Page 171 of Built to Fall
Shockingly, they didn’t make him pass out hors d’oeuvres the entire time, so he spent a majority of the shower sitting next to me with his arm wrapped around the back of my chair, grazing his fingertips across the collar of my sweater or hooking them in the belt loops of my jeans.
As I sit on Kara’s bed, she stands from her desk chair and begins darting around the room. She looks dazed and panicked, something I rarely see from her.
“What are you looking for?” I ask when she opens every drawer of her dresser, digging through them like she’s lost something vital. Her hands are jittery and uncharacteristically frantic.
“Did you sleep alright?” she asks, still occupying herself around the room. It’s obvious she’s trying to change the subject.
“Yeah. I slept fine.” I sit up straighter. “Kara, what are you looking for?”
She shuts a drawer too hard, making me jolt back. Now I’m worried. I also think I know what this is about. I’m not sure whether she’s going to admit it or not. I don’t know if I want her to, either.
“I thought I had something,” she says, her voice sounding completely void. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Are you okay?” I hate thatI’mthe one here to handle this. I love Kara, and I want to help, but out of everyone who lives in this apartment, I am the least equipped to handle emotionally sensitive situations. “You seem off.”
Kara snorts, like it’s the understatement of the century.
“What’s wrong?” I ask again.
“I’m fine.” She turns toward me for the first time.
She doesn’t look fine. Her pupils are blown wide, and there’s a sheen of sweat on her forehead despite the window being cracked.
I squint at her, noticing her mismatched socks. I’ve never seen her uncoordinated like this. “Are you on something?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I stand from her bed, taking a lengthy step toward her. “I can tell by looking at you that you’re on something.”
“It’s just Xanax,” she tells me after a long moment.
My brows furrow. “You got prescribed Xanax?”
I don’t know a whole lot about the drug besides the fact that it’s supposed to calm people down, but I’m sure Kara does.
She straightens slowly. “Not technically.”
That’s all it takes for me to get the picture. “Are you serious right now?”
“Don’t make a thing of it,” she mutters, eyes darting toward the door. “I’ve got a shadowing shift this weekend. I just needed something to calm me down.”
“That’s not calming,” I snap. “You look like you’re about to sprint out of your own body.”
“Okay, well, I wouldn’t need it if I didn’t feel like I was going tocrawl out of my skinevery time I tried to sleep,” she fires back. “I’m not you, Lina. I can’t just go running and pretend it’s a cure.”
I’m really not trying to make this about me, but the first place my mind goes to is Grant. How this would make him feel. Whether he would ever come over again if he found out my roommate is taking pills she bought off the street. And that’s just what she’s telling me about.
I can barely look at her; I’m so angry. “Kara.” I take a deep breath, turning away from her. “My boyfriend’s mom died of adrug overdose. When that article came out about you inNotes of New Haven,I told him that you’d never bring that stuff into our apartment. You are making me aliar.”
It’s not my business to tell.I know.But I’m trying to find anything I can say to get through to her right now.
“It’s neither of your guys’ problem,” she says, as if it means nothing.
The door bursts open before I can respond.
“Is Meredith okay?” Savannah asks, joining us in Kara’s room. “She’s been in the bathroom for forty-five minutes, and I can hear the sink running.” I hadn’t even realized she was here.
She must’ve been waiting in my room for me to get back and heard Meredith through the wall—our bedrooms are on the same side of the apartment, and the bathroom sits right between them. The walls are practically made of tissue paper; every drip of the faucet travels through like a broadcast.
