Page 97 of Hypothetical Heart
“She’d probably clean the entire time,” I joke.
We continue talking about our friends from home—how Eloise is doing at Yale and how we’re shocked we haven’t seen Luke around campus yet—and it takes a few minutes before we realize Alex and Brianna already got up and left.
“Maybe they had somewhere to be.” Logan tries to brush it off.
“Or maybe we’re just bad at making friends,” I say what we’re both thinking out loud.
Don’t get me wrong, Logan is the nicest of people, andeveryone wants to be his friend, but the truth is, he’s never had any interest in having a large abundance of them. He’s content with the group we’ve grown up around being his primary circle and anyone else being a kind acquaintance.
I had a feeling this was exactly how our night would end. “Let’s get out of here.” I grab his hand, and he uses his other to throw a twenty over the bar.
Carrying me down one of the busiest streets in New York City, holding under my thighs while also holding my heels, Logan tells me all about his first week of classes and practically every assignment he’s had to do while I keep my face securely buried in his neck, only adding to the conversation when needed.
We decide about halfway through our walk home that we should get dinner, so we stop at a pizza place, get our pizza, and continue on our way. And since Logan already has his hands full, I so graciously offer to carry the bag of food
When we get to our apartment building, we don’t even have to discuss which of our apartments we’re heading back to because it’s usually mine.
I put the pizza boxes in the oven so it doesn’t get cold while I take a quick shower. Logan runs down to his apartment to change out of his clothes and is back and settled on the couch by the time I exit my bathroom. I set the pizza on the coffee table while he finds something on the TV for us to watch.
“Do you think something is going on with Eloise?” I ask, flopping down on the couch next to him.
“What do you mean?” He asks, setting down the remote before he finds something.
“She hasn’t really been answering my texts or calls for the past few days.” Usually, all of us message in our groupchat, but from time to time, we all text each other separately.
I cherish not only the bond we have as a group but also the friendships we have formed separately. It’s what helps us all work so well when we’re together.
We’re all best friends, individually and together. So Eloise ignoring me is unlike her.
“She might just be busy.” Logan shrugs like he’s not entirely sure.
“No,” I deny quickly. “Something else is going on.”
I only noticed the lack of communication when I was texting Genevieve in the restaurant earlier, and now it’s all I can think about. Is this her way of putting some type of separation between us?
“Maybe she’s just trying to adjust. She’s all by herself at Yale, and you know her, she’s probably out making friends.” His face shifts the tiniest bit into a look of cringe, almost like he’s reprimanding himself for lying. “What do you know that you’re not telling me?” I stand, grabbing my phone from the kitchen counter. Before he can even answer, my phone is already ringing. “I’m calling her.”
I can’t get this feeling out of my chest, one that says something isn’t right.
“Winnie, hey,” Eloise answers the phone on the seventh ring. Her voice sounds far away, and not in a distance sense.
“Hi, I was just calling to check up on you and see how Yale is going.”
“Oh…” she trails off, clearing her throat. “It’s great.”
“Is something wrong?” I ask her straight out.
“What?” I run the hand not holding my phone through my hair. “I just have this sinking feeling that something is wrong and that I need to check on you,” I sigh.
“Winnie,” is all she says. No confirmation or denial.
“Eloise, what’s wrong? Let me help.”
Logan stands at the sound of my strained pleas, watching me pace around the living room.
“I don’t know what to say,” she whispers.
“About what?” I look to Logan for help, wondering if he knows more than I do. “Logan’s here too, Eloise. Do you want to talk to him?”
