playing “Hey Jude” on the guitar nearby, though no one is paying much attention to her.
But I am. Her vocals lull me into a sort of trance, until my lips perk up into an attempt at a smile. Anytime I’m too low, music can pull me back, and it reminds me why I’m here in the first place.
Moping isn’t helping. Worrying isn’t helping.
I have to pull myself out of the darkness.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“Sophie was trying to make a point, I believe.” Shane leans against the wall of his bedroom. “She wants you to bounce back. To be a stronger advocate for yourself, you know?”
“I don’t think I can. I don’t know what this is, this haze that’s fallen over me.”
“You could eat.” He tosses me a bag of crisps. “I didn’t want to admit it at first, and I don’t know how to talk to you about it. But I do worry about you sometimes. Your eyes glaze over and you hold your stomach. Plus, you sleep all the time. How many naps does one guy need?”
I pull both ends of the bag. It opens.
The tang of barbecue crisps hits my nose. I stare at them. Turning the bag over, I read the calorie information. I don’t know if I should.
He rolls his eyes. “Eat. You’re not doing yourself any favors.”
I want to end this … crash dieting. But I can already feel Pierce slipping away. He’s barely been in contact this week, and I wonder if maybe it was all too much for him. If I was too much for him.
But we’ve got our trip to Florence soon, then our recital after that, and if I can drop another ten or so pounds, I’ll be closer to my goal.
Though I still don’t know what my goal is.
“I’ll have a few,” I say. And I put two in my mouth.
Two becomes four, which becomes half the bag. He watches me eat like I’m some sideshow act. I quickly fold the bag and put it to the side. No more of that, for now.
The weird thing about having a roommate is that for your entire roommateship, you’ve got one open-ended conversation going. He’s there when you wake and when you sleep, and all the hours in between. He’s there practicing for his new job while you’re watching a movie. And your trains of thought can travel on, day by day, an ebb and flow that never seems to end.
It’s been a full week since Sophie first brought it up, and he’s finally talking about it. He’ll bring this up again, but for now, I turn away. To my computer. To the phone in my hand.
My fingers type the numbers I know by heart. The only number I know by heart that isn’t my home landline.
And it belongs to someone who fucking wrecked me.
Skye’s texted intermittently over the last few days, but he’s got no answers.
It would be so easy to cut her out of my life, but I can’t. I can’t recede into my turtle shell and wait for this to blow over, because I know it never will. I need a resolution—some kind of resolution to keep me going here.
“Hi.” I clear my throat to lower my voice, which echoes back to me. “Take me off Bluetooth.”
“Yes, sir. I can’t believe you’re actually calling me. Is this a confrontation?”
“I thought it was about time,” I say. “I don’t know where to start.”
“How about starting at the point in time you got too good for us.”
Is Skye there too?
“Megan, do you want to know the truth? I think that was ages ago. Years. Before we were even friends.” I choke back a tear. “I’ve always felt like a bad fit for the life I was given.”
“Because you were gay?”
“Yeah. In a state where half the people there would prefer I just die than be myself, it’s either you make yourself feel superior or you let them make you feel inferior. There’s no in between.”
“Well, great news. I’m giving you fucking wings, Mart. You’re on your own. I’m done holding your hand, and it’s clear you think you can function just fine without me. So I kicked you out of the nest.”
“And waited for me to splat all over the pavement.”
She laughs. “And you did splat, didn’t you? God, I hate knowing you so well, I really do. I was just telling Skye—”
“Keep me out of this,” he says. “This is your thing. You crossed lines.”