“I’m an alum. Are you suggesting I’m not welcome here anymore?”
Nate rolls his eyes. “Of course not, It’s just?—”
“I’m looking for Jamie. He does live here, doesn’t he?”
“Not yet,” Archer says. “He’s still a pledge so he’s not officially?—”
Priestley gives him a look that could curdle milk.
Archer wilts under his stare. “He’s at the library, with Travis.”
“Who the hell is Travis?”
“Texas Travis,” Archer says with a smile. Priestley doesn’t return it.
“They’re friends. Travis is a freshman, he plays on the team with us. He’s a nice guy.”
Priestley gives a curt nod before turning on his heels.
“Is that it?” Nate calls after him. “You don’t want to stay a while and catch up?”
“I’m very busy,” he says. From the sound of his voice, he’s almost at the door now. “Some of us have work to do and rivals to beat.”
He slams the door on his way out and everyone is silent for a moment.
Nate’s laughing when he comes back in.
“Why are we all still so scared of him?” Archer asks.
“You can talk, the way you cowered when he looked at you like that.”
“Shut up.”
Watching my brothers joke around with each other like this makes me forget how much the Elias stuff hurts for a second. But then Nate looks at me with sympathy and the pain is back again.
“Hey, man, you need to cheer up for your birthday this weekend, we’ve planned something awesome, you’re gonna love it,” Archer says.
Nate smacks him on the chest. “Don’t tell him to ‘cheer up.’”
“Dude!” Archer rubs at the spot on his chest that Nate smacked.
“Don’t you remember anything from all those mental health seminarswe’ve hosted?”
Archer rolls his eyes as he repeats in a robotic voice, “‘Never invalidate someone’s feelings when they’re going through a mental health crisis.’”
“Guys, I am not going through a mental health crisis,” I protest.
They both give me a skeptical look.
“Really. I’ll be fine. And I can’t wait for my birthday party. It’s gonna be fun.” I hope the smile I force is believable.
I go up to my room to ‘study’ so they’ll stop staring at me and talking about me like I’m not here.
Elias hasn’t texted or tried to call. I tell myself this is a good thing, but I don’t believe it.
How could something feel so real to me when I knew it was fake? I can’t believe I allowed myself to get caught up in our stupid game when I knew how it was going to end. Knowing it was fake doesn’t make it suck any less, I should have known that.
A desperate, pathetic part of me just wants to call him. But what would I say? Give up your dreams to stay here and be with me, please?
