by Lily Roberts
With a quick shower and a filling-up of my water bottle, I set out into the chilly, November air. Snow was just around the corner, the grass still frosted from earlier this morning. The sun was hiding behind the clouds more often than not, meaning sweatpants and zip-up jacket weather was in full-swing. I made my way towards Scott’s dorm, curious to see how Mr. I’m-gonna-drink-three-boozy-milkshakes was handling everything. I had to remember that if he felt terrible, for once I couldn’t rub it in his face. We were at the very least friends now.
And, maybe, we could talk more about us.
I pushed past the outer doors to the boy’s dorm, the chipper smile of Officer Harvey ready to greet me. He had a warm, closed-off cup in his hands, one of those muffler hats covering his face as he gave me a wave. “Well, Miss Burton! How was your autumn break? Did you get a chance to head home and see your folks?”
I nodded happily. “Sure did. It was nice, seeing my family and friends again.” I paused, brow furrowing slightly.
“Bit strange, though, right?” Officer Harvey offered. “Like seeing animals through glass in the zoo?”
“Y…yeah.” I slowly nodded, finding the analogy fitting. “I don’t feel out of place, not completely. It just feels a bit odd going back, seeing that nothing’s really changed.”
Officer Harvey nodded back to me. “You’re not the only one who feels that way, I promise. It’s all part of growing up.” He rolled his neck, glancing towards the clock before turning back towards me. “So, what can I do for you this afternoon? If you wanna head in, just swipe your ID card. You’re not cutting it too close to closing this time.”
I laughed good-naturedly. “Yeah, figured I should take care of business without holding you up this time. Just wanted to check in on Scott.”
“You mean Scott Sawyer?” Officer Harvey asked.
I gave him a quizzical look. “Uh, yeah. Why do you ask.”
Officer Harvey stroked his chin, obviously deep in thought. “Oh, I’ve just heard that name today already. Another young lady passed by not too long ago asking for his room number. She mentioned she needed to see him for something?”
I felt my heart drop into my stomach. “Y-Yeah?”
Officer Harvey shrugged. “Well, it’s none of my business to ask about student affairs. Unless they’re doing something illegal, of course,” he added with a wink.
God, I felt so nauseous all of a sudden. Every fiber of my being was screaming at me to turn around, just leave and never come back. To forget the entirety of the steak house, of autumn break, and just go back to seeing Scott as the little dipshit he was. Damn was this really another Scott game? No, it couldn’t have been, he wasn’t that good of an actor.
I took a deep breath. Smiled. And pulled out my card. “Thanks for the heads up. I’ll make sure to knock on his door.” With a wave to Officer Harvey, I started towards the inner door like nothing was wrong in the slightest, swiped my key card, and passed through the doors with the air of Lady Gaga herself coming on stage. The minute, though—the very minute—I was out of sight, I turned corner and practically sprinted down the hallway towards Scott’s room.
There’s no way—just stay calm, Sydney.
Maybe it was a class member returning a textbook to Scott. Maybe she needed tutoring, or maybe she found something of Scott’s around campus and she wanted to turn it into him directly. There’s no way—there was just no way he would be stupid enough to do something. After everything we’ve been through, together, he wouldn’t just throw away all that progress for a stupid girl, right?
He is Scott Sawyer, after all.
I shook the thought out of my head, coming to a stop in front of Scott’s dorm door. He’d changed, though. He’d grown so much. It wasn’t fair to throw him under the same, accusatory light I’d used in the past. He was my friend. My friend. But if this was another girl, he was a dead man talking.
Before I could even knock, the door gently swung open, revealing a girl—a woman—standing on the other side. She really was a sight to behold; dark, curly hair that went well past her shoulders, sun-touched skin, and a rather…voluptuous form to look at. She looked equally surprised to see me, her mouth forming a small ‘o’ while she stood in the door frame. “Oh. Hello, there.”
I just barely remembered how to greet someone and weakly raised my hand for a wave. “H-Hi.”
Silence hung between us. Then, Curly Hair spoke. “Here to talk with Scott? Sorry, let me,” She easily stepped past me, a powerful waft of jasmine assaulting my nose. “I’d talk slowly with him, though. He’s pretty out of it.”
I just nodded numbly.
“All right, well,” Curly Hair flittered her fingers my way, her hips swishing as she walked down the hallway. “Have a nice day, then!”
I waved once more, fighting to keep eye contact with her until she turned towards, and made her way to, the entrance. Once she vanished, my attention immediately snapped towards Scott’s still-opened door, wondering feverishly if it was necessary at all to go in anymore.
Then again, if I didn’t get to the bottom of this, it was going to eat me up entirely inside.
So, I passed the threshold and entered his room, absolutely steeling myself for whatever stupid excuse he had ready for me.
I woke up with a horrible headache the next morning and having Sydney’s scowling face glare at me from across the room did not make it any better.
But, obviously, she wasn’t going away, so I let out a groan and sat up, acutely aware that her gaze flickered briefly to my bare chest before settling back onto my face. “H-Hey, Syd,” I croaked out. “Here to tell me off about taking that third milkshake?”
Sydney just crossed her arms over her chest, the atmosphere around her entirely tense. “Friend of yours?” She asked tersely.
It took a minute for me to realize who she was talking about. “Oh, you mean Mallory?” I felt my shoulders stiffen slightly, trying my best to nonchalantly rub my face to wipe away sleep, i.e., wipe away any lipstick residue left behind. “Yeah—I mean, no—I loaned my football jacket to her sometime before autumn break.” The look on Sydney’s face demanded more from me. “She was walking home late from the science building in nothing but a dress. Some kind of late-night, guest speaker or something.” I grinned, adding jokingly afterwards, “I guess colder seasons aren’t something she’s used to, wherever she’s from. My guess is Greece, but Florida could also be a possible candidate.”
Sydney looked less than amused. “So, she just, came to your room to return it, huh?”
The tone in her voice sounded so…accusatory. “Well, yeah. We don’t exactly have the same schedule, and I think you can agree that I’ve never even set foot in the science building.” I frowned, sitting up in bed a bit more. “You wanna say what’s really on your mind, or are we just gonna keep dancing around the topic?”
Sydney crossed her arms tightly over her chest, face clearly distraught as she contemplated her options. God, it was like being back at square one again with her; she flipped so easily, like a goddamn switch was pulled.
Then again…I did let Mallory kiss me on the cheek.
But, that wasn’t a big deal, right? She was just thanking me for loaning her my jacket; I was just being culturally conscious. I mean, I assumed Mallory didn’t just go around kissing random people on the cheek. Obviously, Sydney was just overreacting. I mean, for all intended purposes, we weren’t even official. So why did it matter who I ended up kissing, anyway?
That thought even made me cringe. I quickly shoved that old Scott mentality back into the box it deserved to be locked in forever as I waited for Sydney to reply. And, boy, she looked ready to let me have it. I could see it now; this was going to be a repeat of last time she was in my room. It was just a cursed location, destined to be the place we constantly fought.
And then, my saving grace swooped in. The door wiggled open once more, Derek and his single, rolling bag passing through the frame with a surprised look on his face. He glanced between
the two of us, quickly reading the room, and looking my way with that dopey grin of his. “Should I leave the room so you two can…”talk?”
Sydney quickly shook her head. “Oh, no, that’s okay. I just came here to check up on Scott really quick. Did you, uh, enjoy your break?”
Derek nodded slowly, pulling his suitcase around his body and setting it in front of him. “Aw, hell yeah I did. You?”
“Y-Yeah.” Sydney gave me one more look before turning back to Derek. “Well, I’ll let you unpack, then. Scott?”
I gave her an awkward wave, watching as she dipped around the door and vanished behind the wall. Immediately, the tension in the room dropped to zero, Derek carefully, slowly, closing the wall behind him like he was trying to defuse a bomb. “Oh, thank God,” he let out a sigh of relief as a stream of chuckles slipped out of him. “I don’t know what it is with you two, but I did not wanna get in the middle of that oncoming shitstorm.”
I let out a heavier sigh, flopping back down against my pillow as Derek wheeled his suitcase to his side of the room. “You have no idea what you just saved me from, dude.”
“A shitstorm, I assume,” Derek replied nonchalantly. He unzipped his case and completely dumped the contents onto his bed, immediately turning around, taking a seat on the edge, and began the process of untying his shoelaces “Dude, why do you even let her get near you? She’s such a hassle to deal with.”
That weirdly rubbed me the wrong way. “N-Nah, Sydney’s not like that. Well, not like that anymore,” I added hastily at the look Derek gave me. “She just caught me with another girl in the room. Probably thought the worst.”
Derek’s brow raised, a sly smile crossing his face. “I mean, define what the “worst” is exactly. Cause, from the look on your face, you got some pretty sweet action.”
Shit. So, I did still have lipstick on my cheek. “I—it was her way of saying thank-you.”
“Mmmhmm,” Derek nodded as he popped his first shoe off. “Way to make that sound like anything but questionable.” He wiggled his toes beneath his socks, adding afterwards, “Not that I’m judging, dude. I honestly don’t care who you get with. Your life, my man.”
That was just it, though. It did matter who I, “got with,” right? I mean, I literally set my sights on making Sydney my girlfriend, and then I went and let this happen? This was insane, it shouldn’t be happening. I shouldn’t be this stupid, right?
“You look stuck in your head,” Derek commented lightly, abandoning work on his second shoe in order to give his full attention my way. “Sydney really let you have it before I came in?”
“No,” I shook my head, trying to articulate my thoughts. “It’s just…I don’t know what I want with her.”
“I thought the answer to that was, “nothing,” Derek asked. “Given how she seriously tends to put you in a bad mood.”
That gave me pause. “What? No, she doesn’t put me in a bad mood.”
Derek’s face completely deadpanned. “Dude. Half of the topics we had during the first few weeks involved how much she drove you crazy. Made you feel like a total goober.”
“Goober?” I repeated.
“Oh, right. Sorry, still on little sister speech.” Derek waved his hands in the air, as if that would help define the word. “Like, a total chump? A loser, someone no one would hang with. She makes you question yourself, like, all the time, dude.”
That was something I couldn’t deny. “But we’ve been getting better,” I insisted. “After the restaurant—we said we’d try and be friends.”
Derek snorted. “Yeah, emphasis on, “try.”
No way. It was impossible; we were friends, weren’t we?
“I mean, sure, she seemed a bit nicer around you,” Derek added. “But, dude, you still looked like you were walking around eggshells around her. You know, saying all the right stuff, letting her get the last word—do you not remember the panic you were in trying to turn in that end-of-the-quarter project for Intro to Accounting?”
Flashbacks of late-nights in front of my computer and a dozen or so empty Beast cans. I couldn’t believe at first that I’d forgotten all about it. Maybe I ended up repressing it? “Y-Yeah, but Syd’s fun to hang out with, now. I like hanging out with her, now.”
Derek shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, she seems a little more chill. But you seem crazy tense to keep it that way.”
This was crazy. “Dude, you’re being serious?”
Derek nodded. “Serious as a heart attack, my man. If you want my advice, just stay the hell away from her. I dunno her personally, but she got some trust issues to work out.”
Not that I helped with said trust issues thanks to my encounter with Mallory. “I’m not…totally innocent, though,” I began.
Derek shrugged once more, popping his last shoe off his foot before standing and stretching. “Maybe that’s some part of you agreeing with me. Or, maybe I’m just playing Devil’s Advocate a bit too hard. I get to be kinda a bummer after a long bus ride.” He let out a large yawn, making his way to the shower as he scratched his lower back. “Just take Devil Derek with a grain of salt. That guy can say some craaazy shit, sometimes.”
I watched, somewhat dumbfounded, as Derek disappeared into the bathroom. As the water pipes rattled behind the walls, his words started sinking in like someone just poured a bottle of molasses all over me. That couldn’t be right…he was just whacked out from the trip back here. Sydney wasn’t toxic—I had fun with her!
Most of the time, anyway.
As I laid in bed, staring up at the ceiling, my gaze briefly flickered to my phone sitting on a nearby desk. For a moment, I hesitated, then, my arm stretched out to snag it up. I held it above my face, flipping to my Contacts screen and thumbing through the names until hovering over, “Roger Sawyer.”
Again, I hesitated.
Then, I pushed the call button and held it up to my ear. It rang once, twice—there was no way he’d actually pick up at this time of day.
Then, the other side clicked. “Hello? Scott, is that you?”
I could feel the weight of the world start to slide off my shoulders. “H-Hey, Dad.” I wanted to say more, but the growing lump in my throat was making it a bit tricky. I swallowed, sitting up while trying to remember how to speak properly. “You got a minute to talk?”
A beat. Then, “Of course. What’s on your mind, son?”
That absolute pig. God, I shouldn’t have expected any different from the Scott Sawyer. Honestly, I shouldn’t be surprised; he loves playing mind games more than anything else in the world, and that apparently includes our newly found friendship.
Or, whatever you call this hot mess.
It had been a few days after our little “confrontation” in his room, with Scott, rightly so, avoiding me like the plague. Oh, I’m positively civil with him if we happen to cross paths, but it’s on him to explain what the hell happened with him and that Mallory girl. Thankfully, my next Journalism project had nothing to do with the football team, meaning I could avoid Scott as much as I wanted.
Apparently, though, I was doing way too well, ‘cause Denise was catching onto my act.
“Soo, been a bit since you hung out with me and Cooper,” she casually brought up during lunch.
I shrugged, slurping a spoonful of bacon-cheddar soup off my spoon. “Guess I’ve been a bit busy. This semester’s start has been a bit more hectic.”
“Uh-huh.” Denise didn’t even touch her plate of food, just, stared at me intently. “And this has nothing to do with the fact that Scott’s a part of a certain group of football players?”
I took a sip of iced tea. “I have no idea what you mean.”
A moment of silence hung between us. Then, finally, Denise let out an irritated huff. “Okay, seriously, what the hell happened in less than a week that’s got you two sitting on opposite ends of the table? Weren’t you literally asking me about relationship advice with him?”
“Well, I guess he still has a few things to work out before we get
there,” I stated as calmly as I could. Inside, I was an absolute tornado of emotions. Betrayal, disappointment; I really thought he wanted to be more.
Denise’s expression softened slightly. “Well, sorry to hear your talk didn’t work out. But, hey, better to date when you’re both ready than just one of you.”
I blinked, slowly processing what she just said. “Uh, yeah. Our, “talk.”
Shit, I was so bad at lying. “Um, Syd,” Denise began without an ounce of bullshit in her voice. “You two did sit down and talk, right? Like, you said, in your own words, you wanted to be a couple, right?”
Whatever face I made must’ve given me away, because Denise threw her hands up in frustration. “It didn’t exactly come up at a good time!” I snapped back. “Scott was a bit too busy making out with some random girl in his room.”
“Uh, and why do you think he thought he could do that?” Denise challenged me back. “Last I checked, you two were still, “just friends.”
God, it sounded so obvious when she said it out loud. “But—he told me—I mean, I assumed, based on how we were acting together,”
Denise groaned, hand against her forehead as she shook her head. “Girl, you gotta be painfully obvious with boys. Did that milkshake seriously make you forget our entire pep talk?”
“W-well,” I tried weakly to fight back. “He doesn’t make it easy.”
“Oh, what a shocking revelation,” Denise laughed. “Someone you had an active rivalry with for God knows how long is hard to confess to. I’m sure he’s as confused as you are. Well probably more confused being a guy and all. Guys are well, dumb.”
I flinched, visibly recoiling away from this girl I once thought of as my partner in crime. “Damn, Denise. Where the hell was this tiger of yours hiding?”
“I just,” Denise sighed, visibly irritated, but a flash of something different crossed her face for a split second. “I’m sorry, girl. I don’t mean to snap, I just—watching you two flounder around is like watching a toddler try and figure out how to step around a bump in the sidewalk. I just wanna, hoist you up off the ground. It’s almost painful to watch.”
