Page 19 of Tag

“Who were you talking to on the phone earlier?” Slipped out instead.

His fingers paused mid-tap against the steering wheel, just for a second before picking up again. That was an odd reaction. I wasn’t asking to be accusatory. I was genuinely curious. Now I was a bit more than that.

“Sarah,” he tossed out casually.

“Sarah? Which one? We go to school with like twelve.”

“She doesn’t go here. Not yet, anyway,” He replied, keeping his eyes on the road.

I hesitated before asking, “Okay…do I know her then?”

“It’s Sarah Myers.”

For a second, I thought I misheard him. “Sarah Myers? As inRyder’sSarah?” I pressed, the name echoing in my mind with unwanted clarity.

“She wasn’t…” He let out a quiet breath through his nose, his grip on the wheel tightening. “They never dated.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t call what they were doing dating either.”

He didn’t defend her or explain why he had been talking to her first thing in the morning. He just kept driving, adding nothing further. Was that supposed to end the conversation? I turned to the window and launched into a quiet self-discussion about how men were idiots. No, that wasn’t fair. I was friends with quite a few good ones, and I was confident in assumingtheywould have known this kind of conversation with your girlfriend needed at least a little elaboration. A who, what, why moment. Even a “don’t worry, it’s nothing” thrown in for effort.

I got radio silence and a view of trees blurring past while Ashton adjusted the volume like we hadn’t brushed shoulders with a fight I didn’t have the energy to finish, let alone begin. And I didn’t want to start it. I already knew it wouldn’t fix anything. I was starting to notice cracks we couldn’t patch. The kind that went deeper than a bad morning or a disagreement. I guess some of that was my fault, though.

I thought back to how he looked while on the phone and wondered what the two of them could have been talking about. Sarah and I had always been polite in that fake, passive-aggressive way girls mastered young, but we were never friends. After Ryder ended whatever it was that they had going on, she started carrying this weird energy toward me. I swear she made herself believe I was the reason it didn’t work out, and not her best friend, who broke every kind of girl code that existed by trying to sleep with him too. He didn’t do it and removed himself from the equation altogether.

None of that had anything to do with me.

I could say without a reasonable doubt that my best friends would never go for a guy I was remotely interested in. I couldn’t even entertain the thought of doing that to them. It would be gross and grounds for getting my ass beat.

Last I heard about Sarah, she was a majorette for our rival college in Crescent Ridge, a town over, living her best baton-twirling life away from us. Now she was having casual early morning phone calls with my boyfriend. Ashton knew her from going to high school together, but they were never close enough to stay connected years later. At least that I knew of.

I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear and busied myself with my phone. Ryder had texted me good morning, asalways, and the girls were checking in on my ETA. I let them know I’d be there in less than five minutes. We reached campus, still not speaking to one another. Ashton maneuvered his way through the usual mass of students crossing without looking and cars inching forward like turtles. After another few minutes, he pulled into his designated parking spot with practiced ease, one of the prime locations close to the main academic building. All students had to pay a small fortune for a parking pass on top of everything else, and the good spots were snatched up faster than free merch during welcome week.

This year, I waited until the last minute to get mine, and that turned out to be a big mistake. I now had to park in a section that felt like it belonged to an entirely different zip code, miles from any building. I may or may not have told my friends I chose the spot on purpose, so they didn’t force some poor soul to give theirs up for me.

I texted that I had arrived and gathered my bag. Reaching for the handle to hop out, Ashton’s hand brushed my arm, stopping me. I looked over at him, silently questioning what he wanted to say.

“You have nothing to worry about with me and Sarah, Sanj. I promise.” His voice was softer than it had been all morning.

I stared at him, turning those words over in my head. I thought it was weird they were chatting on the phone, and there was a strong likelihood she may have been up to something shady, but the two of them messing around wasn’t on my radar. My confusion must have been obvious because he looked at me as if he were expecting a different kind of reaction.

“I wasn’t worried about that,” I replied, watching him a little closer now.

“You weren’t?”

“Why do you sound surprised?”

“I’m talking to Ryder’sex,” he emphasized, like that last part was supposed to mean something to me.

“Thought you said they never dated?” I retorted sarcastically.

“They didn’t, but come on, Sanj, you don’t hook up with someone that long and come out of it without some unresolved shit.”

I wasn’t sure if I was more annoyed that he was mentioning this, or that he, of all people, was saying this while revealing he had been casually talking to her. Why did he feel the need to expand on this topic all of a sudden in the first place? I glanced out the window in an attempt to gather my thoughts.

If your boyfriend randomly reassures you that he isn’t cheating because he thought you assumed he was, should it be taken as him feeling some kind of guilt? It would be a shock if he were. He could barely lie straight. Not saying that was enough for him to remain faithful, but he didn’t seem the type to cheat. Then again, I was pretty sure 80% of betrayed girlfriends had said the exact same thing before they got hit with a truth they never asked for.

“Is this some reverse psychology thing where you’re telling me not to worry because I should?”

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