Page 24 of Dirty Roulette
“Why do you always gotta be a soggy pop tart?”
“I’m not. I’m tired. It’s just starting to hit me, I guess.”
“Yeah...” she says.
We don’t talk much as she drives on the freeway. It’s not the usual jamming out to music like we always do. It’s silent.
Charlie drops me off at home and I finish packing up my room, then vacuum up crumbs from centuries ago. When I’m done, I wrap up the cord and fall onto the mattress stained with sweat from the eighteen years I slept on it. I can’t help but feel burned. I reach for my cell phone to stare at Ryder’s name and that stupid crab icon. It’s like a knife cutting through my ribcage and I’m bleeding out everywhere.
Payton:Are you getting back together with Brittni?
Crab:????
Crab:Why?
Payton:Charlie said she came over and you two...
Crab:lol okay.
Payton:I hate you.
The phone buzzes in my hand, and I let it ring several times before sliding the green arrow over to answer him. “Give me my underwear back!”
Ryder huffs on the phone. “Quit it.”
“Why? Why did you do it?”
“Would you rather it be Brody?”
I pause and don’t say anything. I lay there shaking my head, wanting to burst to tears because I feel utterly weird, and it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. It’s pulverizing my insides like a brain-eating amoeba.
“I’m not sleeping with her. I don’t even want to touch her. She came over to grab some stuff I found. That’s it. She was in and out in five minutes. I don’t understand your passive-aggressiveness. You, out of all people on this planet, know how badly she hurt me.”
“Yeah, I know... you were on a binge for a whole week straight.”
“That’s right, and who got me out of the bed?”
I laugh under my breath. “Charlie and I dragged you out by your feet.”
“Then you thought it was a great idea to push me into the pool,” He adds.
I chuckle at the memory of how aggravated he was with us, not letting him go – we had hauled him out of his bedroom and down the hallway. He could have easily fought us both off with how muscly he is now, but he let us do it. After he fell in the pool with just his boxerbriefs, he didn’t hesitate to grab my wrist and pull me in too. I can still feel the cold water hitting my face and running my fingers through his dark hair in my failed attempt to waterboard him for shits and giggles.
Ryder huffs and the phone shuffles on his end. “I think that was the hardest I’ve ever laughed with the two of you in the past three years.”
“My stomach hurt from that,” I say.
“And Charlie pissed herself...” he chuckles for a moment before it’s static again.
I continue to stare into space, not knowing what to say, but having the urge to ask him about last night, and if I really need to sleep with him or ifthatwas it. The embarrassing hump-fest keeps coming back to haunt me and I can’t shake it off. At some point, it has to be brought up, but my brain screams at me not to mention it.
“You had orientation last week, didn’t you?” He asks, after clearing his throat.
“Yeah...”
“When are you moving in?”
“Tomorrow. My mum’s taking me over.”
