Page 16 of In the Net
6
HARPER
“Alright, Harper. I’ve waited long enough to get the real story out of you.”
Scarlett, the girl who I already consider my best friend even though we only met last semester, says those words to me with a pointed determination that makes me draw the wine glass away from my lips.
“Huh?” I ask, even though I have a feeling I know exactly what she’s talking about.
Scarlett narrows her eyes at me while she primly sips her wine. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, Harper.”
Maddie gasps in excitement. “Are we finally going to get the Harper and Sebastian backstory?” She whips her gaze to Jasmine. “Jasmine, join in the peer pressure to make Harper spill it.”
Jasmine laughs and rolls her eyes as she pours herself more wine. But when her eyes stop rolling, they settle on me expectantly. With the attention and anticipation of my three roommates bearing down on me, and the wine I’ve consumedtonight loosening my lips, I let out a sigh that’s tantamount to surrender.
It’s Friday night, and the four of us decided to have a girls’ night in with a bottle or two (or more) of wine. One year ago, I didn’t know any of these girls, and now we’re roommates and good friends. It’s the best living arrangement I’ve ever had.
I met Scarlett on a random night out last semester. We struck up a conversation at a pizza place and quickly became friends. Her boyfriend is Lane Larsen, a Black Bears hockey player who graduated last year, and through her I met Maddie, who’s dating Lane’s best friend, Rhys. Jasmine is Maddie’s best friend.
When Scarlett saw that a cute little rowhouse close to campus was up for rent this semester, she had the idea of the four of us coming together to make it work, and I’m glad she did.
And now the three of them are staring at me like I’m on stage with a spotlight on me and they’re just waiting for the performance to start.
“Well, we grew up together. We’ve known each other since elementary school. We used to be friends.”
At that, the three girls gasp, their eyes going wider, and each of them inching closer like they’re already engrossed.
They’ve all seen plenty of spats between me and Sebastian, but until now I’ve always avoided going into the details of how we know each other—and how we came to not be able to stand each other.
“What happened?” Jasmine asks, her voice swelling with eagerness for the details she clearly assumes must be juicy.
I shrug. “He became an asshole, so we’re not friends anymore. The end.”
“Booo,” Scarlett blares her dissatisfaction. “You’re not getting out of telling the real story now that you’ve started it.”
“Besides, Sebastian isn’t an asshole,” Maddie says. Her brother Lane and boyfriend Rhys were on the hockey team, soshe’s known most of the players for the three years she’s spent here at Brumehill College. Especially Sebastian, since he lived with them. “So you’re definitely holding back.”
“You must not have known him during his freshman year,” I say. The memories of meeting him again when we shared a class during our first year of college, after hardly seeing him for the last three years of high school, bring an unpleasant feeling to my chest.
“Is that when you stopped being friends?” Jasmine asks.
I shake my head. “No, not really. We were friends in middle school and freshman year of high school. Not like, close friends. He only really had one close friend, a guy named Bryce. But we were friendly with each other.”
“And?” Scarlett asks, urging me on.
“During sophomore year, he transferred to a prep school. He got a scholarship.” A sad feeling twists through me as I continue, “He was pretty eager to have a chance to transfer somewhere else. It might be hard to believe, but he wasn’t popular at our high school.”
“Why not?” Maddie asks, frowning with surprise.
I pause a moment. How much of Sebastian’s background and personal life should I really be sharing with other people?
But the girls want to know what the story is between us, and considering they see us interact so often—no doubt feeling sometimes amused and sometimes awkward at our frequent spats—I guess maybe they deserve to know it.
I take a bigger sip of wine to wear down my inhibitions.
“Almost all the kids who went to our school were from pretty well-off families. Sebastian was one of the few who wasn’t. His family lived in an area that had basically the only affordable houses in the school district. And back then, he was nerdy and shy. I mean, I guess he’s still nerdy now, but he isn’t shy likehe was back then. He also isn’t scrawny like he was back then, either. All that together meant he got picked on a lot.”
The three girls frown, surprise flickering in their eyes. The Sebastian who’s a hockey star here at college definitely doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would get bullied.
