class together and for whatever reason, just hit it off. He reminded me a lot of my brother Asher, I guess. We started hanging out and eventually got an apartment together off campus.
“We became pretty close. Honestly, he was my best friend. I would have trusted him with anything—with my life. He was like another brother to me. Anyway, sophomore year, I started dating this girl, Carly. Tucker had been dating a girl named Larissa, and the four of us hung out all the time.”
He paused and placed his hand over mine.
“I fell hard for Carly. Really hard. I was infatuated with her. And everything was great. I thought I’d found my soulmate. Then Asher got arrested.
“I came home as soon as I found out what had happened. I hated being away from Carly, but my family needed me. The legal stuff happened pretty fast and all of a sudden, my brother was in fucking prison. That was it, there wasn’t anything we could do.”
“I can’t even imagine how awful that must have been.”
“It fucked me up a little bit. It fucked us all up, I think. Asher was… he was the oldest, you know? He wasn’t perfect but we all looked up to him. And then all of a sudden, he was gone.
“After that, things got rough at home. I didn’t go back to school for a while, but I talked to Carly all the time. I tried to convince her to come out here to see me, but she never did. Looking back, that should have tipped me off that something wasn’t right, but at the time, that wasn’t where my head was. After seeing things go down with Asher, I had this sense of urgency about Carly. Like she could be taken away from me in an instant, and I couldn’t let that happen. So before I went back to school, I bought a ring.”
I had a feeling I knew where this was going.
“I wanted to surprise her, so I didn’t tell her I was coming back. I didn’t tell Tucker, either. I went straight to Carly’s, but as soon as I saw her face when she answered the door, I knew something was wrong. She went pale. I tried to hug her, we hadn’t seen each other in months, but she crossed her arms and wouldn’t look at me. She just kept saying she wasn’t expecting me and I should have called first. And then Tucker walked out of her bedroom.”
“Oh my god.”
“They made a bunch of bullshit excuses about how they never meant for it to happen. But seriously, what the fuck? I thought I was going to marry her, I had her ring in my pocket, and he was my best friend. My brother had just gone to prison. And they knew. They knew what was happening at home, and they still started fucking each other behind my back.”
“So you not only lost your girlfriend, you lost your best friend too. During what must have been one of the most difficult times of your life.”
“Yeah.”
I closed my eyes, letting out a long breath. Evan kept his hand over mine, holding it against his chest. I couldn’t believe he’d been betrayed like that. It made my heart ache for him. For the man he must have been before they’d crushed him. No wonder he was so closed-off. He’d given his heart to someone and she’d stomped on it like it meant nothing to her.
Suddenly I really, really hated Carly.
“After that, I quit school. Packed up all my shit and moved home. When I moved into this place, I brought it all with me, but I’ve never unpacked it.”
“So that’s what’s in the spare bedroom? All your stuff from college?”
“Yeah. I don’t know why I even keep it. I guess I keep thinking I should go through it at some point, but I never do.”
“Evan, I’m so sorry that happened to you. And I hope they cheated on each other and gave each other chlamydia and herpes.”
He laughed. “I don’t know what happened to them. Carly tried to call me a bunch of times, but I never answered. I didn’t have anything to say to her, and eventually she stopped trying.”
“Did you ever hear from Tucker?”
“No.”
“What an asshole,” I said. “I don’t even know them and I’m so mad. You know what, fuck them. I hope they got chlamydia, herpes, and some kind of rectal dysfunction that gives them chronic diarrhea for the rest of their