on their dicks,” she replies. “Just smile and nod and drink up. A little harmless flirting won’t kill anyone.”
“If I saw Conor flirting with another girl—”
“But you’re not seeing him because he won’t return your texts. So pretend you’re alive for a few hours and enjoy yourself,” she says, pushing a shot at me after Danny insists on ordering us all tequila.
“To basketball,” Sasha raises her shot glass.
“To Kappa Chi,” Eric answers.
“To hockey,” I mutter under my breath.
After we down our shots, Sasha pulls out her phone and holds it up to grab a group selfie of the five of us.
“There,” she chirps.
“There what?”
She crops the image and adds a filter before posting the pic with several choice hashtags.
#girlsnight #kappachi #briaru #fuckpucks #bigballs
“Let Conor ignore this,” she says with a grin.
The thing is, I don’t want revenge. I don’t want to make him jealous or remind him what he’s missing. I just want to understand what changed.
Later, when I’m back at my apartment, getting into bed and trying to talk myself out of texting Conor again, I realize I missed a text from him earlier.
HIM: Sorry. Talk tomorrow. Goodnight.
Somehow, this is worse than him not responding at all.
28
Conor
A shrink would classify my behavior of this past week as self-destructive. Or at least that’s what Hunter’s girlfriend accused me of doing today, and Demi is halfway to being a shrink, so she’s legit. Apparently she ran into Taylor on campus earlier, prompting her to text me something along the lines of, “The fuck did you do to her???”
Which I can only take to mean I’ve managed to ruin Taylor, too. It’s nothing more than what I expected would happen. Exactly what I deserve. Can’t keep spraying perfume on the pile of crap and pretending it doesn’t stink.
I wanted to call her. I drove to Taylor’s apartment after the beach last weekend but couldn’t make myself go inside. I couldn’t lie to her face again and tell her everything’s fine. I’d rather have her think I’m just another asshole jock than know what I really am.
We’ve met up a couple times since then, grabbing coffee between classes on campus, but I’ve avoided her place and haven’t asked her over to mine. The coffee dates are already awkward enough, a solid hour where I can’t think of anything to say and she’s afraid to scare me off. And every text she sends wondering what’s wrong drives the knife a little deeper.
If I were a better person I’d tell her the truth. I’d come clean and let her look at me with those beautiful turquoise eyes full of betrayal and disgust. Let her call me a pathetic loser and watch her finally understand what I’d been too chickenshit to tell her all along: that she deserves better.
TAYLOR: You wanna come over tonight?
But I’m a coward. I keep telling myself that once I get rid of Kai, things with me and Taylor can go back to normal. I’ll make an excuse and she’ll reluctantly forgive me and then I can spend the next month winning her back.
Except every time I see the question mark at the end of her messages it gets harder to imagine facing her again.
Another text flashes on my screen. This time, it’s from Kai.
KAI: You’re wasting time…
I turn the phone over so I don’t have to look at the screen anymore. It’s Monday morning and I shouldn’t still be lying in bed. My philosophy lecture starts in less than an hour. Although I’m doing plenty of philosophizing in my head, so maybe I should just skip. Too much introspection can’t be good for the soul.
I stare up at my bedroom ceiling and draw a ragged breath. Then I drag my lazy ass out of bed and force myself to get dressed.
My phone vibrates again and I pretend not to notice. It’s either Taylor or Kai. Or maybe my mom.
Right now the only person it hurts more to disappoint than Taylor is my mother. I can’t call her asking for that kind of money. I thought I could muster up the balls to call Max directly, feed him some bullshit story about one of my teammates getting into trouble and not wanting to worry Mom about it. Or I could say I wrecked someone’s car. But then I pictured the face he’d make.
Hitting him up for cash would only provide him with more confirmation of what he’d always believed about me: that I was trash, always would be trash, and no amount