Danika plucks her items from among the piles on the floor.“That’s not what’s happening.”She grabs her duffel bag, overflowing with her costume, shoves more into it and tucks her boots under her arms, like she can’t get away from me fast enough.“And if you think that I’d stay with him if he was deliberately hurting me, then you don’t know me at all.I will not let another guy control me, not after your brother.”She stops suddenly and looks at me like she is just now seeing me.“You should really re-evaluate the men in your life.They’re all lying to you, and you keep believing them.”
She storms out, Jaz and Darcy flattening on either side of the door once again.
My fists are clenched.I want to yell after her, but I don’t know what to say.The last word tied on my tongue.Tears fill my eyes.
“Umm…” Darcy says quietly.“We helped Magda make chocolate chip pancakes for your birthday breakfast.Maybe they’ll cheer you up?”
I flop down on my bed, the anger seeping out like a deflating balloon sputtering in the air.“I’m not hungry, but thank you.”Jaz steps toward me.I stop her.“Go ahead and eat.I’ll be down in a bit.”
I curl up in my bed and let the tears fall.I don’t go downstairs.I don’t leave my bed, not even when Jaz and Darcy come up to say goodbye, curling into me on either side and hugging me tight.“Happy birthday.We love you.”They only make me cry harder.
My mother knocks, and I tell her to go away.When she starts to open the door, I scream at her to leave me alone.Surprisingly, she does.
I don’t know who I’m angry with, exactly.Or if it’s sadness.Probably both.I just feel… a lot.And it’s all coming out in snotty, teary globs on my pillow.
My phone, ringing somewhere in my room, rouses me from emotionally drained sleep hours later.It’s dark.There’s a green glow on my floor.I stare at it until it stops.Then it goes off again.And again when I continue to ignore it.
Groaning, I stretch over the edge of my bed to pick it up.
“I think you should go to homecoming with me.”
“What?”I slowly sit up, which makes my head woozy.
“Homecoming.Go with me.”
“Um… I guess.”
“That was full of excitement,” Collin comments with sarcasm.
“Sorry,” I mutter.“Not feeling very excitable today.”
“Let’s change that,” he replies.Before I can say anything, he hangs up.
I’m emerging from my bathroom, my hair wrapped in a towel, when Collin bursts into my room.He has an arm wrapped around a bowl of popcorn, a six-pack of Dr.Pepper dangling from his fingers, and a bag full of what I can only presume to be candy in the other.He tosses several DVD cases onto the bed and begins singing a Beatles song, Collin’s version.“Hey, it’s your birthday”—he adds guitar effects, like from the scene in Sixteen Candles— “Well, happy birthday to you!”
I stare at him in shock.“How are you in my room?”My parents would never let him upstairs.They must not be home.
“I negotiated my way in here.You should’ve seen me.I gave your dad a run for his money.I think I have a future in litigation as a backup plan if the whole CEO thing is too boring.”
The light from the hallway streams in, spotlighting the piles of clothes and shoes on my floor.“Sadie, you’re a slob.”Collin swipes the pile of sweatpants off the end of my bed and yanks my covers up in a lame attempt to make it.
I scoop up the clothes.“Those are dirty.”I shove them in my closet.
“And the ones on your floor aren’t?”
“No.The ones in my closet are.”
He eyes me like he’s trying to decipher a new language.“Right.”He kicks off his shoes and jumps onto my bed with his legs extended.“It’s birthday movie night.What should we watch first?I was thinking Stand by Me.Then move into Labyrinth.And finish with Top Gun.Or should we end with Labyrinth?Bowie’s pretty epic.”
I move to shut the door and plug in the fairy lights strung like a canopy above my bed.
“Door stays open,” Collin tells me.“That was the deal.Don’t get me kicked out now that I’ve broken them down.”
“Can I shut off the hall light?It’s annoyingly bright.”I’m not fully myself, preferring to hide under my covers.Collin’s a jolt of caffeine to my emotional hangover.
“I guess.We didn’t get into the specifics about the lighting.We did negotiate on space between us.”He stacks two pillows along one side of his body.“You get the messier side of the room.Now, don’t try to take advantage of me.I may have to resort to pelting you with a pillow to defend my honor.”
I laugh.It feels strange.Like a bubble bursting in my chest.
