“Because you smell, Everly. That’s why.”
I pull a bottle of room spray out from my desk drawer without looking at her and spray it over my head, the mist landing in my hair and on my hands. I don’t care. I keep my eyes on my laptop, my finger scrolling until I find something I like. My full attention is needed on this project.
“Problem solved,” I tell her.
“Um, no. No, it’s really not.” Chloe tidies up her side of the room and stuffs her laptop in her bag, getting ready to head out for the day.
“I’ll shower tomorrow. I’m busy.”
“You said that yesterday. What are you working on?”
“Pinterest.”
“That’s helping how?”
“It’s very therapeutic.”
She walks behind my chair and peers at my laptop. “Sawyer Camden is a dick,” she reads out loud, viewing the board of pictures I’ve created about crappy ex-boyfriends. She nudges my hand out of the way and scrolls through for a minute. “Yeah, no.” She snaps the laptop lid closed. “This isn’t helping.”
“Just go to class, Chloe.” I open the laptop again and hit a key to bring it to life.
“It’s Saturday.”
Oh.
“And I’m not bringing you another can of Pringles.”
Oh, no, she didn’t.
“So you’re gonna have to get up and leave this room.”
Fine. I don’t need to eat.
“One more thing,” she says, pulling open the door with one hand and waving a little canister at me with the other. “The fish haven’t eaten yet today. And I’m gonna be gone all day. So they’re going to be hungry if you don’t get off your ass and leave this room. Bye!” The door swings shut behind her, and I realize the canister of fish food was in her hand.
Whatever. They’re goldfish. I don’t care.
Except. Except that they’re looking at me. I tap my fingertip on the glass and Steve waves his little fin excitedly. He really does. The little guy is totally into me. And then Stella swims to the top looking for food.
Fucking Chloe. I grab my stuff and head to the showers.
Thirty minutes later I’m outside, headed towards the Wawa on Spruce. It’s nice out, if you’re into that sort of thing. Nice weather, sunshine, love. I’m not, so it doesn’t matter. I enter the convenience store, the automatic door swooshing to grant me access, and head for the chip aisle. I grab half a dozen cans of Pringles then head to the coffee counter and place an order for a mocha mint latte. It’s so much better than the grasshopper latte we sell at Grind Me. Plus, it doesn’t have a stupid bug name. I pop open one of the cans of Pringles while I wait and shove a stack of four into my mouth. I catch a guy judging me for my life choices but I stare back while shoving another stack of chips into my mouth and he looks away.
When my drink is ready I pay for everything and exit the store. There’s an independent pet supply store I like on Baltimore Avenue less than a mile from here so I head in that direction, cutting over to Baltimore on University Avenue.
There are a lot of people out today, with the nice weather and all. I loop the Wawa bag full of Pringles over my forearm and sip my latte as I walk. And I guess it doesn’t suck to be showered and wearing a fresh hoodie and yoga pants. Then I see a silvery blue Porsche like Sawyer has and the Pringles feel like a shoe lodged in my gut. It’s not his car—the license plates are different—but how many stupid little things are going to remind me of him?
I give up on blocking him from my mind and cave in to replaying every moment we’ve had together over the last eight weeks. The sex tape pisses me off the most. You make a sex tape with someone and they break up with you. Unbelievable. The Sawyer of the last week is nothing like the man I know him to be. I cannot have been that wrong about him. Something isn’t right.
I reach the pet shop and push through the wood and glass door, immediately stopping to coo at an adorable kitty chilling in a large window display, set up to provide temporary housing while waiting for an adopter. She’s a long-haired calico named Shaggy. She puts her paws on the glass and leans in to inspect me. Not a kitten—she’s two, according to the sheet outside her enclosure. So she knows what it’s like to be happy and then get dumped. I should totally adopt her. I could sneak her into my dorm room. We’d snuggle every day and I’d let her know that unlike certain men, I won’t get sick of her in a couple of months. We’d be together forever. There’s even a nice view from my dorm window and a ledge perfect for a cat.
I’m losing it.