Fresh

by Margot Wood

  “Ughhhh,” I groan loud enough for it to echo above me. “When it comes to sex, I get it, I know what I’m about, I’m horny on main, but romance? When it comes to romance I’m just—what the fuck romance, you know?”

  “I thought you didn’t like labels?”

  “That’s a label?!?”

  “Yeah,” she smiles. “WTFromantic, although I believe it’s more commonly called quoiromantic now.” She narrows her eyes at me. “Don’t you ever look this stuff up online?”

  I slump back against the wall. “I only use the Internet for porn, cat memes, and IMDB trivia.”

  “Quoi comes from the French word for what—” Rose gets that look in her eye like she’s about to go on a long one so I kick her gently with my foot and interrupt.

  “Ohhhh my god, Roooooseeeee. Can you not babesplain for, like, one second? You are killing my high.”

  “Sorry! Sorry!” She grasps the vape pen in her lap and clicks it on again. She takes a long pull and holds it in for a moment. “Look, when it comes to sex, all I was trying to say earlier was, when you finally get with that someone you are willing to open up to, my god, Elliot . . .”

  “That good?” I give her a moment to respond but Rose doesn’t say anything. Instead, she gives me a look so sexy that it makes me blush. “Damn . . . All right, maybe I should give Nico another shot, you know? Make more of an effort?”

  “What? No!” Rose says, looking surprised.

  “I thought that’s what all this was about? That whole thing about relationships taking work and shit!”

  “They do! But with someone who is right for you! And that is not Nico. I don’t want you giving up on relationships just because you have terrible taste.”

  “Shut up, I do not!” I smack her leg.

  “Please!” Rose exclaims. “You know what I’m talking about. I bet you’ve known you weren’t that into Nico since your very first date.” I scrunch my face and refuse to say it. I hate being confronted with the truth. She taps my hip with her foot and taunts me. “Come onnnnn, you can admit it.”

  I flip my hair back and turn my chin up. “I will do no such thing.”

  “You can do it,” she badgers me. “Here, I’ll help you. Just say, ‘Rose, you were right. Nico was sweet but bored me to death and I should always listen to you because you are always right.’”

  “I will never say that.”

  “That’s okay, you can just tell me I was right, you don’t need to say all the extra stuff,” she says with a playful, flirty smile. I shake my head and give her a sideways glance.

  “God, you’re annoying,” I say.

  “I know.” She grins and bites her bottom lip. I reach over and snatch the vape pen out of her lap and take a pull.

  “Man, this sucks,” I say.

  “Yeah . . . dumping someone is never fun.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t talking about that. I was referring to the fact that I hate feeling lonely.”

  “No one loves being lonely,” she says. “But you aren’t alone. You’ve got Lucy and Micah and I’m here for you.”

  “Thanks,” I say, but it doesn’t make me feel any less bummed. As I reach down to hand the pen back to her, I take her wrist and look at her watch. “Shit, it’s getting early. I should get some sleep.” I stand up to leave but Rose stays. “You coming?”

  “Nah, I’ve got some shit of my own I need to sort out,” she says and I nod. As I step over her to exit the stairwell, she touches my hand. “Hey, don’t tell anyone I smoked in here.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” I say to her with a smile. She lets me go and as I open the door to the third floor, I call back to her.

  “But this does mean I get to put the fairy lights back up, right?”

  “Not a chance, McHugh.”

  I shrug. “Ah well, had to try.”

  * * *

  1 I have nothing to add here, I just wanted to call out that this is the sixty-ninth footnote. Heh.

  2 Remember at the end of the last chapter I said it couldn’t get any worse? Turns out, it can get worse. Much worse! Ha!

  3 I stop Nico and gently tell him the truth, that he sucks at giving head and I spend the next two hours giving explicit instructions on how to please a woman, but when everything he tries still doesn’t work, he breaks out a special bottle of lubricant he bought for the occasion and applies a generous amount, but it turns out, I am allergic to the special ingredient and my cooter burns, catches on fire, and the Little Building explodes. The end.

  4 Lie.

  5 Lie, I finished it a week ago.

  6 Lie, lie, lie.

  CHAPTER 17

  “So that’s it then? You’re breaking up with Nico?” Lucy asks the next afternoon as we catch up between classes. I watch from the bed as she changes into purple Emerson sweatpants and a vintage Dunkin’ Donuts sweatshirt.1

  “Yeah, I sent him a text this morning and blocked his number so he can’t call me back.”

  “Harsh!” Lucy chides.

  “Breakups always suck, why prolong the agony? We weren’t even together for very long. I prefer to just rip the Band-Aid off and get it over with.”

  “I dunno, Elliot,” Lucy says as she pulls the sweatshirt over her head. “That’s pretty cold, even for you.”

  “Well, whatever. It’s too late now.” I’m hoping she’ll leave it at that but the look she is giving me right now is a little scary. “Okay, fine! If I see him in the halls I’ll apologize, all right? Man . . . I should have just listened to Rose from the start.”

  “What do you mean?” Lucy asks as she finishes getting dressed and joins me on my bed.

  “Do you remember when I was getting ready for my first date with Nico and I couldn’t stop sweating?”

  “I think you need to see a doctor about that . . .”

  “Well, while Rose was helping me with that whole pituation, she made this off-handed comment about Nico being wrong for me.”

  “Really?” Lucy asks.

  “I kinda put it out of my memory, but then I saw her last night and she brought it up again. Don’t tell her I told you this, but she was right. I think I just wanted Nico to be right for me, but I knew it from that first kiss that I just wasn’t feeling it. Rose was right all along.”

  Lucy freezes in that intense stare she gets whenever she’s deep in thought. “Huh.”

  “What?” I ask her.

  She holds her stare for a moment longer and then abruptly returns to Earth. She sits up, crosses her legs, and folds her hands together in her lap as she addresses me. “How often do you hang out with Rose?”

  “I dunno.” I shrug. “Not that often? And it’s usually by accident—why?”

  “It just seems like you really care about Rose’s opinion. You talk about her a lot,” Lucy says and I make a face.

  “No I don’t!”

  “Yeah you do! Rose is my RA too, but I think I’ve only ever spoken to her a handful of times and we’ve never talked about anything other than resident stuff.”

  I narrow my eyes at Lucy. “What are you trying to get at?”

  “Nothing!” Lucy says, relaxing her tone. “Sorry, you’re right. She probably hangs out with a lot of her residents. I mean, she is really nice. Last semester she helped me with this marketing project on colors in advertising and let me borrow some of her fabrics for a presentation. She has such great style and she’s just so . . . cool, you know?”

  “Yeah, I get it,” I reply. “She’s so effortless.”

  Lucy tilts her head. “What do you mean?”

  “The woman crushed me in Ping-Pong while wearing a tutu. I mean, who does that?” I say. And without really thinking about what I’m saying, I keep going. “I love that she doesn’t hold back, you know? She’s bossy as hell and I hate that she’s always calling me out on my shit, but she’s also protective as a motherfucker. I mean, she really had my back that night with Kenton. She’s smart and focused and competitive. But she’s not always serious. I mean, she knows how to name
a mouse and secretly vapes in the stairwell and she’ll probably win an Oscar for costume design someday. Plus she looks mega hot in overalls, which is nearly impossible, but to be honest she is such a babe she could wear a trash bag and make it look couture—” AND OH MY GOD DID I JUST SAY ALL THAT OUT LOUD?

  I stop talking and glance over at Lucy. She’s covering her mouth with both of her hands. She looks like she’s about to burst.

  “I KNEW IT!” Lucy smacks me in the arm. “I TOTALLY FREAKING KNEW IT!”

  Lucy jumps out of bed and starts heating up water at our tea station by the window. When the electric kettle chimes, Lucy pours steaming water into our matching Golden Girls mugs and the room is instantly filled with a woody, fresh aroma from this special Armenian mint tea her grandma gave her for Christmas.

  “I feel so confused right now,” I say.

  “First, you need to drink this. My grandma insists this will boost our moods, clear our skin and has antioxidants that are good for preventing cancer.” She hands me a mug and I take a sip and grimace. It tastes like ass.

  “No offense to your grandma, but this tea is bullshit, I don’t feel any prettier.”

  “Oh, shush your mouth and drink it,” Lucy scolds. She takes a seat on the bed next to me and takes a sip for herself. She lets the water dribble out of her mouth back into her mug.

  “Oh no. This is bad,” she says.

  “So bad.”

  She takes our mugs, sets them aside on her desk, and then gives me that head-tilted, pinched-eyebrow, narrowed-eyed look that means she’s about to get all serious on me. “Elliot, I’m about to say something that is going to make you very uncomfortable.”

  “Oh god—”

  She rests her hand on my arm. “Elliot. . . I think you like Rose. As in, like like. As in you have genuine feelings for her.”

  “Shut up, I do not.” My cheeks are on fire right now.

  Lucy smacks me in the arm. “You do! Ohmygosh, you totally do! Look at you, you’re blushing!”

  “You cannot diagnose my feelings based on blood flow, Lucy,” I retort, glaring at her.

  “I can and I did,” she says, looking very proud of herself. “I’ve known you long enough now to recognize something new and this? This is new.” Forgetting how nasty the tea is, Lucy reaches for her mug and takes a victory sip and immediately spits it out again. “Oh god! Why do I keep doing that?”

  I bury my face in my hands in disbelief. “There is no way I like like Rose! The woman drives me crazy! She is always lecturing me and shit, I mean, she literally took my phone and changed my class registration once.”

  “Yes, but you could have changed your class back just as easily. You could have ignored all those lectures . . . but you didn’t. You chose to listen to them.”

  And then it hits me.

  HARD.

  I have opened up to Rose. I have told her all about my issues with sex and intimacy, she’s even seen me and helped me through one of the worst moments of my life. I shudder at the memory of that night.

  And yet . . .

  . . .

  And yet . . .

  I don’t feel like running away.

  In fact, I want to run toward her. I can’t believe it took me this long to realize it.

  I look over at Lucy. Time for the truth. “You’re right. I like Rose. I like like her, Lucy. I like her a lot, a lot.”

  Lucy gasps and scrunches up her shoulders like she’s about to explode but instead she tackles me. “I KNEW IT!” she yelps as she smothers me with love. She bounces on my bed and when that’s not enough, she grabs my pillow and starts hitting me in the head with it.

  “Woman! Settle down!” I peek out from under her but she keeps whipping the pillow. When Lucy finally gets off me and regains composure, I ask, “What should I do?”

  “Tell her!” Lucy says.

  “I can’t,” I whimper.

  Lucy immediately deflates. “Aww what? Why not?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, a MILLION REASONS?” I flail backward on the bed.

  “Give me one,” she insists.

  “Fine. Here’s one: She’s my RA.”

  “That’s not a real reason, that’s an excuse. There are no rules saying students can’t date their RAs. Give me a real reason.”

  “Okay, fine! She has a girlfriend! There are very few lines I won’t cross, but that is one of them.” I cover my face with a pillow and scream for a minute. When I’ve calmed down, I reemerge. “It’s just going to be me and my vibrator for the rest of the semester then . . .”

  “What? No more casual flings?” Lucy asks, looking surprised.

  “One day, sure, but not right now. I dunno, this whole Nico thing and now the Rose thing . . . it’s bumming me out. I think I need to be alone for a while.” I turn on my side and face her. “But what about you? It’s been two months since—” I wince at the thought of saying his name again. “How are you feeling about all of it?”

  “I miss it, being loved,” she says and my heart aches for her. “But I don’t miss him. I think it’s going to be a good long while until I’m ready to—”

  “Dip the wick.”

  “Ew.”

  “Bake the potato?”

  “No.”

  “Ride the bony express?”

  “Why?”

  “Beat that meat. I could keep going—”

  “All right, all right. You can stop now,” she says while laughing. “At least we can be old, boring, dried-up ladies together this semester.” She reaches over the top of the covers and takes my hand. I give it a squeeze.

  “In time, you’ll be ready to put yourself back out there. And when you are, boys will be lined up around the block,” I tell her.

  She squeezes my hand back. “Do you think you’ll ever tell Rose how you feel?”

  I sigh. “I think that’s a secret I gotta be buried with. Even if she was available—and she isn’t—if I tell her how I feel, I run the risk of it going unreciprocated. I don’t even know if she likes me like that. She’s so hard to read.”

  Lucy sits up in bed and looks back at me. “Elliot, the woman sat atop a metal washing machine for two hours and watched The Matrix with you. She likes you. It’s a terrible movie.”

  I squeak in shock and sit up. “Take that back or I’m breaking up with you right now.”

  “You can’t, you’re my wife,” she says with a straight face.

  “Well then I’d like a divorce. I can’t be married to someone who doesn’t love The Matrix.”

  She tilts her chin up and crosses her arms in front of her chest. “It’s too late. We signed the binding friendship contract when I ate your Cheez-Its. You’re stuck with me for life.”

  “Ugh, why won’t you just be my girlfriend already?”

  “Because I am way out of your league.”

  “True.”

  “And because you’re in love with Rose.”

  “SHUT UP I AM NOT.” Lucy looks deeply disappointed, so I shrug her off. “Look, it’s fine—I’m fine. Really! It’s just a crush, I’ll get over it.” Lucy gives me one of her patented side hugs and I rest my head on her shoulder.

  “Are you sure?” she asks.

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Unrequited love is such a bitch,” she says woefully.

  “Yeah,” I sigh. “It really fucking is.”

  * * *

  1 I can’t believe I made it this far into a book set in Boston without mentioning Dunkin’ Donuts (or Dunkies as it is known by the locals). It’s a big thing here, but I still don’t get it.

  CHAPTER 18

  After a week or so of wallowing over my feelings for Rose, I decide to shove that shit wayyyyy deep in the basement of my mind and focus all my energy on helping Lucy.

  I don’t know if you remember, but several chapters ago, Lucy and I mended our friendship right around the same time I started dating Nico and since I was all caught up with that nonsense, I kinda failed to see that my roommate was having a rough time. This
whole time I thought she was doing okay with the whole post-breakup thing—we had that great talk! She moved back in! I gave her a bunch of sexy romance novels! But now that I’ve paid closer attention to her, I’m worried about her. It’s like something inside her cracked and I don’t know how to fix it. I have done everything I can to break my roommate’s sad spell—I restrung all the fairy lights Rose made us take down,1 we rewatched every season of The Golden Girls, we fed those baby ducks Bostonians are weirdly excited about, and I even baked her cookies!2 But she’s still missing that patented Lucy sparkle. I didn’t know what to do anymore, and since I’m avoiding Rose like the plague, I had to turn to someone else for advice. Well, two someones.

  A TELEPHONE CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE THREE MCHUGH SISTERS

  Izzy: Why don’t you stop trying to fix her and just let her work through her shit at her own pace?

  Remy: Don’t say shit, Izzy.

  Elliot: What about a jigsaw puzzle? I haven’t tried that yet.

  Izzy: Honestly, I don’t know why you call me. It’s not like you ever take my advice.

  Elliot: Maybe I should take her on one of those ghost tours!

  Remy: No! That’s too scary! What if you got her a Switch? That way I could play Animal Crossing with her—

  Izzy: Why don’t you join a club or something? It’ll look good on your resume and—

  Elliot: That’s a great idea!

  Izzy: Dammit, Elliot! I hate it when you do this, you know I’m busy and—wait. What did you just say?

  Remy: Don’t say dammit.

  Elliot: I said that’s a great idea. [long pause] Hello? Izzy? You still there? Remy, is Izzy still there?

  Remy: I dunno?

  Izzy: Yeah, I’m still here—I’m just trying to think of all the possible ways you could turn joining a club into a bad idea. Emerson doesn’t have any weirdo clubs, does it? They are all pretty standard?

  Elliot: Absolutely, they are totally normal.

  ELLIOT MCHUGH PRESENTS: THE LET’S JOIN A CLUB AND CURE LUCY OF THE SADS! SPECIAL

  The Breakfast Club