22
DELILAH
The bookstore is warm, but my fingers still ache.
Not from the cold—just that dull, tight stiffness that settles in when you’ve walked too far, too fast, on too little sleep and too many thoughts.
I drop my bag behind the counter and wince. I’m sore. Not in a bad way—just in a way that makes itimpossibleto forget where I woke up this morning. What I did. Who I did it with.
“Long morning?” Mr. Abernathy asks, not looking up from the window display.
“Something like that,” I say, and I’m so, so grateful he doesn’t push. Because how the hell am I supposed to explain this?
That I slept with someone and actually felt something.
That I didn’t want to leave.
That Ilikedhim. Not just the fooling around, not just the flirting, but the time with his friends. The way he made space for me without asking me to be anyone but myself.
I slide behind the counter and pull up the inventory log, fingers flying over the keyboard like muscle memory.
Barcodes. ISBNs. Column alignment.
Order.
Control.
Focus.
I tell myself I did the right thing. I left before it got complicated. Before either of us said anything we couldn’t take back.
Not like waking up tangled in someone else’s sheets, surrounded by warmth I didn’t know how to stay in.
I lie at my mid-morning break. Say I’m heading out for labels and packaging tape.
What I actually do is walk down to the campus supply shop and buy a toothbrush. Just one of the cheap ones. It reminds me of the way my stomach twisted when I stood in Troy’s bathroom and saw his toothbrush sitting there, and realized using it would mean something. And I don’t do meaning. I don’t do intimate. Not with anybody who might stick around, or who might pretend to.
I used to pack my whole life in one bag every weekend. School, work, groceries, chasing my mom around to make sure the bills were paid. I got good at moving. Fast. Quiet. Self-contained.
What I felt last night—that was the opposite of all those things.
I stare at my phone for a full minute. Then flip it over, screen-down.
If Troy texted, I’ll spiral. If he didn’t, I’ll spiral anyway.
I decide to text Lacey to try to calm said spiraling.
do you text a guy after he gives you a borderline religious orgasm
asking for a friend
Lacey
okay I’m calling you, you better answerbitch
I am at work
Lacey
