Meet Me at Midnight - Jessica Pennington Page 0,111
didn’t want to think it, I knew that thing was Asher. Asher was summer vacation. He was my favorite lake, and the best two months of the year. I wanted to be mad at him, to stay angry, but he was right; once a few days had passed, and the shock of my almost-arrest wore off, things didn’t seem so dire. It didn’t seem so plausible that he had fabricated an entire summer of magical moments just to one-up me. But I also knew it was too late. To fix what I’d broken with him, but also, to forget everything that night reminded me of—that our relationship was a disaster waiting to happen, and that eventually, it would ruin everything with our families. It would ruin us.
I painted more rocks that last week than all of summer, trying my best not to paint anything that reminded me of him. Dinners were a throwback to ignoring one another, and it was hard to miss the concerned looks on our parents’ faces as they poked and prodded us with questions, trying to draw us into a conversation. By the end of the week I felt invisible. The most words I got from him were forced—hellos and good nights if I was near our parents. An answer if I asked him something casual at the dinner table, just to try to be normal. But all of it was without an ounce of the light I was used to.
And by the time I packed up my room, I wasn’t sure what was worse—Asher mad at me, or just being ignored. Treated like I was nothing special. Which I wasn’t. I knew that—knew that I was the one that ruined it all. But I was sure we still had time to turn things around. I had sparked a controlled burn. Something small and manageable and early—we would overcome it. Eventually. Hopefully. But right now, I still can’t open that envelope. I tuck it into a pile of books on the shelf over my desk, and run out of my room.
* * *
I was paired with one of my teammates as a roommate. Apparently, it’s freshman tradition for all of the swimmers to be paired up together. Every morning, my roommate Ellie and I walk to the main cafeteria, to meet up with other girls from the team. Our dorm is directly across from one of the campus’s three dining spots, and it’s weird but also comforting to have a built-in group of friends here, who all share something in common. Not that we sit around talking about swimming twenty-four/seven, but it’s this strange thread of familiarity that connects us all. In every class but one, I have at least one teammate I can gravitate toward.
After breakfast on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we do core training and weights. While they’re preseason captain-led practices that aren’t technically mandatory, we all know we better have a really good reason for missing one. I haven’t yet, even though it’s a lot harder to drag myself out of bed now than it was during the summer. I don’t like to think about why that is. But today, as I wander through the conditioning room in the college field house, I can’t help but notice that Asher isn’t here.
When it comes to team activities, I feel like my eyes have a special inventory system that requires me to verify whether Asher and I are in the same room. And currently we are not. I finish my core workout and move to a machine. Ellie spots me at the free weights, and I spot her, and when we’re finally leaving for the locker room—hot and sweaty but somehow more energized than when I arrived—Asher finally walks in.
Perfect timing.
24 DAYS AFTER
Sidney
Two weeks into classes, Asher and I have barely spent any time together in the weight room. We are a perfectly choreographed performance of coming and going. But when he’s missing altogether, I finally lose my cool. He can’t spend five minutes in the same room with me? I shouldn’t. I really know I shouldn’t, but I still stop next to Ryan, Asher’s roommate.
“Where’s Asher?”
Ryan holds his weight in a curl and smiles at me. “Room.”
“Is he coming today?”
“Not likely.”
I let out a disgruntled grunt and Ryan laughs. “Chill. He’s sick.”
A prickle of something goes up my arms. “How sick?”