Page 53 of Oblivious Roommate

I breathe in the scent clinging to my fresh clothes and listen on to the silence. It lasts so long I start thinking Cass has left alongside Logan, but then I hear his footsteps again and freeze when they come uncomfortably close.

He’s in my room!

“Matt?”

I stop breathing, but one can only to do that for so long. To make matters worse, I pull on one of the belts stuck behind my back and it clangs. To my ears it’s like a thousand church bells ringing all at once.

I can hope that—

No, Cass is opening the closet door and stares at me with a frown.

“I knew I heard something. What the hell are you—”

A box falls off the top shelf as I scramble to my feet. It hits Cass on the head and the contents spill all over the carpet.

I’m unable to speak, as if there was a tight collar with spikes on the inside wrapped around my neck. His shoulders hang low, his face is slack, changing only once he looks to his feet.

Now I’m not just mute. I can’t breathe either. Because my Halloween costume was in that box, and now Cassian is picking it up!

My heartbeat is speeding way past the healthy limit as I dive to the floor to stuff the spiked pauldrons back in the box, but it’s no use. He’s seen them.

“I can explain,” I utter. “And I wasn’t spying, I just came back home, and Logan was already here, and—”

“It was you,” Cassian says in a breathy voice, staring straight at me. His face is darkening by the second, and my cheek is already tingling with the slap that’s surely coming.

I rub my forehead, caught like a deer in the headlights. “It’s… complicated.”

Instead of punching me, he takes a few steps back and holds his hands up, as if he hopes he can somehow make sense of what’s going on if he only gets a moment to think. “You helped me make the flyers. You walked with me to put up the posters. You let me go on a date with a guy who pretended to be the troll just to get in my pants.” His hands drop as he shakes his head. “What are you doing, Mattie?”

I feel like I’m about to get sick. “I… I don’t know. It was a joke, and then it got out of hand…” My eyes well up no matter how desperate I am to keep them from spilling tears.

“Kissing me was a joke to you?” He looks so hurt I rush up to him and touch his arms.

“No, no, no, that’s not what I meant.”

He shakes his head. “What about the blowjob I gave you, huh? Was that just a joke too? I know you remember what happened. You still have a hickey! Why are you playing with my feelings?”

I’m sinking. At this point, I don’t know if I even deserve his affection. I’m a mess. I don’t know how to admit that I’m gay to the one person who matters. Cass is gay, so this should be easy, yet the words don’t want to leave my mouth. I don’t have the vocabulary to talk about what we did on my birthday. I fucked up his thing with Logan. I lied about the troll.

I don’t know if he’d want me after everything I did, but I’m too afraid to find out.

“What’s that?” I ask.

Cass frowns, glancing toward my desk. “What?”

I shove off my lamp off the nightstand and run right past him.

And then to the door.

And then out of the door.

Without a jacket, without my phone, without my keys.

I just run.

Chapter 19

It’s way past nine in the evening and I’m nursing the one drink Levi bought me out of pity. I’m glad I have shoes on, but one thing is obvious. I can never go home. My future is probably Alaska. A cabin in the woods where I am never found and my shame is forgotten.