Elias
Nolan sits on the couch with his head in his hands after giving us some panicked, severely edited rendition of why Saige isn't here right now.
"So, you hit her. Way to fucking go."
"No, that's not what I said."
I know it isn't what he said, but I don't care. I'm fucking pissed right now. I don't know why the hell he would kiss her in the first place—Nolan doesn't kiss people. He doesn't even like anyone, and he barely fucking knows Saige. "I said I pushed her, and I didn't mean to. It was reactionary. I definitely didn't mean to push her that fucking hard."
"Says the guy who threw a fucking coffee mug at me because I pulled her hair a little bit."
"Okay,you, Elias…" Dax says before dropping down next to Nolan and wrapping his arm around him. "Can stop now. I think we all know you were doing a little more thanpulling her hair a little bit. You've made torturing her your M.O. for years,so settle down with the performative outrage, please. We get it; you love being mad."
"It's not fucking performative outrage," I snap back.
"Okay, then explain it," Dax challenges. "Why are you so mad that Saige isn't here? Why are you so concerned about her well-being? You don't allot the same level of care to your other enemies, and you have plenty."
I can't explain it. I'm still not sure I even understand it myself. I know it's an obsession, a sexual fixation. Sometimes I want to choke her, and sometimes I want to fuck her. Sometimes, I want to do both.
That'snot abnormal for me.
But I like it better when she's here, even though I know she can't fucking stand me and she's fucking both of my roommates. That's not normal.
I feel weird when I haven't seen her for a long time. I'd say that I miss her, but that doesn't quite feel right. I know I panicked when I thought of her going to prison and not having access to her anymore.
And when I moved into West Pine last year, I felt like I was getting over her. But you don't need to get over someone you were never with and never cared about to begin with. I just needed to get her out of my system because I'd spent so much time consumed by how much I hated her and wanted to hurt her; I needed to move on and focus on other things.
So, I avoided going home, but I kept tabs on her. And when I found out she had a boyfriend—some scrawny goth-looking kid—I was fuckingfurious.
I ruined that, and I didn't feel bad about it, either. I knew it must have hurt her, and the thought of her in pain again because of me after so long…it didn't bother me. It felt nice to have some control over her again.
"She's my responsibility," I tell him.
Dax narrows his eyes and then laughs a little. "Okay, sure. But just so you know, if you're ever ready to be honest about it, I'd be willing to help you with her."
Now, Nolan looks up. "What do you mean by that?"
Dax ignores his question. "Are you okay? Do you need anything?" he asks Nolan.
"I'm finenow, I just want to know where she is. I want to know if she's okay." He turns to me and asks, "Aren't you tracking her location?"
"Um, not anymore. She got pissed at me and turned it off today."
"Great, so we all pissed her off today. She's never fucking coming back," Nolan says.
Dax shrugs. "Um, what do you mean,all?I didn't do anything to her. She still likes me; I'm sure she'll text me back any minute."
I scoff. Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen after class today. It looks like Nolan knows something about that, too—that's the part he isn't telling us.
That's not really my fault. It's not like I wrote the fucking lesson.
"She thinks you don't like her," Nolan says.
Dax doesn't answer because hedoesn'tlike her; we both know that. Instead, he sinks into the couch, props one foot up on the coffee table, and starts scrolling on his phone.
"See, she's fine," he says about a minute later. He turns the screen toward Nolan, and I can't resist crossing the room to see what it is, too.
It's a photo on that Kira girl's story of the two of them sitting on the floor in her dorm room taking tequila shots.
