They’re gone.
I roll back over to face the wall.
*
There’s another noise at the door. I look at the clock. It’s 8:16. I don’t know if it’s a.m. or p.m.
Someone’s shaking my shoulder. I swat their hand away.
“Leave me alone,” I say.
“Just tell me if you’re alive, at least,” Samantha says.
I roll over and squint at her. “You’re back.”
“Yeah. What on earth did you do while I was gone? It smells awful in here. Wait—did you puke?”
I forgot about that.
“No,” I say.
“You’re lucky I have two little brothers.” Samantha’s got a squirt bottle and some paper towels now and is on her hands and knees next to the bed. “I’ve cleaned up more puke in my lifetime than anyone should ever have to.”
“Thanks,” I mumble and turn back toward the wall.
“Are you sick?” she asks.
“Kind of.”
“Are you hungry? I have bananas and trail mix.”
I am kind of hungry, now that the puke smell is mostly gone. “Okay.”
Samantha gives me a bag of food and starts cleaning up my side of the room. She puts the dirty clothes in a pile and plugs my phone into the wall charger, but to my relief she doesn’t turn the phone back on.
While she works, she tells me it’s Friday night. That means it’s only been fourteen hours since I talked to Carroll in the hall. It feels like at least a year has passed.
Samantha tells me where she’s been. Apparently some guy, Draven, invited her to a concert in New Haven, but then he turned out to be a prick. Only when she’s finished telling me all about how Draven used a fake ID to rent a car and then lied about it to the cop who pulled them over does she ask me.
“So, what happened? Is this about Toni again?”
I start to tell her about last night. Instead I say, “Yeah. It’s about Toni.”
Then I’m crying. Because it is about Toni. It’s always been about Toni.
I haven’t cried all day. It feels sort of good, the coolness on my cheeks.
Samantha gives me a tissue from the box on her desk. Then she goes over to the minifridge and hands me a bottle of orange juice.
“What’s this for?” I ask, wiping snot off my face.
“Orange juice always makes me feel better,” she says.
I take a gulp. Then I tell her about last night. She watches me talk, nodding the whole time.
“I knew it would happen sooner or later,” she says when I’m done.
“You did?” I hiccup.
“Even Draven predicted it. I was telling him about you and Carroll, and he said if you guys hadn’t already slept together, you would before finals were over.”
“Go, Draven.” I take another sip. The orange juice is making me feel a tiny bit better.
“I’m sorry Carroll was such a jerk to you,” she says. “To be honest, I’ve always thought he was a jerk.”
At first I think she’s just trying to comfort me. All I can remember is months of Sam giggling at Carroll’s jokes in the dining hall.
“You have?” I ask.
“Oh, yeah. He’s incredibly rude and selfish to everyone except you, since you were the cute girl he got to carry around like a nice handbag. Now I guess he’s too embarrassed to be around you, so he’s moving on to a new accessory.”
I can’t process all this at once.
Samantha’s wrong. I know Carroll a lot better than she does. He isn’t like that.
And I get why he’s upset. It’s like he said—he had this ideal life he was trying to live here, where he got to have all the gay fun he’d dreamed of back in rural New Jersey. Back home he used to get beaten up just for existing. Now he’s finally somewhere he doesn’t have to pretend to be someone he’s not.
Until I came along and messed it all up.
“It’s not like that,” I tell Samantha. “I think he’s just ashamed. He hates himself for letting it happen.”
“He’s not some helpless victim here. These things take two, last I checked.”
That makes me smile, just a little. I stop before Samantha notices.
“If you hate him so much, why have you been hanging out with us all semester?” I ask her.
“Because I wanted to hang out with you, and you never go anywhere without him. I know how that is, when your entire world is centered around one person. You think they can do no wrong. It was that way with me and my boyfriend all last year before that bitch Stephanie started prowling around.” She sighs. “Sorry. I’m still bitter.”
“It wasn’t like that with Carroll and me,” I say. “We’re just friends.”
“Seriously,” Samantha says. “Was it really that different? You spent all your time together. I mean, when’s the last time you had a normal friend? Do you even remember how it works?”
Hmm. Carroll’s the only real friend I’ve had in years who wasn’t Toni’s friend first. Except Briana and her crew.
And Samantha. I’ve never really thought of Sam as a friend, though. I don’t know why.