THE NEXT WEEK SEEMED ENDLESS. AMERICA AND I DECIDED it would be best if she stayed at Morgan for a while. Shepley reluctantly agreed. Abby missed all three days of history and found somewhere else other than the cafeteria to eat. I tried to catch up with her after a few of her classes, but she either never went to them or had left early. She wouldn’t answer her phone.
Shepley assured me that she was okay, and nothing had happened to her. As agonizing as it was to know I was two degrees from Abby, it would have been worse to be cut off from her completely and have no idea if she was dead or alive. Even though it seemed she wanted nothing to do with me, I couldn’t stop hoping that at some point soon she would forgive me or start missing me as much as I missed her and show up at the apartment. Thinking about never seeing her again was too painful, so I decided to keep waiting.
On Friday, Shepley knocked on my door.
“Come in,” I said from the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
“You going out tonight, buddy?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should call Trent. Go get a couple of drinks and get your mind off things for a while.”
“No.”
Shepley sighed. “Listen, America’s coming over, but . . . and I hate to do this to you . . . but you can’t bug her about Abby. I barely talked her into coming. She just wants to stay in my room. Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Call Trent. And you need to eat something and take a shower. You look like shit.”
With that, Shepley shut the door. It still didn’t shut right from the time I had kicked it down. Every time someone closed it, the time I destroyed the apartment over Abby leaving came to mind, and the fact that she came back to me not long after, leading to our first time.
I closed my eyes, but like every other night that week, couldn’t sleep. How people like Shepley went through this torment over and over with different girls was insane. Meeting someone after Abby, even if that girl were to somehow measure up, I couldn’t imagine putting my heart out there again. Not just so I could feel like this all over again. Like a slow death. Turns out I’d had it right all along.
Twenty minutes later, I could hear America’s voice in the living room. The sounds of them talking quietly as they hid from me in Shepley’s room echoed throughout the apartment.
Even America’s voice was too much to take. Knowing she had probably just spoken to Abby was excruciating.
I forced myself to stand up and make my way to the bathroom to take care of showering and other basic hygiene rituals I’d neglected over the last week. America’s voice was drowned out by the water, but the second I turned the lever off, I could hear her again.
I got dressed, and grabbed my bike keys, set to take a long ride. I’d probably end up at Dad’s to break the news.
Just as I passed Shepley’s bedroom door, America’s phone rang. It was the ringtone she’d assigned to Abby. My stomach sank.
“I can come pick you up and take you somewhere for dinner,” she said.
Abby was hungry. She might go to the cafeteria.
I jogged out to the Harley and raced out of the parking lot, speeding and running red lights and stop signs all the way to campus.
When I got to the cafeteria, Abby wasn’t there. I waited a few more minutes, but she never showed. My shoulders sagged, and I trudged in darkness toward the parking lot. It was a quiet night. Cold. Opposite of the night I walked Abby to Morgan after I won our bet, reminding me of how empty it felt not having her beside me.
A small figure some yards away appeared, walking toward the cafeteria alone. It was Abby.
Her hair was pulled up into a bun, and when she got closer, I noticed she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Her arms crossed against her chest, she didn’t have a coat on, only a thick, gray cardigan to ward off the cold.
“Pigeon?” I said, walking into the light from the shadows.
Abby jerked to a stop, and then relaxed a bit when she recognized me.
“Jesus, Travis! You scared the hell out of me!”
“If you would answer your phone when I call I wouldn’t have to sneak around in the dark.”
“You look like hell,” she said.
“I’ve been through there once or twice this week.”
She pulled her arms tighter around her, and I had to stop myself from hugging her to keep her warm.
Abby sighed. “I’m actually on my way to grab something to eat. I’ll call you later, okay?”
“No. We have to talk.”
“Trav—”
“I turned Benny down. I called him Wednesday and told him no.”
I was hoping she would smile, or at least show some sign that she approved.
Her face remained blank. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Travis.”
“Say you forgive me. Say you’ll take me back.”
“I can’t.”
My face crumpled.
Abby tried to walk around. Instinctively, I stepped in front of her. If she walked away this time, I would lose her. “I haven’t slept, or ate . . . I can’t concentrate. I know you love me. Everything will be the way it used to be if you’d just take me back.”
She closed her eyes. “We are dysfunctional, Travis. I think you’re just obsessed with the thought of owning me more than anything else.”
“That’s not true. I love you more than my life, Pigeon.”
“That’s exactly what I mean. That’s crazy talk.”