Page 59 of And They Were Roommates

Eli’s smile barely returns, like he’s not sure if that should be believed. A percentage of his trust has been lost. He leaves the crypt.

Jasper pulls his broken fountain pen out of his chest pocket and points the nib at my face. “Do you believe Eli’s review is correct?”

“Of course not,” I say, swatting away the pen. “Read it yourself. How does Eli not know whatwhereforemeans? He’s fourteen. Hasn’t he read Shakespeare’s collection by now?”

Jasper silences me with a dismissive wave. As he pulls my notebook closer and flips through my other letters, I regret my answer.

A sharprippulls me out of my thoughts.

Jasper, crossing out my first letter in red ink so aggressively that the paper tears.

It takes my body a moment longer to catch up to my brain, to realize something is very, very wrong. I rush over to his side of the table. “What are you doing?!”

“I’m not approving these letters.”

“Why?”

“I don’t feel any love in them. Eli didn’t either.” Jasper flips to the next page. He crosses out my second love letter. My third. My fourth.

I’m too stunned to stop him. “What about your third EROS? Love doesn’t have to make sense, and neither do your words?”

Jasper lifts his pen so suddenly that I flinch. His hand plummets back down, stabbing the notebook with the same destruction as a knife, leaving behind a hole and splatters of red ink. Allmy hard work, destroyed. “Even if I lack understanding, I should still feel your feelings. I feel nothing.”

Nothing. After weeks. If this were a class, I’d have an F. My first F.

Defeat rattles through me as I stare at the destroyed notebook. The chances of Jasper thinking I’m special now are, without a doubt, zero. Just when I started to think maybe he—anyone—thought different.

“What does this mean, then?” I ask, my chest sinking. But I already know. No more deal. No more single room to myself.

“You’ll still practice with me.”

He’s not calling it off? “But the mixer is already a month away,” I say, confused. “I needed to start writing real letters with you, like, yesterday.”

“We have time.”

“What time? Aren’t you wastingmoretime trying to teach me than if you’d tackle the letters yourself?”

Jasper twirls his pen along his knuckles instead of answering. Not believing in me. Like Mom. Like Ms. Nallos. Like everyone at Valentine.

“Is my effort that invisible?” My voice rises enough to be heard beyond the bookcase door, but I don’t care, my chest tightening too painfully over what Jasper must think of me. Or rather, what he doesn’t think of me at all.

At least Jasper finally looks at me. His eyes are wide. With surprise or fear, I can’t tell.

“Don’t you care how much STRIP stops me from studying? How much my grades are tanking?” I slap my palms against the table as I rise to my feet. The coffee he bought me—what I foolishly thought proved Jasper cared about more than just himself—rattlesand tips, leaking onto the floor. I can barely perceive it. Too many afternoons we spent together flash through my mind. Every moment Jasper willingly sat so close, looking me in the eye like I so undoubtedly existed. Too many times he chased after me around campus, inviting me to eat lunch with him in Dix or study after classes. “Do you realize how thoughtless you are toward everyone around you?”

“Charlie—?”

“You don’t. Because even after I got accepted into Valentine, became an Excellence Scholar out of thousands, and studied every waking second, you’re Rank One.”

“Charlie.”

“You never try. Yet you’re loved. You have no clue”—I squeeze my fist to stay in control, to stop my anger from turning into what the pressure behind my eyes threatens to—“noclue what it’s like to be alone.”

Jasper stands, too, but I storm out before he can use his own words as a weapon and get my hopes up, like years ago, just to leave me crushed.

Chapter 22THE INVISIBLE MAN

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11

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