I wished I’d never told her I was coming to Camden U. I would bet money that she wouldn’t have come here otherwise, and I wouldn’t be dealing with whatever the fuck this is.
Chapter 5
Melly
Thestudygroupendsup being dinner at Gianna and Lucy’s. Their apartment is a few blocks from ours and is the opposite of ours in every way I can think of. Ours is high-ceilinged and white and quiet. Theirs is small, with standard ceilings, a thrifted rug, three lamps with three different bulb temperatures, and a coffee table that has clearly had a ton of use. There are pictures of Gianna’s family around the house, and I notice there are none of Lucy’s. There’s a hockey jersey in the corner. Number 9.
We are crammed in here.
Six girls, six laptops, takeout from the Thai place downstairs. Me and Mila on the couch with our thighs touching. Gianna and Mara on the rug. Lucy and Penelope at the small round table by the window, more upright, quieter. It clicks for me almostimmediately that there are two halves of this friend group. There is the loud half — Gianna, Mara, Mila — and there is the quieter half — Lucy, Penelope, me. The friend group is balanced because of it. The conversation never lulls because the loud half will not allow it to, and the quiet half does not get drowned because the loud half loves us and remembers to include us.
It’s the type of friend group that’s exactly perfect, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
We work for twenty minutes in companionable silence. I get more done than I have in days. There’s something about being in a room full of other people working that makes me work too, the way a yawning person makes a room yawn. My research methods notes start to feel less like hieroglyphs and more like sentences I might actually be able to recite back to a TA next week.
Penelope’s timer goes off. “First break,” she announces.
Mara is on her feet before the timer has finished chirping. “Okay. Okay. We need to talk about last night.”
The girls all groan and laugh and put their laptops aside. I feel Mila lean forward beside me.
“I went home with Drew Faulkner,” Mara announces, with the air of a girl who is excited about this. “And he was —”
“What happened to the freshman?” Penelope interrupts from her chair, calmly turning a page in her notebook.
Mara waves a hand dismissively. “That was two weeks ago, Pen. Please.”
Penelope makes a face.
“Don’t give me your judgy eyes.” Mara points at her. “I have always had a thing for Drew. Always.”
“You have a thing for everyone,” Gianna says with a laugh.
Mara rolls her eyes. Me and Mila start to giggle. Lucy is smiling behind her hand.
Gianna twists around to face us. “Mara falls in love on sight.”
“Anyway,” Mara plows on, “I had a fun night. I don’t know about any of you. Maybe Lucy knows, because Reeve could not keep his hands off you, girl. I saw.”
Lucy turns the color of a rose.
“He’s hot,” Mara says serenely. “I’m sorry, but Benson is just hot. Lucy, you’ve got him wrapped around your finger. I am not threatening anything, he is yours, but he is still fun to look at —”
Gianna smacks Mara on the ass. “Don’t talk about them like that! He’s my brother, and her boyfriend, you absolute sicko —”
Mila and I are laughing so hard our laptops slide off to each other. When they fall together, we quickly grab them.
Then Mara swivels her whole body toward me.
“And you,” she says, with great satisfaction. “Miss I-Have-A-Boyfriend-Of-Two-Years. I bet he could not keep his hands off you either.”
I open my mouth. I don’t get a word out before Mila has already answered for me.
“Actually,” she says, sharp as a knife, “I slept over. And Chase took the floor.”
The entire room makes a single, identical face.
Mara drops her jaw open. “You’re a cockblocker? Oh my God. I cannot handle two cockblockers in this friend group.”
