While You're Away

by Jessa Holbrook

  Flashes of Will’s bare skin stroked by a parade of sorority girls filled my thoughts. It was like they were imprinted there, carved into the folds of my brain.

  Pulling my phone out, I stopped beside my car and sent a text. One that meant more than the others. One that Will should understand was necessary and vital. As long as he was okay, I thought. But he was almost definitely okay. St. P-Windsor was too small for something tragic to happen without having it splashed all over the school website.

  i’m really worried about u + really worried about us. i NEED u to call me

  I hit send. And then I waited, five seconds, then ten. I waited so long that Dave sprawled his arms on the roof of the car and drummed it with his fingertips. “Hey, Sare? I didn’t wear a jacket . . . can we, uh?”

  “Yeah, sorry. Just letting my mom know where I’m going.”

  Unlocking the doors, I climbed behind the wheel and set my phone to vibrate. Starting the car, pulling into the street, we were up to forty-five seconds and counting. My conscience squirmed, remembering a time when I had sat in front of Dave, daring him to sense that I was texting another guy. Daring him to notice that my attention had turned elsewhere, that I was thinking bad thoughts. Now I dared Will to sense the same thing.

  A minute. Two minutes. No reply.

  Ten minutes.

  Forty-five.

  Two hours.

  No reply.

  ~

  Most of the time I’d spent at Dave Echols’s house had been in the garage.

  I’d been inside the house, of course. Bringing cookies to his mom for Mother’s Day, or during their annual Fourth of July cookout. But Dave and I had always been focused on our music, which happened in the garage.

  His Blu-Ray player lived in his bedroom.

  Perfectly Dave, the room was soothingly decorated in hues of green and blue. Neat bookshelves lined one wall, and his desk was immaculate. There was more music equipment packed into corners, and a few special guitars hanging on the wall. There was only one chair, though—a hard, high-backed one for his desk.

  We sat on his bed. The whole room smelled of his clean cologne, the bedspread especially so. The mattress was warm and broken down in the middle. Gravity insisted on sliding us next to each other. I felt comfortable here, and I didn’t pull away when Dave put his arm around me. Nor did he mind when I leaned my head against his shoulder.

  Wildly, intimately aware of him, I stirred through the bowl of popcorn we shared between us. He dipped his hand in after mine. Our fingers tangled together, slick with butter, gritty with salt. They hooked and looped, so familiar and so tentative at the same time.

  My pulse pounded ever louder, filling my ears and blotting out the sound effects of the movies. So it was easy to get distracted by Dave’s touch. His scent. By the fact that I was surrounded by him in a way that I never had been before. My gaze drifted from the movie, up to the model solar system dangling from his ceiling. All the planets had a haze of dust on them. They’d probably been there for years, just part of the landscape that he’d never changed.

  A phantom vibration skimmed my thigh. Subtly, I pulled my phone out, but the screen remained blank. It was an imaginary sensation, one that pricked at me as I replaced the phone and settled against Dave again. Warm in the curve of his arm, I wondered if this was just the person I was. Not very good at being faithful, not very good at being alone.

  Dave shifted, pulling me subtly closer. Our hips pressed together, and his fingers chased mine lazily. Slipping and looping, his thumb grazed my palm. My nerves stung, mixed between dread and anticipation.

  If something happened, if something was happening, it wasn’t an accident. I had no defense. I had nothing except a phone full of unanswered texts and photographic proof that my boyfriend had let other girls touch a lot more than his hand in the last week.

  Where was he?

  As Dave rolled the warm edge of his ring against the inside of my wrist, I couldn’t stop wondering. Where the hell was Will? Why wasn’t he answering? Was he hurt or was he cheating? It wouldn’t be the first time for him—it wouldn’t be the first time for me, either.

  Just then, Dave turned toward me. There was no pretending anymore. He wasn’t watching the movie and neither was I. If I faced him, the only thing between us would be a breath. We would kiss.

  Adrenaline pumping, I pulled away from him.

  “God, you should please just hate me,” I told him. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”

  His stunned expression said it all. But I couldn’t care if this made me look fickle or confusing or terrible. In fact, I knew it made me look terrible. But I had to avoid making another huge mistake.

  I had to see Will. To fix it, or to break up with him—it didn’t matter. No more pretending that things just happened. They didn’t; I hadn’t tripped and fallen into Will’s arms that first night. And I hadn’t innocently followed Dave home today.

  They were choices. My choices.

  It was time to make one.

  THIRTY-ONE

  The nice thing about a highway like I-70 is that it was a straight line that stretched out to either horizon.

  I couldn’t make a wrong turn, I couldn’t get lost. The pastureland that framed the road was stubbled now. Endlessly flat, with no trees or flowers, blooms or blossoms to take my mind off the black ribbon of road. With nothing to look at but yellow stripes and the setting sun, my thoughts rose in orderly floods. Tonight, I would find out once and for all what was happening with Will. With the two of us.

  The road was so flat, but my emotions coasted and crested at alarming intervals. Thinking about those Instagram pictures sent me into a blind rage. But realizing that it might all be over soon sent me to tears. Cycling through fear and certainty, despair and anxiety, I kept coming back to those pictures.

  To Hailey, always in the background, since his very first day at St. P-Windsor. I felt like I knew her face as well as my own by this point. I couldn’t even hate her, because I knew how Will Spencer worked. If it wasn’t an unexpected kiss in a theater catwalk, it was a seduction by firelight as boats bumped softly in the distance.

  What had seemed so thrilling in the moment now showed its flaws. What if I hadn’t been the one to walk down to the water that night? The boathouse was a popular destination. Emmalee and Simon proved that readily. If not me, then who? Who would have sat down in that blanketed boat and reached for Will’s root beer? Did it even matter? Had I even mattered?

  Tricia’s sad assessment played on repeat in my thoughts. I think he just hates to be alone. She knew him longer and better than I ever had. Maybe I should have pressed more. I should have dug into his past instead of immediately fantasizing about a future.

  Fumbling blindly, I dialed Will. This time, instead of ringing, it went straight to voicemail. He’d turned his phone off. Turned me off, and shut me out. Tonight was his disgusting party. A kegger to celebrate nothing but getting laid. His big celebration at his brand-new fraternity. I felt wild with anger. I felt sick.

  If he was sleeping with somebody else, wouldn’t she be there? Wouldn’t she be the co-star in the next set of Instagram humiliations he uploaded for all the world to see?

  Putting my foot on the gas, I flipped my turn signal and passed the vintage VW Bug that had straddled the right-hand lane for the last four miles.

  I called Will again, one more time before I pulled into his college and walked into his frat house to demand some answers. All he had to do was call me back. All he had to do was answer. But no. It went directly to voicemail again.

  “I don’t know when you’re going to get this,” I told him. I narrowed my eyes when I passed a blue information sign, St. Philip-Windsor College, twenty-three miles. “But for your sake, I hope you get it in the next half an hour. I’m coming to see you. I’m almost there, and I want answers. If nothing else, you owe me an explanat
ion. I’m not going to let you wish me away.”

  With that, I hung up and merged back into the right lane. God, I sounded crazy. As soon as I hung up, I realized it. If Will was that guy, if I had been wrong about everything . . . what was I going to do about it?

  The craziest thing of all was, I still wanted him. I wanted all of this to be a misunderstanding. Drifting into a trance with the hum of the road, my thoughts turned over once again. The things that had happened with Will had happened for a reason.

  Tears welled again. My skin buzzed, the same tone as the road—my body, my heart, believed in him. Even as my thoughts shattered, scattering in all directions, my heart remained steady. And it felt so very much like I was losing him that I spiraled down once more.

  As dark settled over the countryside, I sped toward the college. Toward Will. To a whole different kind of destiny. I had no idea what to expect when I arrived. All I knew is that it would be both terrible and spectacular.

  ~

  I didn’t want to park down a dark side street, but I had no choice. Cars lined Greek Row, headlight to taillight. Girls without jackets ran across the street in packs, blending into clouds of polo-shirted, shorts-wearing guys. Lights spilled from open windows and open doors. The air bore a trace of acrid pot smoke, blended in with the pervasive scent of cheap beer.

  The streets weren’t well lit, but I wasn’t afraid. There were too many people milling the sidewalks, darting in and out of the houses. The night was alive, and people were friendly. I must have said hi a hundred times before I walked a whole block.

  It seemed to be a big night for everybody in a frat. Sheets and signs hung from a lot of the mansions. As I ducked my head and hiked toward OTP, I passed one sign that artlessly pleaded for passersby to Save the Boobies. Of course, both the os had dots right in the middle. They couldn’t risk somebody missing the subtle point they were making or something.

  Next door to that, Do It for a Dollar. That one featured a pole-dancer in silhouette, copied straight off a tacky trucker mud flap. I quit reading them when I stalked past Sporting Wood. I didn’t know if it made me feel better or worse that Bonefest was practically literary compared with the competition.

  When I finally saw the OTP house at the top of the hill, my knees jelled a little. I had just driven four hours to get here, and now I was afraid to go inside. Shadows moved past the windows, bodies dancing and twisting with abandon.

  Heavy, bass-driven music pumped into the night. On the front lawn, a handful of guys stood around, watching in awe as a couple of girls cartwheeled in front of them. Even I was impressed by the blonde who managed to do a one-handed back handspring without spilling her beer.

  As I passed them, I nodded and tried not to feel wildly out of place and hideously overdressed. My tunic and leggings looked like a burqa next to all the betty shorts and skimpy halter dresses. It was like they couldn’t tell their breath frosted the air. Maybe they had so much liquor in them, they actually couldn’t.

  Hurrying past them, I jogged up the front steps.

  “Hey, hold on.”

  A guy guarding the door held out a hand, stopping me in place. His gaze dropped down, and at first, I thought he was looking at my chest. Then I realized he was studying my wrists. My wrists? Uncomfortably, I crossed my arms over my chest. I wasn’t sure what the deal was, though glancing around, I suddenly noticed what I hadn’t before—people wearing orange paper bracelets.

  “You gotta go see Nurse Kayla if you want a drink badge,” the guy told me finally. Though his job seemed to be greeting people and relaying this information, his voice slurred. Slumping against the doorframe, he craned to look over his shoulder, into the house. “Think she’s in the kitchen.”

  “Thanks, I will,” I said. “Hey, have you seen Will?”

  The guy slowly leaned his head back. He looked like I’d asked him to figure a couple of equations. With another look over his shoulder, he finally shook his head. “I know he’s in there. Try in there.”

  A train of brunettes streamed out of the house, fingers linked, voices high. Bumping past me, they chirped a string of apologies before disappearing into the dark. Their laughter and their perfume sweetened the air, leaving an impression of them behind.

  There were so many girls here; they were all so gorgeous. I felt like a plain brown bird as I pushed my way into the party. Hands held cups above the fray, people danced in rooms packed so tight, it was hard to make out individuals. Every time I saw a guy with dark hair, my pulse stopped.

  I figured my best bet was to make a circuit through the house. No matter where I went, people crushed into me. It wasn’t deliberate or malicious. There were just too many partiers and too little space to contain them. Jostled and bumped, I barked out a startled cry when someone splashed their drink on me. It was sticky sweet and fruity; it clung to my skin even as their apology slid right off.

  I tried to wind my way toward the edge of the room. If I could stay close to the wall, I’d have a better view. Except I didn’t. It was just a crush of humanity, all pounding away to electronic drum lines and digital sirens. Catching a guy in an OTP hat, I leaned in close to be heard. “I’m looking for Will. Will Spencer, have you seen him?”

  Turning his hat around, the guy hopped in place, scanning the crowd. Then he shrugged and pointed me the way I just came. “Think he’s in there!”

  Since I knew he wasn’t, I thanked Hat Guy and kept pushing my way through. As I crossed a threshold into a room full of framed member pictures, I stopped dead. Standing at the other end of the room, talking with her hands, was Hailey. She hadn’t seen me—and I didn’t want her to. Sick to my stomach, I slumped against the wall.

  She was prettier in person. Always in pictures, she’d been cute. Cute with her freckles and her sometimes pigtails, a kind of adorable that was only threatening because it was so unpracticed. Seeing her in the flesh made my heart drop. Her hands moved like a dancer’s as she talked. Her body undulated with it, round hips rolling with subtle motion.

  It was like she had her own field of gravity. I watched two different people abruptly stop to talk to her, even though it was obvious they’d been headed elsewhere just a moment before. Even I wanted to get closer to her, and that terrified me.

  There I was, sick with jealousy, and I still just wanted to be near her. How could Will have ever resisted that?

  I couldn’t walk past her, so I turned around. Trying to pick my way through the room I just left, I caught my breath. Beneath a swinging chandelier, Will dipped a girl back and kissed her throat. My heart stopped, and I actually caught myself on a stocky guy who was unfortunately standing too close to me.

  He didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he patted my hand and leaned in. “You okay?”

  “Sorry, I lost my balance,” I said.

  That was an understatement. It was like I’d stepped into quicksand. Sinking fast, and no way out. Tears sprung to my eyes. When Grace had talked about Luke cheating on her, I had sympathized. But I had never really empathized. Now I felt the crushing blow, a sledgehammer to the chest.

  Everything broke at once. A crippling nausea swept through me. Somehow, I’d been prepared for him to be cheating on me with Hailey. Who was this girl? How many girls had he slept with since he got here?

  Just then, Will surfaced and the girl gave him a playful shove. When he turned, I realized—it wasn’t Will at all. What was even more disorienting was that I did recognize him. It was Tyler Stackhouse, a guy from East River. Will’s sponsor or whatever. I didn’t remember them looking so much alike.

  Relief loosened my limbs. I felt so clumsy and uncoordinated as I swam through bodies to get to Tyler. Clapping a hand on his shoulder to catch his attention, I smiled when he turned around. Recognition lit his face—that’s how small East River was, apparently. The beautiful people recognized the art geeks, even though we ran in none of the same circles.


  “Sarah! What the hell are you doing here?”

  He sounded delighted. And more than a little bit drunk.

  All of a sudden, I was engulfed in heat and sweat and a waft of unfamiliar cologne. It took a second to realize that Tyler had thrown his arms around me and picked me up. Hysterically, I wished for Jane to appear.

  Because I was insane, I smiled up at him. “Looking for Will, actually. Have you seen him?”

  Tyler thought about it, then clapped a hand on my back. “Totally. Right this way.”

  The girl Tyler had just been kissing looked so confused. Her lips parted, and I swear, she issued a sound that could best be described as meep. Turning back, Tyler winked at her. “I’ll be back for you in a minute.”

  I don’t know what magic Tyler had. When he walked through each room, the crowd parted. He was the Moses of OTP, apparently. We passed through a carpeted hallway, then walked right into a wall of sound. The music was so loud here that I felt it on my skin. It buzzed and pulsed.

  Rave lights flashed patterns on the wall. It was darker in here; beer and sweat and the raw possibility of sex hung in the air. As my eyes adjusted to the light, Tyler pointed me in the right direction. There, in the middle of the dance floor, was Will. Plastered between two blondes, he danced with his eyes closed, and with a cup in each hand.

  My stupid heart leapt up, so happy to see him for the first time since August. And then it plummeted, because he was letting those girls grind against him. No matter how oblivious his expression, his body wasn’t acting on its own.

  “Thanks,” I told Tyler.

  “Get a wristband,” he replied cheerfully. “Join the party!

  Melting back into the crowd, Tyler went back in search of his meeping blonde. I had no intention of joining the party. My slow burning fury from the drive up here was building. My skin felt too tight to contain it. I had had enough. Squaring my shoulders, I shoved my way through protesting dancers to get to Will.

  When I reached him, I grabbed his arm and pulled it to get his attention. His eyes snapped open. One of the party lights swung around, streaking white through the icy blue field of his gaze. Was it shock? Was it fear?