Especially when it comes to guys like him.
Shuddering, I push Wes out of my head and refuse to think of him for the rest of the day, though I have a feeling he’s the kind of person who wouldn’t mind being on a girl’s mind for anyextended period of time. I keep to myself Friday night, holed up in my room with homework and design tutorials.
Eventually I sleep, and by the time I hear someone banging around the kitchen at two in the afternoon, I realize that I haven’t spoken a word to anyone in almost forty-eight hours. Not my roommates, not my professors, not a single syllable of small talk to a service worker or a peer. No one since Quinn.
It’s not abnormal for me—I think the longest I’ve gone without speaking was a week—but it’s always a strange phenomenon when it happens. It makes me feel small, like I could cease to exist at any moment, and no one would notice for weeks…if they even noticed at all.
What’s worse? Being someone’s focus or dissolving into thin air?
Not the first one.
“You guys have, like,nofood here,” comes a guy’s voice, drifting to my room from the kitchen. I tense at the unexpectedness of it. It’s rare for Ava or Kinsley to have guys over during the day, but it’s not unheard of.
Ava giggles in that way she does for male attention. “We have food!”
“Seaweed snacks, veggie chips, and hemp protein powder is not food. Jesus. I’m ordering pizza.”
“Oh, whatever.”
“Whatever,” the guy mimics. “Where’s your twin, by the way?”
“Kinsley’s withBrian.”
“Interesting.”
“Why is that interesting?”
“Brian has a girlfriend.”
“They’re on abreak.”
When I hear the TV turn on, I grow uneasy. I know where this is headed, and I have no desire to sit here, listening toheadboard bangs and frat boy grunts and Ava’s exaggerated moans through the obnoxiously thin walls.
And so, gathering up my books, I push aside my reservations and decide to spend the rest of the day in the library. At least then I won’t be shut in here, breathing in stale air until the room is empty of it and I suffocate to death to the sound of Ava’s fake orgasm.
I can’t think of a more horrific way to die.
Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I take a deep breath and leave my bedroom. After shutting the door, I pause for a second, giving them time to adjust themselves before I walk in on something guaranteed to make me nauseous. Sure enough, I round the corner to their flushed faces and disheveled hair.
“Hey,” says the guy, straightening a little on the couch. I give him a tight smile, barely registering his face. My vision blurs as my eyes go cross.
“I didn’t realize you were here,” Ava says, wiping at her mouth to hide the evidence that they were making out.
I clear my throat to make sure it’s working right and mumble a quick, “No worries.”
There. I spoke. Now the clock can reset.
Maybe this time I’ll make it to seventy-two hours.
“Who’s that?” the guy asks as I step out of the apartment, but the door shuts before I can hear her response, which is probably for the best.
It’s snowing lightly, but the temperature is too high for it to stick. The flakes dissolve as soon as they hit the sidewalk, leaving a damp sheen across the pavement. I’m glad I wore my boots as I shuffle through shallow puddles in the direction of the library.
Given that it’s just past four on a Saturday, homework is the last thing on most people’s minds, and the place is deserted. I have my pick of tables, but I take my usual seat in the back out of habit and familiarity. Spreading my books out on top of the desk,I relax a little knowing that there’s zero chance of running into Alexis Cane at this time of day on a weekend.
Hours pass with my head bent over my laptop. I document art history responses until my fingers cramp and my stomach starts to growl, hunger forcing me to pack up and head back to the dorm.
It’s dark outside now, and wind whips against my cheeks, a wet flurry of snow still falling from the sky. Wrapping my parka tighter around myself, I balk as I pass a group of girls huddled together in mini skirts and crop tops, their jackets nowhere in sight. They laugh as they walk toward frat row, completely oblivious to the cold, and I can’t imagine how thick their beer blanket must be to expose that much skin.
