Chapter17
1086 Words
Evie
I woke to the sound of someone turning a page.
For a few confused seconds, I stared at the purple fabric above my face and tried to remember why my head felt heavy. Not painful, exactly. Just slow, as though my brain had been wrapped in several layers of cotton while I slept.
Then the night before returned all at once.
The party. Jasper. Adrian’s hand closing around his wrist. The silent drive home. The kitchen at nearly three in the morning.
You told him no. That was enough.
I pulled the blanket over my face.
Across the room, another page turned.
Adrian was awake.
Of course he was awake. Adrian seemed to regard sleep as a personal weakness he had overcome through discipline and spite.
I lowered the blanket just far enough to see him.
He sat on the edge of his bed already dressed in black pants and a dark sweater, one ankle resting over the opposite knee. A thick book lay open in his hands. His hair was neat, his posture perfect, and there wasn’t a single sign that he had spent half the night driving across town, threatening an upperclassman, interrogating my emotional well-being, and standing in the kitchen while I accused him of sounding ninety.
I, meanwhile, had drooled on my pillow.
There was no justice in the world.
I watched him for another second before his eyes lifted from the page and met mine.
Heat rushed into my face.
“Good morning,” he said.
His tone was perfectly neutral.
Maybe he hadn’t noticed me staring.
He had absolutely noticed me staring.
“Morning.”
My voice came out muffled by the blanket.
Adrian glanced toward the clock on the nightstand. “It is nearly eleven.”
I sat up too quickly. The room tilted.
“Oh my God.”
His book snapped shut.
I gripped the mattress until the walls stopped moving. “I’m fine.”
“You nearly fell over while sitting down.”
“I sat up with enthusiasm.”
“You attacked consciousness and lost.”
I stared at him.
The corner of his mouth shifted.
Barely.
If I hadn’t spent the past week becoming unreasonably familiar with his face, I would have missed it.
“Was that a joke?”
“No.”
“It sounded like a joke.”
“Then you misunderstood.”
He rose and returned the book to his desk. I tried not to notice how the dark sweater stretched across his shoulders when he moved. This became difficult when he turned toward me and folded his arms.
“How do you feel?”
“Fine.”
His expression didn’t change.
I sighed. “Tired. A little embarrassed. Not hungover, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“You barely drank.”
“How do you know?”
His stillness lasted half a second too long.
“I saw the cup.”
“At the party?”
“Yes.”
Through the window with the mysterious curtain gaps.
Right.
I pushed the thought away before it could become suspicious. Adrian noticed everything. He probably knew how much toothpaste I used each morning and silently judged me for wasting it.
“Did you sleep?” I asked.
“Enough.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is the only one you’re receiving.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You stole that from me.”
“I improved it.”
Before I could respond, he crossed to the bedroom door. Moose lifted his head from the rug between our beds, where he had apparently spent the entire night acting as a furry security system.
“There’s coffee in the kitchen,” Adrian said. “Mason attempted pancakes.”
“Attempted?”
Adrian opened the door.
“I recommend the coffee.”
He left before I could ask whether the pancakes had survived.
Moose rose, stretched with a groan, and placed both front paws on the edge of my mattress.
“Good morning to you too.”
His tail thumped against Adrian’s bed.
I scratched behind his ears while reaching for my phone. The screen lit up with fourteen notifications.
Eleven were from Chloe.
Three were missed calls.
The messages began at two sixteen in the morning.
CHLOE: Where are you???
CHLOE: I checked the entire house
CHLOE: Including a bathroom I will never emotionally recover from
CHLOE: Did you go home with the Hot Hockey Vampire
CHLOE: EVIE
CHLOE: Please answer before I call campus security
The next message had arrived less than a minute later.
CHLOE: Actually I’m calling you first because campus security will ask questions and I am not prepared to explain the laundry basket
Then, at two twenty-three:
CHLOE: Adrian answered
CHLOE: You are alive
CHLOE: He sounds terrifying on the phone
CHLOE: Why does he speak like a disappointed duke
The final three had been sent that morning.
CHLOE: Good morning best friend
CHLOE: You have until noon to explain why you left with Count Hotula
CHLOE: I am making coffee and preparing to judge you lovingly
I stared at the messages.
Adrian had answered my phone?
I checked the call history. Chloe’s last call had lasted twenty-seven seconds.
Apparently, at some point between the truck and the apartment, she had called again and Adrian had spoken to her. I had no memory of hearing my phone ring.
I typed a response.
ME: I’m okay. Something happened with a guy at the party. Adrian came inside and helped me leave.
Three dots appeared immediately.
They vanished.
Reappeared.
Vanished again.
CHLOE: What happened
I hesitated.
I didn’t want to make it sound worse than it had been.
That thought stopped me.
Jasper had ignored me repeatedly. He had put his hand back on my body after I removed it. He had stopped me from standing when I tried to leave.
I didn’t need to soften that for him.
So I told her.
Not every detail, but enough.
The typing bubble appeared before I finished and remained there so long I wondered whether Chloe was writing a dissertation.
Finally, a message arrived.
CHLOE: I’m coming over.
ME: You don’t have to.
CHLOE: That was not a question.
ME: Chloe, I’m okay.
CHLOE: Great. You can be okay while eating snacks and watching attractive people misunderstand each other for ninety minutes.
ME: I have homework.
CHLOE: No you don’t.
ME: I definitely do.
CHLOE: Not emotionally.
A second message appeared.
CHLOE: Send me the apartment number again.
I did.
- Writer
