Page 70 of A Totally Platonic Thing
But Aidan only laughed. “It’s cool. Not like you’re actually wrong.”
“I could probably stand to work on my tact. I’m really sorry.” God, could I ever. I was pretty sure I’d even managed to shock my therapist by telling him about my sex life, and weren’t those guys supposed to be totally unflappable?
Well, my former sex life. I hadn’t so much as looked at anyone since Lucas. Unless you counted watching that video he’d called “knockoff Chris and Lucas” and then jerking off and then crying.
I tried not to count that. I’d rather be celibate for life than admit to that.
“We could all stand to work on a few things,” Aidan said. “Don’t fucking worry about it. We all love you the way you are.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Allof us. You know. In case you were thinking of someone specific.”
“Of course I wasn’t!”
I was. But I’d also been waiting to hear from him, and so far…zip, zilch, nada. Not even a reply to the text I’d sent the day I moved out letting him know I’d gone. Not so much as a freaking emoji. I’d have taken an insulting GIF.
Besides, I might have casually walked by the engineering building the other day around the time I knew Lucas and Amanda sat outside so she could have her smoke break. The two of them were smiling and laughing with a guy I thought might have been Amanda’s boyfriend. I didn’t linger, I wasn’t a creepy stalker.
Well, not much.
But the glimpse I’d gotten from behind some trees (Totally not stalking! They happened to be there!) hadn’t made it look like Lucas had been pining away for me.
Wouldn’t he have been pining, like, ateenylittle bit if he loved me? Or even missed me?
Aidan sighed, startling me out of my own pining. Or at least making me divide my attention. I could pine while doing anything else simultaneously these days. At least I’d been working on my multitasking as well as my binge drinking and attention whoring, go me. I’d pined while writing several papers, pined through all of my classes, and pined so much eating pizza with Sebastian and Aidan that Sebastian threw his crusts at me and told me to stop looking like a sad puppy from a Disney movie.
I picked up the crusts and threw them back at his face, and my aim was better. Personal growth would only take you so far.
“Look,” Aidan said. “I know your relationship with Lucas isn’t really my business. But I’m getting married soon. You’re going to be Sebastian’s best man. Lucas isn’t going to be in the wedding, but he’s sure as shit going to be there. So you need to sort this out so Sebastian doesn’t end up popping a fistful of Xanax just to deal with your bullshit at his own wedding.”
“Are you seriously making my heartbreak about your wedding?”
Aidan rolled off the couch, stretched, and headed for the hallway to the bedrooms and bathroom, probably about to get ready for work. “Yep. I so fucking am. Deal with it.”
He left the living room without giving me time to argue.
Well, all right. Wedding. Maybe that did trump my pining.
Still, he could’ve been, like, a little more empathetic about it. Then again, we were talking about Aidan here. He reserved all of his empathy for Sebastian, and everyone else got some variation on, “Dude, suck it up.”
But wedding or no wedding, empathy or no empathy, I missed Lucas like I missed air. I’d felt all tight-throated and constricted in the chest ever since I’d left our apartment.
Hisapartment.
God. I wanted to gohome.
I knew the ball had to be in my court, because expecting Lucas to reach out to me—even though every day that he hadn’t ground me down a little more—simply wasn’t fair after the way I’d behaved. But at the same time, reaching out to him felt like crossing a boundary he shouldn’t have ever had to put up in the first place.
So I didn’t know what to do. Every choice felt wrong. Being away from Lucas felt like the wrongest of all, especially since graduation was coming up in a week and a half, God, I couldn’t believe it. I’d managed to sort out all of my classes to the point where I knew I’d pass them and be able to skip the summer school do-over. But it didn’t seem to matter that much without Lucas there to share it with.
I meant to go to his College of Engineering ceremony no matter what, and hide out in the back somewhere so that I could at least see him get his diploma. But the thought of not being able to look for him in the crowd at mine made the whole thing seem pointless.
The shower started down the hall, Aidan getting ready for work. Sebastian would be home from class soon. Part of me wanted to go out, get a drink, find some distraction.
But I’d spent enough time away from that over the past few weeks that I knew how to resist the impulse a little better now. It’d take time, lots more time, before I felt comfortable being alone.
Tonight, though, uncomfortable or not, I’d go in the guest room that I’d temporarily claimed, finish writing another paper, and exercise some willpower.
And pine. But I could do that at the same time.
Lucas
