,” she says, and something in her voice tugs at a deep, distant memory. She used to do this in high school. Show up at my house needing to talk. It was almost always because I hurt her feelings over something I considered minor. She’s sensitive, and I liked that, because it made her warm and loving. But her sensitivity also made her rage against me.
“I mean, this is weird,” I say, “but okay. Come in.”
She walks into my room like she owns the place, promptly plopping down on my bed. She reaches out and smooths the rumpled comforter. “You still never make your bed.”
Her smile is a little wistful, and it makes a flicker of anger rise within me. How fucking annoying that she shows up here unannounced and acts like she didn’t brutally reject me during the most angsty and vulnerable time in my life.
I cross my arms over my chest. “How do you know that’s not my roommate’s bed?”
Her smile grows as she shakes her head. “Because it looks like a Victorian grandmother would sleep in it.”
I smile against my will. “It looks like Elizabeth Bennet would sleep in it.”
Harper grins, and my smile falters. This is wrong. I’m reminiscing with her after she’s been cruel to me.
“Can we just get this over with?” I ask as I walk over to my desk chair and sit down. “You obviously have something to say about Tristan.”
Her eyes narrow. Something about her expression feels smug, and I don’t like it.
She crosses her legs and sets both hands on her thigh. “There’s something I need to tell you, and I think it’s going to hurt.”
A sharp pang shoots into my chest. Oh fuck, I don’t think I want to hear this.
“Just say it.” My voice is small.
“Fine.” She stares at me for a long moment, and even after all these years, I can still read her.
She’s drawing out the suspense on purpose.
She smiles ever so slightly, a flicker of her lips because she can’t help herself. “You know Tristan and I are still sleeping together, right?”
Her words are like a punch in the gut, but I’m somehow able to keep from flinching.
“I knew you probably wouldn’t believe me, so I brought evidence.” Harper reaches into her purse and pulls out her phone. After swiping for a moment, she hops from my bed and holds the screen in front of me.
It’s a picture of Tristan in his bed. Shirtless. Those huge arms are wrapped around a pillow, and his pretty lips are parted in sleep.
“I took this last night. Look at the time stamp.”
My breath catches in my throat, and the world around me starts to sparkle and buzz with stifling electricity.
The time stamp is correct. She took this just a few hours after Tristan dropped me off.
“I was in bed with him,” she says, and now I don’t question the smugness in her voice. This reminds me of what she used to sound like when she got a better grade than me when we were kids.
Don’t react. Don’t show her how much it guts you to know he really is a liar.
I take a breath as slowly as I can so she doesn’t see how much I need to calm myself before I speak. “I just need to know one thing.”
“Sure,” she says as she sits back down on my bed.
