My head twists toward the living room at Sylvia’s question. Running my fingertips over my forehead, I put a smile on and follow my friend’s voice, unsure of what I’m about to walk into but knowing I don’t have much of a choice either way.
SIX
COLSON
I don’t knowwhy I’m here.
Sebastian forced it upon me the second I walked in from work. He was at the kitchen counter, his phone pressed to his ear already ordering four pizzas and asking they be delivered to a different apartment. He inched the phone away from his mouth and told me to go take a shower, Harrison Shipping’s scent hanging onto me like the summer in Georgia as we get closer to the holidays—a.k.a. good old-fashioned B.O.
Some days slathering on the deodorant isn’t enough. I was happy to be headed for the shower. Until he called out,“And be quick. We’re heading to the girls’ apartment in ten!”
Which leads me to now, my body squeezed into a tiny ass armchair in the girls’ apartment. With the same layout as Sebastian’s, it’s adorned in furniture and décor that you won’t find in an affordable second-hand store.
Nope.
The couch isn’t frayed like Mom’s back in Harrison Heights. The wooden plank floors? So smooth and clean you could extend the five-second rule to fifteen seconds. There’s even an electric fireplace in the corner opposite me, and I don’t understand it.Why have one when your entire heating unit runs off electricity to begin with? Or when winter temps rarely drop to freezing.
The luxuries money buys.
I see it in Sebastian’s apartment, too. He doesn’t have a fancy fireplace up there, thank fuck, but he does have a kitchen packed with every gadget you could ever need. A dishwasher with more cycles than I’d know what to do with, two coffee machines and an espresso maker—I don’t get the difference—and a fridge with a window in it. Yeah, you heard that right. I can see if it’s been freshly stocked without opening the door.
It's bizarre.
Even more so that I’m trying to fit in with people who have known each other for two years and probably don’t give a fuck about some newcomer. Maybe I shouldn’t say that. The guys have been decent. Tristan and Webber welcomed me without issue and were laid back as hell.
The girls aren’t as warm and hospitable. However, they are allowing me in their space. I guess that says something, but I notice the looks they give me.
Everleigh keeps giving me these curious glances she thinks I haven’t noticed. I give her points for trying to be discreet. Little does she know, this isn’t the first time someone has looked at me with questioning curiosity in their eyes.
From Sylvia, I get judgmental squints. She’s not as forgiving as Everleigh. Our eyes have locked a few times since I’ve been here and each time, she hasn’t backed down. She’s assessing, trying to put her finger on what I’m about. Unlike Everleigh, who isn’t sure if there’s more than meets the eye, Sylvia already believes there isn’t.
Sebastian must not have talked about me much. To be expected when we haven’t been as present in each other’s lives since we graduated high school. He’s been attending Chatham U while I’ve been working my ass off to try and get out of HarrisonHeights and keep Mom from getting dumped in the Sycamore River by the Lincolns—a grave image and maybe a bit dramatic, but I don’t put anything past them.
I’m here for Sebastian. He doesn’t have to say it, but it means something to him that I become a part of their little group. If you ask me, I think he’s being naïve.
I don’t fit into their world.
They belong here. I don’t. It’s that simple.
When I hear the front door open and click shut, my attention bounces around the living room. Sylvia is sitting on the floor, a magazine in her hands rather than paying attention to the textbooks that are next to her. Sebastian in an armchair across from me. A textbook is on his lap, but now and then, his focus shifts to the action movie playing on the screen with the sound low, showing two guys running from the law. Tristan and Everleigh are snuggled closely on the couch, her palm splayed out on his thigh as he types on a laptop that’s perched on his opposite leg.
Besides Webber, who already had plans, there’s only one other person missing.
I noticed when we walked in over an hour ago that Violet wasn’t here. Part of me deflated at that. Outside of the guys, she’s the only other one I’ve spoken more than a few words to and the last time I saw her…
She didn’t deserve my hostility.
But Idodeserve the guilt that riddles me over it.
I didn’t mean to be an ass to her—a dumbass excuse but that’s all I have.
Sylvia calls out to her, and I rest my chin on my fist, propped up on the arm of my chair as my legs stretch toward the coffee table. The longer I sit, the more the seat presses into my hips and I worry about getting stuck, but I’m not about to get up now.
I don’t want to miss this moment. The second she walks in, sees us—sees me—and a mixture of the looks her friends have been giving me crosses her face.
My skin crawls with anticipation because Iwanther to look at me like that. I want to see the disgust there. I want her to see nothing but the last interaction we had, even if it was short-lived and not true to how I normally act. My free hand finds my thigh, and I squeeze my palm around it. It’s nothing more than a distraction as tension plops into my gut like a pebble in a pond because when she walks in, wearing workout gear similar to the last time I saw her, shedoesn’tlook at me like her friends do.
She acts as if I’ve been a part of their circle since the beginning, offering a small wave and the softest smile she can muster. I guess that’s what her friends see, the happiness she attempts to emit, but I see her eyes, and they’re nothing like the fake smile she’s forcing.
