Page 42 of Mostly My Boss
Always, the threat of having everything taken away from me lingered over my head. I was feeling slightly more comfortable in my second semester, but far from stable. I didn’t think that would happen until I actually walked across the stage for graduation.
“You don’t even have to drink if you don’t want to. Just come out with me and see what it’s like to be young and have fun.”
“I have fun!”
He snorted. He was right. I didn’t have a lot of fun. Not without him, anyway, and now I’d regulated the fun I could have with him.
Because it was messing with my head. I was self-aware enough to admit that now.
“Okay. I’ll go.”
He gave an abbreviated fist pump. “My plan to you corrupt you, phase one complete.”
“I’m going inside now,” I said, not paying him any more attention.
“Jules,” he called out to me before I could step inside the dorm.
“What?”
“I’m going to miss you tonight.”
“You’ll live,” I told him. And I would, too. Because this is what friends did. They went back to their separate corners and they called it a day.
I opened the door to my room to find Nicki still up, her computer open on her lap. I wasn’t sure if she was studying or watching some show like Ethan and I had been doing. It wasn’t often that I saw her studying.
Then again, it wasn’t often that I saw her in our room. Because I was usually with Ethan in his.
“What are you doing here?”
“Uh, it’s my room.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. When you’re hanging at Ethan’s, you usually stay the night. You guys have a fight?”
Was there more than curiosity in her tone? She’d had a thing for him last semester, but she’d been with other guys in the past few months. I’d figured she was over Ethan. I wanted to tell her how bad they would be as a couple, if that’s what she was imagining, but she’d only deny it.
“No, I just felt like sleeping in my own bed.”
Another modified eye roll.
“What? That’s a thing,” I said, pulling off my coat then sitting on my bed to pull off my boots.
“For losers. No one sleeps alone if you can be sleeping with someone else. Even if it’s just to sleep.”
“Okay, so where is your sleep buddy?”
“I’m looking for a replacement for Dan. He was hot and sweet, but I need someone with a little more edge.”
Ethan had intellectual edge, and for some reason Nicki had always interpreted that as being part badass. Which, I suppose, he was in his way. For someone who could appreciate that. I didn’t think Nicki was that person.
“I’m sure you’ll find him,” I said casually. “In the meantime, sleeping alone means no one hogs the blankets, no one snores, no one farts unexpectedly, and no one else besides me drools on the pillow.”
Her mouth turned down. “Right,” she sighed. “Sleeping alone is for losers.”
I thought about my mom, who’d shared a bed with my dad for over twenty-five years. Did she hate it? Sleeping alone? Or did she secretly like the fact that she could take up space in the whole bed?
No, she was probably miserable without him. Just one more point of pain in her already stressed-out life. I would call her tomorrow. Tell her how much I loved her. Try to make that pain recede a little bit.
I slept poorly that night. Because my pillow didn’t smell as good as Ethan’s. My blanket wasn’t as warm as Ethan. The reality was, as much as I thought I’d done the right thing, I could also concede that Nicki was right.
