in the end she decided against it. Instead, she kicked the duvet cover onto the floor—she thought she remembered something about hotel duvets not getting washed that often—and curled up on the top sheet fully dressed.
Are you okay?
Meg dropped her phone on the mattress, like it had turned to a burning stone in her hand. She turned it over for good measure, facedown so she couldn’t see his message.
Flipped it back over again.
She thought about not texting him back, about turning her phone off and going to sleep and driving straight back to Philly in the morning. Nobody knew about him. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, their relationship didn’t exist. She could snip him right out of her life and literally nobody would know the difference except her, and the very thought of it made her want to burst into tears.
I’m fine, she typed, then deleted it letter by letter. The whole point of Colby was that she didn’t have to lie to him. She wasn’t about to start now just because it turned out he was a dick in real life. I’m safe.
Are you on the road?
She tugged at her lip again, considering. She watched six minutes of an Office rerun on Comedy Central. She tugged at her lip some more.
Meg, come on.
Then, a moment later: Or I mean, don’t text if you’re driving I guess.
Two minutes after that: Can we talk on the phone?
The bubble appeared again, then disappeared. Then appeared one more time: Meg?
Meg sighed. Garden Inn, she typed finally. 324.
He showed up at her door half an hour later holding three different kinds of chips and a banana. “I didn’t know if you ate dinner after you left,” he said, shrugging a little bit helplessly. “Gas station was the only thing open. And then I had to go walk Tris, so the banana is from my house.”
“Thanks,” Meg said, setting the food down on the dresser next to the complimentary eight-ounce bottle of water. She sat on the bed, wrapping her arms around her knees.
Colby nodded. “I’m sorry we fought,” he said, leaning against the wall next to an ugly print of an autumn forest and jamming his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
Meg shook her head, gaze flicking up at the popcorn ceiling. “That’s not an apology,” she said.
“No,” Colby agreed evenly. “It’s kind of not, I guess.”
“Then why are you here?” Meg exploded, flinging her arms out. “Like, if you don’t want to apologize to me, then—”
“If I don’t want to apologize?” Colby’s dark eyes flashed. “Why would I apologize when you’re the one—”
“What’s the deal with you and Joanna?”
Colby didn’t answer for a moment, the silence hanging suspended between them. He leaned his head back against the plaster with a quiet thump.
“Seriously,” Meg pressed. She hadn’t let herself think about it until she got here, not really, but as soon as Joanna had gotten out of the car it had felt like the numbingly obvious conclusion. Jesus Christ, she was going to feel so enormously dumb. “Is she your girlfriend?”
“Do you care?”
“Are you kidding me right now?” Meg barked a sharp, mean laugh. “You let me drive all the way to Nowheresville, Ohio, and you think I wouldn’t care if—”
“First of all, that’s my fucking hometown you’re talking about, Meg. And second of all, I didn’t tell you to drive to Ohio!”
“Oh my God.” Just like that, Meg was up off the mattress, halfway to the door in two quick steps. “Okay. You know what, Colby? You can just go. Thanks for the chips. This was an adventure.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Colby said, holding his hands up; for the first time since he’d gotten here, the panic was visible on his face. “No. Stop. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. Joanna isn’t my girlfriend. She wants to be, maybe. But she isn’t.”
Well. Meg swallowed hard, crossing her arms. “Why not?” she managed to ask.
Colby dropped his chin and gazed at her, steady. “Why do you think?”
They faced off across the dingy carpet. Meg looked away first. She remembered a thing she’d read online once about liminal spaces, blurry boundary zones between two established areas. This hotel room felt like that. Their whole relationship felt like that, actually, now that she was thinking about it; like it only existed, like it only could exist, outside normal space and time.
“You’re under my skin,” Colby said quietly, sitting down on the edge of the mattress. “And I don’t