Page 4 of Unloved

“You don’t pick the nicknames, Freddy,” he says. “We do. Now, let’s go out back—we’re gonna play one last beer pong game before heading out. We’ve still got practice in the morning.”

The intruder slips from our bubble, and I’m still staring, openmouthed, up at Freddy-maybe-Matty.

“I like Freddy.” The words spill from my mouth, breathy and quiet. But he hears me and smiles wide, tucking his head into myneck with a kiss and a lick that nearly makes me shout. He sucks lightly before pulling back, only after squeezing me around the middle and lifting me just off the floor.

“I like you,” he says with a smirk, reddened eyes glittering like green stars as he sets me down and starts to back away. “What’s your name?”

“Okay,” I say without thinking. “And it’s Ro.”

“Okay, Ro.” He smiles again, backing away until the only part of him touching me is his hand in mine, drawing me back toward the crowded table with him.

We play beer pong, which mostly consists of Freddy patiently teaching me how to play, despite his friends’ protests. Then, as most of the group disperses, Freddy stays by my side. Our heads are pressed together as we whisper random comments about the partygoers milling about, people watching.

His phone rings, the noise loud and intrusive. He peeks down at the screen.

“Oh, um—” His entire expression sobers, and he pushes off the brick wall we’ve been leaning against. He looks flustered, almost frightened. “I need to take this. I’ll come back and get you, okay? Just, don’t move.”

He stumbles into the table and knocks over a few drinks but doesn’t bat an eye before he’s headed toward a quiet spot to take the call.

I don’t move, even as giddiness and joy threaten to force my limbs to swing and dance.

I don’t move, even when Sadie comes back—looking exactly as perfect as she did before, not a hair out of place. Meanwhile, the senior quarterback following her looks thoroughly mussed, breathing hard like he completed a full triathlon with no training.

I don’t move while Sadie gets three more shots of Fireball, which I find I love the taste of, but hate the instant swimming feeling in my chest.

I don’t move as we wait and wait until the party slowly dwindles.

I don’t move when my heart starts to hurt. Not until Sadie convinces me to go with the most sympathetic look she’s given me since we became roommates.

“I’m a little embarrassed,” I finally tell her as we walk back to our dorm. “I just thought… I don’t know what I thought.”

Sadie smiles at me as I walk past her. “You thought he wanted you. Don’t be embarrassed. It happens to me all the time.”

I stop short and Sadie follows, both of us turning to face each other.

“Really?”

Sadie furrows her brow, the same displeased expression she usually has. “All the time. I mean, finding a boy at a drunken frat party or a bar is a gamble, Ro. Like, I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“But you do it all the time.” The alcohol makes my lips a little looser and I admit, “I just want to be normal.”

Sadie grabs my hand—it’s the first time she’s reached for me, and she gets me to walk close enough that she can wrap an arm around my waist.

“Wrong roommate for you if you want normal. My life is kind of a shit show— But, honestly, no one is normal. Normal is stupid, okay? Just be whoever you are.”

“I don’t know who I am.”

“No one does. Just—” She huffs like she’s annoyed with me, but I’m starting to realize that’s how Sadie Brown is. “Just, do what you want and fuck anyone who says you can’t, okay? If you want to party, do it. But if you don’t want to, don’t.”

We’ve reached the dorms by the time she stops talking. There are a few loiterers outside, kissing or laughing or eating fast food, the smell making my mouth water, and I have to resist the sudden urge to beg Sadie to go to Taco Bell.

Turns out I don’t have to, as I watch Sadie waltz up to a boisterousgroup of boys by the fountain in the center of the quad. Of course she struts straight up to the most handsome one—not a moment of insecurity or hesitation.

The tall blond one smiles when he spots her, and pulls her in for a quick hug, which she shoves out of quickly, taking the bag of food from The Chick—which definitely closed hours ago—from his hand.

“Hang out soon?” I hear him say as she starts back toward me.

“Maybe,” she calls over her shoulder before giving me a look that screams absolutely not.

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