Roommates

by Ashley Love

  I call Emma too, for good measure, just to wish her a merry Christmas. Of course, Emma's actually with Cadence, which I hadn't realized, and she's just as off her ass, so I end that conversation early.

  I flick through my contacts afterwards, deciding to send Lucas a short happy holidays to which I get a reply of you too! :D that makes me wonder if I'm the only one sober right now.

  If I weren't sober, I'd have an excuse for what I do next. But I am, and it's with a clear mind that I open my text messages, find the one from Blake, and call him.

  The ringing makes me jump, as if someone else had pressed 'talk' and I wasn't expecting it. By the second ring I start wishing it'll go to voicemail. By the third I'm panicking. By the fourth I'm ready to hang up, even if I figure Blake has caller I.D. and will know it was me.

  "Hello?"

  I wince, blinking up at my ceiling. My mouth feels dry, my tongue feels heavy, and it's with difficulty that I get out, "Hi."

  I think, dazedly, that Blake's hung up on me. Seconds tick by without a word, but finally he says, "What do you want, Aubrey?" and he sounds just as he always does when I'm annoying him. Short, sharp, angry. As ridiculous as it is, I was almost hoping he would be happy I called. But obviously that's far from the case.

  "I'm not sure," I admit. "I just...I thought I'd call. Wish you a merry Christmas, or something."

  Again, Blake takes forever to reply. "It's not Christmas until tomorrow."

  "Right, yeah, I know. I just—"

  "I really don't understand why you'd even call me," Blake barrels on, completely ignoring me. "We're not friends, Aubrey. We never were, so I don't get what you're trying to do here."

  I blink, hurt ringing through me. But it doesn't take much for me to push it down, channel anger instead.

  "Of course we're not," I sneer. "Fuck you, Blake, I thought I'd call just to see if—" On the other side of the line, I hear something smash. Immediately I go from pissed off to concerned. "Are you okay?"

  "Shit," he groans. I hear movement, his shaky breathing, the sound of loud footsteps hurrying down a set of stairs. "I asked you guys to give me two minutes!"

  "But Blake," someone whines, "you promised you'd make gingerbread houses with us. We wanna make 'em now."

  I frown at my ceiling. "Is that...I didn't know you have younger siblings."

  "I don't," Blake says. "I'm—Jessie, the icing goes on the—just let me finish this phone call, please?"

  "Talk on the phone and make gingerbread houses," someone else says. "Please Blake. We've been waitin' forever."

  "And a'terwards we wanna play dress up again," a third kid says.

  Blake groans. "I'm not putting makeup on again, though. I'm still trying to get the eye shadow off."

  "But the princess has to wear eye shadow!"

  "If I agree to wear the eye shadow, can I finish my conversation first?" Blake asks.

  There's a beat of silence before a chorus of, "Okay."

  Blake sighs in relief. "Sorry about that."

  "Princess?" I snort. "Blake, do you have some interesting hobbies that I don't know about?"

  "Ha, ha," he says dryly. "I'm babysitting. My parents and their friends go to this big Christmas Eve party every year, and I'm always stuck babysitting for everyone."

  "You're trying to tell me," I says slowly, "that you, Blake Alexander, the school's running receiver—"

  "Running back," he corrects. "I'm the running back. There's no such thing as a running receiver."

  "I really don't care," I retort. "But you're telling me that you actually spend your Christmas Eve making gingerbread houses and letting little kids dress you up as a princess?" I can't help but laugh. "Is there a tiara involved?"

  "I'll have you know," Blake says stiffly, "that the tiara is a crucial part of the whole ensemble."

  "Oh, my God," I chuckle. "I want pictures."

  "Not happening."

  "Okay, fair enough." I find myself smiling stupidly up at my ceiling, for some reason. It's just...I hadn't thought Blake would be like that. I didn't think he would be good with kids and it's...surprising, in a good way. "I still can't believe this is actually how you spend your Christmas Eve."

  "And New Year's Eve," he admits. "I'm always stuck babysitting."

  That's— "No way," I say. "No way do you give up your New Year's Eve to babysit."

  "I always do," he says, completely serious. "Have since I was about thirteen. My parents have a lot of friends with kids, and they figure it's easier to just dump them all off on me at the house than to get individual babysitters. And I really don't mind."

  "But what about, like, your friends and shit? Don't they wonder why you can't come to their parties?"

  "Considering all of them live hours away, no."

  "What?"

  "I don't really, um, get invited to many parties around here," he says quietly.

  "Why not?"

  Blake groans. "I was really lame growing up, okay? And I'm from a small town. People don't really forget that stuff around here. So I don't really have many friends back home to invite me to parties, which is why I don't mind babysitting. If I wasn't, I'd probably spend the night watching Iron Man or something. Are you happy?"

  That doesn't make any sense, in my mind. Blake's extremely popular at school. Everyone knows who he is, because he's on the team, and because he goes to all the big parties. I can't imagine a Blake with no friends, who doesn't get invited to any parties, who spends his nights watching superhero movies or babysitting instead of getting shitfaced and grinding on whatever pretty girl catches his attention that night.

  "That doesn't make any sense, honestly," I say out loud.

  "That's why I like school," Blake admits. "It was a fresh start for me. Everyone got to know me for me, not as that dorky kid who used to eat lunch alone that everyone called teacher's pet because he liked to do his homework and didn't like to get in trouble."

  "I...wow," I breathe. I never once considered that maybe Blake's life was completely different to the one I get to see. That maybe there was a different person lying underneath the one I share a room with. "But—"

  In the background, on the other line, I hear muffled sounds that get louder and louder, until finally I can make out a chant of, "Gin-ger-bread! Gin-ger-bread!"

  "I have to go," Blake says. "They're about to riot."

  "Right. Um..."

  "See you," he says before I can finish. He hangs up seconds later, not waiting for me to say goodbye.

  Afterwards, I stare up at the ceiling for a long while, phone still pressed to my ear, as if I expect Blake to magically come back on. Obviously he doesn't, and eventually I put the phone away and get out of bed.

  I head downstairs, if only for something to do. It's too early for me to sleep, but I'm too tired to read. So instead I curl up on the couch and watch TV with my family until my parents send my little sisters to bed, and then they follow not much later, leaving me alone with the TV.

  I watch three Christmas movies, including The Grinch (the live-action one) and some movie where a little girl befriends a reindeer. When my eyes feel too heavy to keep open, I trudge up the stairs. Just before I fall into bed, I grab my phone and check to see if anyone messaged me (which is dumb, I know, because no one ever does, really, not even Cadence and Emma).

  There's a single unread message, and I open it. It's a picture message from Blake. He's got pink lipstick on his lips, heavy blush on his cheeks, fake eyelashes and a lot of eye shadow on. And on top of his head sits a tiara that's way too small for him. The picture comes with a caption that simply reads told u it's an important part of the costume.

  I smother a laugh and shut off my phone.

  23

  While the break was nice, it's just that: a break. Eventually I have to pack up and head back to school, but I'm not dreading it as much as I thought I would. In fact, there's a small part of me, no matter how much I deny it, that's...looking forward
to it. Not just getting back to class, or seeing Cadence and Emma. There's a part of me that can't wait to get back to my room. To flop onto my bed and maybe find Blake in his own.

  My room is empty when I get there, though. Blake hasn't been back yet, apparently, because there's a staleness in the air that says it hasn't been touched in days. I flick on the light, toss my bag onto the bed, and crack the window with effort. The snow on the ledge and the ice on the glass makes it difficult, but I manage to get it open an inch or two, and I leave it like that, even if the air that drifts through is freezing. I'll shut it later.

  Cadence and Emma aren't getting back until later tonight, so I busy myself with putting my stuff away, and then I go about cleaning the room, even Blake's side. The guy across the hall, Jeremy, has a broom that I borrow, and I sweep under both beds (finding a few questionable things under Blake's), and then I make both of them again because Blake doesn't make his bed right, and it still looks messy. I gather up all the extra pens and pencils I'd found under his bed, some of them my own, some not. I'm pretty sure I've never actually seen Blake touch a pencil or pen, so it's a bit confusing to find that many loose around the room when they're not mine, but whatever.

  I open the bottom drawer of the desk, going to put the pencils and pens in the pencil case, but I stop when I find a wrapped present inside. It's not very big, and the wrapping job is horrendous. I almost slam the drawer shut, because this is such an invasion of privacy, but then my eyes land on the little sticker at the top with Aubrey scribbled on it.

  Carefully, I pull it out, dropping the pens and pencils loosely into the drawer. I nudge it shut with my foot and sink onto Blake's bed, looking down at the package in my hands. Experimentally, I shake it. Nothing happens. It feels like plastic, possibly, underneath the wrapping paper. And it gets weirdly bulbous in some spots.

  Blake bought me a gift. Blake got me a Christmas present.

  I don't know what to do with that information. I can't figure out why he would do that because, from what I know, Blake doesn't like me. But apparently he does, enough to get me a gift. I hadn't even considered getting him one. Does that make me an ass? No, I don't think so. This is so out of the blue, I never could have seen it coming. In fact, if I wasn't holding the present right at this moment, I wouldn't believe it.

  The door to the room opens, and I look up sharply. Blake steps inside, duffle bag slung over one shoulder. His eyes slowly fall to the present in my hand, and he drops the bag with a thump, crossing the room in seconds. He tugs it out of my fingertips, heat rising to his cheeks.

  "Is that—did you really get me something?" I ask, wide-eyed and flustered. Too shocked to steady that tone in my voice.

  "No," Blake spits. His face goes from a mask of embarrassment to one of anger. "You always tell me not to go through your shit. Don't go through mine."

  "I wasn't—"

  "Then how did you find this?" he demands.

  "I was cleaning," I defend weakly. "I didn't mean to find it."

  Blake's eyebrows draw together. He turns the gift over and over in his fingers before dropping it in my lap. "Whatever, have it. I meant to give it to you on the night of the Christmas party, but you'd left."

  Guilt threatens to strangle me. "I didn't know," I respond. "I—"

  "Don't worry about it," Blake says. "It's...it's not even for you, really. It's for me. You're always pissing me off, leaving the lights on when I'm trying to sleep, so I figured this would make my life easier. If you actually use it, but whatever."

  Methodically, I peel away the wrapping paper. Underneath I find one of those lights that you clip onto books and things, for late night reading and the such. I've gotten more than one of these from my parents, actually, but they were always cheap. This doesn't look that cheap. And it's not the best gift in the world, but it's still...

  "Thank you," I say, trying to sound as genuine as I can because I mean it. I clear my throat. "But I, um, didn't, like...I didn't get you anything."

  "Whatever," Blake says again. "That's not all I wanted to talk to you about that night."

  I blink up at him. Just like the day with the paint, I can feel it, the change that's about to happen. It's not a literal thing, it's this gut twisting feeling. "What is it?"

  Blake looks awkward, one of his hands running through his hair. "We can't...we can't hook up anymore."

  It's like he's punched me in the stomach, only he's too far away from me for that to be possible.

  "Why not?" I ask, calm and collected. I'm proud of myself for that.

  "I don't think my girlfriend would appreciate it much if I was fucking my roommate," he says flatly. "Now do you think you could get off my bed?"

  "Girlfriend." I bunch up the wrapping paper and clutch it and the gift tightly in my hands as I stand up. "When did that happen?"

  "Recently," he says vaguely. "Not that it's any of your business."

  I wince at the tone in his voice, but then I revert back to myself. Before I ever considered that maybe I might like Blake. Before I ever stopped looking at him as someone I hated and started looking at him as something else.

  "Like I give a shit about your relationships," I scoff.

  "Figured you wouldn't," he says with a shrug. "Just thought I'd let you know."

  "It's not like I ever initiated that shit anyways," I find myself saying. I'm hurt, is the thing. I didn't see any of this coming, and the emotional whiplash from the last couple minutes is taking its toll. Fuck, five minutes ago I was blindingly happy (if not a bit confused) because Blake had cared enough to get me a gift. And now I feel this horrible, sinking in my stomach because he doesn't need me anymore. He's got someone else. And I want to hurt him right back.

  "It was always you, wasn't it? Like, you always kissed me first. You're the one who always started it. I just went along with it because—" I cut off with a shrug, not sure how to finish that.

  "You're right." Blake's face is a blank, emotionless mask. "It was always me initiating it. So I guess it doesn't matter to you if I call it off."

  "Not one bit."

  "Didn't think it would." Blake crosses the room, kicks his own bag out of the way, and storms out the door.

  I'm so, completely confused. But I don't want to care. No, I don't care. Blake's done with me, and you know what? I'm done with him. I'm fucking done. I can't believe there was ever even a second where I might have wanted—

  No. Never again. Blake can go to hell. I don't need him, anyway.

  24

  Things go back to normal. Not the way they had been before the holidays, but the way they'd been during the first couple weeks of school. I go back to hating Blake for every single thing he does, and Blake goes back to hating every single thing I do. Every time one of us open our mouth in the room, the other snaps for it. Every time his stuff crosses the halfway line in our room, I throw a fit. Every time I'm in the room when he gets there, he sneers and walks back out.

  And it's better this way.

  "I don't see why he can't just clean up his fucking shit," I grumble. "Like, is it that hard to pick up a sock every once in a while?"

  "Ask Cadence." Emma smirks. "If she didn't have me, her room would be trashed."

  "It's true," Cadence agrees. "Em's my guardian angel."

  "Do you think I'm being unreasonable, though?" I ask, ignoring them. "Like, isn't is completely within the line to get pissed off because he's a slob?"

  "Depends," Cadence answers. "Are you naggy about it? Or do you politely ask him to maybe clean his stuff up once in a while?" I make a face at her, the answer to that pretty fucking obvious. "Then you can't really blame him. And you realize he probably does it just to piss you off, right?"

  "Yeah, I'm aware." Blake does a lot of shit just to piss me off. And vice versa.

  "You've really made a mess of things," Cadence tells me. "Haven't you?"

  "Yeah, I'm aware."

  Suddenly, without warning, I have two pairs of a
rms wrapping around me. Cadence squeezes me tightly, Emma's hand rubs at my back, and it's nice, even if I can't breathe. Warm and comforting. What did I do to deserve these two? I'm really not sure.

  "Aubrey."

  Both of them release me just as suddenly as they'd hugged me. I look up, frowning when I find Lucas standing in front of the couch the three of us are occupying. "Yeah?"

  "Can I talk to you for a minute?" Lucas has his hands stuffed deeply in the pockets of his hoodie, and he's got a pinched look on his face. It's such a contrast to how he normally looks, all sunny smiles and bright openness. Now he's cold and closed off.

  "Um." I look between Cadence and Emma for a moment before shrugging. "Sure."

  "Alone," he adds.

  I shrug again and get off the couch, following Lucas through the common room, out into the stairwell. Lucas leans against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, and I stand there a little awkwardly. A girl from one of my classes hurries up the stairs, pausing when she passes us before continuing on her way.

  "I like you," Lucas says. "You know that, right? I think you're a good girl, Aubrey."

  "Uh, thank you." I frown and shift a little awkwardly on my feet. "I like you too."

  "So then maybe you could tell me what the fuck is going on with you and Blake," Lucas says angrily. "Maybe. Because I'm pretty damn confused, and I hate seeing him upset."

  I take a step back in surprise. "What?"

  "Don't play dumb, okay? I know you two were sleeping together."

  I swallow. I told Cadence and Emma, so it's no surprise that Blake told Lucas. He had every right to, right? As much of a right as I had telling my friends.

  "We're not anymore, though," I say quickly.

  "I know that." I can tell Lucas's patience is wearing thin; he's tapping his foot impatiently against the ground, arms tightening around his middle. "What I wanna know is why. And what you did, because he won't talk to me about it, but he's been pretty fucked up the last couple weeks. Ever since we got back from break."

  "He's the one who called it off," I say, more than a little defensive. Why do I get the feeling that Lucas blames me for this? And he's wrong, too, because Blake's been fine the last couple of weeks. More than fine, really.