“There’s no way you could have predicted how this would play out,” she argues. “Was it your best idea to move in with Kellan McVey? No, of course not. But how were you to know you’d fall for Crosbie and that stupid little May Madness mistake would come back to bite you in the ass?”
I shrug. “Life’s not fair.” And it’s really not. How is it that I hook up with five guys and one of them winds up being my future boyfriend’s best friend and I end up the villain? How is it that Kellan can have sex with sixty-two women, catch an STI, and have his problems cured with a week’s worth of antibiotics? Crosbie literally covered up his regrets with a coat of blue paint; I tried to keep mine under the radar but that blew up in spectacular fashion. It’s the whole balance thing, all over again. In my effort to make up for being invisible in high school, I’d raced from the Nora Bora end of the spectrum right over to the Red Corset side. And for all my trouble to see and be seen, the only person who’d spotted me at all last year was a middle-aged peace officer with a flashlight and a frown.
“Enough about me,” I say determinedly. “What’s going on with you and Nate?”
Instead of their usual sniping, they’ve been studiously ignoring each other all afternoon, and Celestia has yet to make an appearance.
Marcela studies her fingernails, painted to look like clouds. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” I narrow my eyes.
She holds up her hands defensively. “Nothing, I swear. But…”
I wait her out.
“But there’s something to be said for having things out in the open,” she adds hastily. “I mean, last year with the secret admirer stuff—it was easy to pretend I didn’t know who it was. And I think it was easier for him to pretend he believed I didn’t know. And this year, as bad as it’s been seeing them together, it was easier than admitting that maybe I’d made a mistake not acknowledging him.”
I blow out a breath. “Wow.”
“Yeah. So, who knows what—if anything—will happen next. But you started fresh this year, and I’m going to start fresh in January. That’s my resolution. No secrets, no mixed messages.”
“You’re going to tell Nate you like him?”
“No, of course not. But I’m not going to pretend I don’t, either.”
“I really feel like maybe you’re missing the point.”
She bites the back legs off a sugar cookie shaped like a reindeer. “Well, look what happened here. You and Crosbie put it all on the line, and that flopped.”
“You’re very sensitive.”
“I’m just saying, maybe the truth is a little more than we can handle right now, but lying only makes it worse.”
“You can say that again.”
“And you can hear me say it,” she says, “whenever you want, since we’ll be roommates.”
I stop polishing the silverware I’d picked up. “Come again?”
She licks the red sprinkles off the reindeer’s nose. “Well, you’re homeless, and I have a spare bedroom. What kind of friend am I if I don’t insist on having you move in?”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course. It’ll be a boy-free zone. Kind of like what you and Kellan had, except without all the lying and gonorrhea.”
“You know how to woo a girl.”
“I’m going to Tahiti for two weeks; I’ll leave you my keys and you can move your stuff in. We’re talking, what? A duffel bag and a milk crate?”
“Two milk crates.”
“Look at you,” she coos, chucking me under the chin. “All grown up.”
*
To a perfect stranger, I’d look like anything but a grown up. In my efforts to keep my mind off Crosbie, I throw myself into studying, forsaking pretty much everything except my shifts at Beans, since I’ll now need the money more than ever. My hair is in a perpetual straggly bun, my daily uniform is the same pair of ratty jeans paired with a T-shirt and a hoodie. I haven’t made my bed since Chrisgiving, and the fitted sheet is just a crumpled ball lost under the duvet somewhere. It’s only when the last exam is written and it’s time to pack my bags to head home for the week that I survey the situation and realize what a mess I am. Perhaps it’s for the best that Crosbie’s been ignoring me since that awful night—if he came by and saw this, he’d hightail it right back out of here.