I shook my head, remembering our freshman year of college when Nina had gone through her first bad breakup and thought she needed to change her looks to start “fresh.” It had taken months to get her hair back to her normal gorgeous blonde locks.
I heard her sigh on the other end. “So, on a scale of one to box dye, how are you doing?”
“I’m thinking blue.”
She paused for a moment. “Oh God.”
“Nina, I’m fine.”
“No, I was picturing you with blue hair.” She giggled.
I shook my head. “I’m just settling into my new place, which will be a good distraction for me.”
“And then what?”
I picked at my chipped fingernail polish. “What do you mean?”
“You know, once that’s not a distraction anymore?” she asked with growing concern.
“I think school can fill any time or void I have. The boards will be here before we know it.”
She was silent for a moment. “So…you’re not upset? Sad?”
“I should be, shouldn’t I?” I asked, disappointed in myself.
I should’ve been on my second box of tissues and icing my puffy red eyes after losing a guy like Zayn. But I felt nothing. Numb. Maybe it hadn’t hit me yet?
“Well, you two were together for over a year. That has to hurt, even a little?”
I inhaled slowly and closed my eyes, wishing I would just cry and get it over with.
“I can bring some food over, and we can watch a movie?” Nina offered.
“I’m good. Really.” My stomach rumbled in protest. “I have to unpack and get some sleep. Moving everything I own out of the top floor of an apartment building and into a storage unit and then the rest into my brother’s house was exhausting.” I laughed to ease her worries. “I’ll call you tomorrow if I suddenly feel like crying into a pint of ice cream, okay?”
“Promise?”
“I promise. And, Nina?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
Dark slasher-film music echoed from the living room television when I hung up. Seeing as how I couldn’t pull out the futon until I cleared some boxes and the speakers were blaring the theme song to my nightmares just outside my door, I popped some earbuds in and put myself to work.
Putting my six-cube organizer to its maximum usage, I stacked as many books as I could fit in three of the six slots and piled my most-worn jeans and tops in the rest. The windowsill was wide enough to hold a few of my recreational reads, a picture frame of Nina and me in Mexico on spring break, and some of my jewelry.
I lit a candle to make the room smell more like a fresh batch of cinnamon rolls and less like a middle school dance. It was a scent that Zayn liked, so I made a mental note to find a different one the next time I was at the store.
By the time I got the boxes out of the way of my makeshift bed, I was drained and empty. But there was one problem: the bed wouldn’t…become a bed. I pushed, lifted, and pulled on the wooden frame of the futon with no success. After cursing at the thing in three different languages and kicking it twice, I decided to look for help.
As I crept down the short hallway, the living room was quiet, aside from the faint strum of a guitar Liam was fiddling with. I peeked over the edge of the couch and giggled to myself. Danny, Milton, and Nikko were passed out cold, taking up every cushion available and using each other’s limbs as pillows.
Liam was on the floor beside them. He didn’t look up from his fingers when I entered his peripheral. I thought about going back and sleeping on the futon the way it was, but I didn’t want Liam to think I was scared to talk to him after all these years. It was better to clear the air now than to walk around on eggshells the entire time I was here.
“That sounds nice,” I said quietly, so I wouldn’t wake the boys. It was a softer melody I hadn’t heard from the band, but it was pretty.
Liam paused and immediately changed up the progression without acknowledging me.
