I hate whoever makes these things. There are probably hundreds across campus, so I don’t bother to tear these ones down. Lugging my suitcase behind me I take the elevator up to my floor, bracing myself for another round of terrible photoshop. But The walls are empty and I finally start to relax as I put my key in the doorknob.
The door is unlocked, which is weird. Inside I find Terrence, sitting on his lifted bed, staring. “Oh, hey, figured you’d be doing a workout or something at this hour.”
He says nothing but keeps his eyes on me.
“I got you stuff. Not sure how well it traveled on the flight back.” I open up my suitcase to grab the sour plum chips I stumbled across at the convenience store near the rink.
“You mean your flight yesterday?”
I’m not proud of how easily the lie comes out. “Yeah, red eye,superwiped.”
I go to hand him the chips and see his lips and eyebrows are straight, parallel lines. He doesn’t even glance at the bright bag of chips with a cartoon plumb, despite the character having a shiny, juicy ass. Shit like that always gets Terrence to break.
“Dude. Your fight came in yesterday.”
Still holding out the chips, I try to remember all our texts and calls. In the end I just say what I’m thinking. “I didn’t give you my flight number.”
“No, but you did tell me you were coming in yesterday, not today. I checked our texts. I checked out texts abunchcause Leroy didn’t want me getting the date wrong for the welcome home rager.”
He hops off the bed and slips his hands into his hoodie pocket. “And I looked at flights coming into Philly. Nothing from the west coast came in till after six AM. Airport is three hours away. But it’s eight in the morning, and you’re standing right here.”
That hoodie is looking more like a trench coat.
At this point, I’m just addicted to lying. “We had a tailwind.”
Terrence approaches me, narrowing his eyes as he studies my face. “I’ve seen you crack open your fourth energy drink right after an all-nighter, you don’tlooktired.”
Buthedoes. I know the difference between his post-workout tired and hangover tired, but this isn’t either of those. He’s got bags under his eyes like he hasn’t slept. Or more like he stayed up all night to check flights and see when I would get back to the dorm.
“Look, I’m sorry I got the dates wrong and fucked up the rager.”
He scoffs, shaking his head. “Nah, you don’t fuck up shit like that. Your calendar is legendary.”
“Forgive me if I made a data entry error, I’vekindabeen busy.”
It’s pretty insensitive for him to throw a party in my honor when I can’t even partake. My instinct is to keep lying. I can tell him I stayed at Maude’s place because I didn’t want to go to the rager. It’s not like I’m drinking now anyway. Really win the best friend award by throwing some good old manipulation on the fire.
Except I already texted Maude that I made it home safeyesterday. This is ridiculous! Terrence isn’t going to comb through my phone looking for proof I’m lying, he’s not my boyfriend. Just my best friend.
The harsh lines on his face start to weaken. “I don’t get why you’re lying to me.”
“I’m not lying,” I say under my breath. My face scrunches, a wave of exhaustion rolling over me despite getting the best sleep of my life next to Christos. “With everything goingon, I messed up. Sorry.”
He purses his lips, looking right through me and for a moment I think he’s going to storm out. Instead, he asks, “You wanna grab breakfast?”
The stomach churns with banana nut oatmeal and coffee from Christos’ kitchen.
“I’m good.”
“Are you?” His brows furrow. “I mean, fuck dude, you didn’t even respond to my texts.”
“Do you know how many people messaged me?”
“Oh what, you think I can’t count that high?”
“Thats—okay, I wasn’t going to make that joke.” I roll my eyes, “But under normal circumstances when I’m not jet lagged, I would. So sorry. Again.”
He mutters, “Whatever,” grabs his backpack and trudges out of the room.
