The Broken Hearts' Society of Suite 17C Page 4

  “It’s good to see you, Ames,” he answered, pulling her into a soft hug without even trying to kiss her.

  What in the world was going on? They were away from home now, out from under the watchful eye of her dad. Adam was almost always a gentleman with his kisses, saving the really passionate ones for rare private occasions, but this was college. Amy pulled back a little and stood on her tiptoes, stretching her lips to his. But he just gave her that same weird smile again and stepped back from her, too. “Can we talk?”

  Now the pit in Amy’s stomach was really heavy. The last time she’d said those words, she was sitting Adam down for a talk, and the news wasn’t good. But she’d been so scared then, and right now he looked…calm. Resigned. Sure of himself in a way she’d never been.

  He tugged her toward the common area tucked inside Harrison tower’s entryway, filled with decade-old furniture pre-arranged to encourage freshmen to socialize. She sat on one of the loveseats, the swirled, office-grade fabric rasping against her thighs when her sundress hiked up. She tugged it back down toward her knees, but the fabric stubbornly rode up.

  Adam sat in the chair opposite her, and reached both his hands out. Instinctively, she wove her fingers with his.

  “Amy,” he started, “I’m glad we’re finally getting a chance to talk.”

  “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you, but I thought—”

  “It’s been busy,” he cut her off. “We’ve both been busy, but in the past couple days, I’ve done a lot of thinking, too.”

  Amy’s eyebrows furrowed. “Thinking about what?” All the thinking, all the planning, had been done before they got here. All during senior year, as they completed their applications at the same cafeteria table and went out to dinner together to open their acceptance letters. As Adam held her hand two weeks after graduation and promised her everything would be okay, that this was just a bump in the road that they would get over without a hitch.

  “I’ve been thinking, and praying, Ames. And talking to my dad. The thing is, everything here at Northern is so new. It can be overwhelming, and a little confusing, too. And I really want to do the right thing.”

  Okay, this was seriously confusing. “I know you do, babe,” Amy said, “You always do the right thing. Always.”

  He blew out a breath. “It’s so good to hear you say that.” His eyes darted around the common area, and seeing nobody else there—it was nearly time for dinner—he looked at her again, squeezing her hands gently. “I think it would be best if we took a little break.”

  “Break from…what?” Amy gave him a gentle smile even as her stomach went wild. She could guess what he meant, knew it, probably, deep down. But taking a break from their relationship was not a concept she could begin to wrap her head around, so she asked the question anyway.

  “I’ve been meeting a lot of guys here, and they all broke up with their girlfriends—and boyfriends—before they moved here. College is meant for experiencing new things, and I really want to give that my best shot.”

  “But we talked about this, we—”

  “I wasn’t lying when I told you I’d prayed about this,” he said, lowering his voice and giving her a pitying look. As if that helped the giant fist slowly squeezing her ribs together so that she couldn’t breathe. “God wants something bigger for us, Amy, and I’m pretty sure it’s for us to be together. But don’t you want to be sure yourself? Don’t you want to know what it’s like, to be apart, before we decide to be together?”

  “What do you mean, to be apart? What would be the difference, Adam? We’d have the same classes, the same roommates, the same everything, except we wouldn’t have each other. We wouldn’t have anyone.”

  Adam’s eyebrows furrowed down further, and he pulled one hand away from Amy’s to slide it over the back of his neck, shaking his head slightly.

  “I’m saying I think we should…you know. See other people for a little while. See who else is out there.”

  “You’re saying…I’m sorry. You’re saying you want to go out with…other girls?” The words felt too strange rolling off her tongue, because she had never even entertained that concept. There were no other girls, not for Adam. He’d told the story a hundred times, how they’d shared a football field since he was on the Kindergarten PeeWee team and she bounced around with the Tiny Tigers cheer squad. Her mom joked that it might be love at first sight, but they’d never know, because the first time they’d seen each other they were infants, gurgling at each other across the church pews. Their relationship was a given, like the rotation of the Earth or ham on Easter. Adam loved her and she loved him and they were going to be together forever.

  Most of all, they were going to complete the family they’d accidentally started. They were going to make the whole thing right.

  Now he dropped her hands entirely, and sat up straight. “I talked to my dad, too. I told him what I was feeling.” His deep blue eyes with flecks of gray, the ones she’d marveled at so many times between kisses, flashed into hers, then looked down again. “He agreed that you’re a great girl, and that you’re perfect for me, and that I owe it to you to be completely certain. In my heart.”

  Amy wanted to be sick. No, she was definitely going to vomit. The thought of Adam being with other girls in the same way he’d touched her…kissing them, slow dancing with them, running his hands through their hair…it was unnatural. “You can’t,” she whispered. “After everything that happened to us…you just can’t.”

  “No, Amy.” Adam’s voice took on that tone that meant a decision was being made, whether Amy liked it or not. “After everything that happened to us, I need to.”

  Hot tears clouded her vision without warning. She looked toward him, but couldn’t see him. It was like he was fading away before her very eyes, with the rest of her future. With the one they’d started back home, and were supposed to be picking up right now.

  “You need to go now,” she whispered. She wasn’t even sure what made her say it. She didn’t want Adam to leave, but this wasn’t the Adam she knew—the one who was, above all else, devoted to her. Loyal, honorable. Steadfast. This wasn’t the same Adam. Whether it was his roommates, his father, or his own confusion, something had changed him, and she couldn’t look at him anymore.

  “Baby, are you okay? Can I walk you back up to your room?”

  Amy’s stomach lurched. “You need to go now,” she said, her voice a little stronger. A couple other thoughts ran through her head—like how she wasn’t a baby, and obviously not his anymore, and how she could walk herself back up to her room—but she couldn’t bring herself to say them in a way that didn’t draw attention to herself.

  With a shaking arm, she pushed herself up from the chair, and forced her legs to turn from Adam and toward the elevator, the only place that offered any certainty or comfort now.

  “Amy, please. I want you to know how much I love you.”

  But he didn’t. She’d thought he loved her, but here was the evidence, plain as day. He didn’t. You couldn’t do something like this to someone you loved.

  She let out a shuddering breath, and forced herself to walk to the elevator. Punch the number. 17. Her suite. The only thing that felt anything close to safe right now. She could barely see Adam’s outline in the lobby when she turned and rested against the back wall of the elevator. He’d gotten so much smaller, so far away. He wasn’t moving, but she was. Up, up, and away.

  To get over one breakup, I went out to a drag club for mardi gras. It wasn’t about male attention, it was about remembering how to have fun without it.

  ~L.S. Mooney

  Rion

  Rion sat down hard on her bed, wincing as its springs squeaked beneath her. The girl on the couch in their common room—Arielle, she thought—was obviously a fucking mess. Maybe a head case, too. Whatever was going on with her, Rion did not want to disturb the silence that Amy, the chipper pretty one, had left in her wake as she bounced out of the room to dinner with God-knew-who. At least it had go
tten her smiley ass out of the room.

  A sigh escaped Rion’s lips as she stared at her own blank walls. Fucking pathetic. What had she gotten herself into, anyway? She should have known better than to think she could share a living space with two entitled college brats without wanting to kill them.

  Her stomach grumbled, loudly, almost echoing off the gray concrete blocks that surrounded her. For a split second, panic shot through her as she wondered what time dinner was, whether she had missed it—then she remembered that she was at college now, that her scholarship covered her food, and that on a campus this big, there was some kind of dining hall open at pretty much any time. She could do whatever she damn well pleased. At least, when it came to meals.

  She hoisted herself up and gingerly opened the door to her room, again. Arielle still sat on the couch, staring at nothing. Jesus, she could have at least put the fucking TV on. Anything to fill the horrible silence punctuated by her pathetic sniffling.

  Rion didn’t know this girl at all, so she had no way to know whether she would or should like her. But so help her God, she would murder whatever asshole prepubescent son-of-a-bitch pussy college boy had turned her into a red-faced, sniveling, awkwardness-oozing roommate on her first day at school.

  Should Rion tell her where she was going? In the group home, she rarely spoke to her roommates—for one, she didn’t dare, because she was legitimately worried the bitches would knife her. But for another she didn’t have to. They had a curfew, and set times for meals. More importantly, they didn’t give a shit about each other. In a group home, you could only afford to give a shit about yourself.

  “I’m going to get something to eat. I’m starving.” She left out the part about what a goddamn long, awful day it had been finding out she had to work at a head shop just to stay in school. This girl’s day had obviously been worse, even though Rion didn’t know what it would really take to get her to cry that much anymore. Cry at all, really. The last time she’d let herself had been Dad’s funeral, and even then she didn’t know exactly what the tears were made up of.

  “Could you bring back something? Anything. I skipped lunch but I don’t think I can leave the room.”

  Dramatic, much?

  “You have swipes, right?”

  Rion’s mouth dropped open. “I …” the presumptuousness of a kid asking her to buy dinner meant that this kid never had to worry about money. Ever. But then it occurred to her—not only did her 21-meal-a-week meal plan give her enough to eat, but there would almost certainly be leftover meals she could share. And Rion had had bad days, days where she would have given her right arm for someone willing to bring her dinner.

  Not to mention all the crying had made the poor girl look like a fucking leper, her skin was so blotchy and swollen. She really shouldn’t be leaving the room. “Yeah. I do. I’ll be right back.”

  Rion took the stairs. Only sixteen flights, and they were all down— it gave her a good excuse to stretch, and to kill time. Who knew how long bouncy Amy would be gone?

  The dining hall in the basement of Harrison Tower was one of those a la carte places, where everything was made to order or pre-packaged and could be taken away in boxes. A moody introvert’s dream, Rion thought, smiling wryly. It was one of the things that made her happiest about being assigned this dorm in the first place.

  A bored-looking girl in a University polo and black visor took her order for three personal cheese pizzas. The gaping pit inside her stomach growled in approval. Had she seriously forgotten to eat lunch?

  She absentmindedly grabbed a bag of carrot sticks and a little container of ranch dressing to make them more palatable. A couple packages of Oreo cookies and a couple bottles of pop should do it. She loaded it all onto the tray and handed her card to the bug-eyed cashier. “What?” Rion snarled when the girl tipped her head down at her tray. The girl quickly swiped the card.

  “Wait,” Rion said, her eyes going to a cooler just behind the checkout. “Is that ice cream?”

  “Yeah, it’s Jeni’s. We get it sent in from Ohio.”

  “Is it any good?”

  “Oh, it’s the best.”

  “Okay, give me one of each flavor.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive. I have the biggest meal plan.”

  “Scholarship?”

  Rion glared at her.

  “All the scholarship kids get the biggest one, and always buy pints. RAs, too,” the girl rushed to explain, her voice full of apology. Rion realized for the first time that this girl was scared of her. Jesus.

  So, she forced a smile. “Makes sense.” She snagged a white plastic grocery bag from the end of the line and tossed everything in. Thank God her room was only an elevator ride away.

  Back inside Suite 17C, Rion dropped the bag on the wobbly particle board coffee table in their common room, and got to work spreading it out. Arielle had finally left the couch, but came back a few seconds after Rion slammed the door. She had on a huge t-shirt and a pair of yoga pants, which made Rion want to get into her own giant comfy pants. She’d brought a pair of Dad’s that she couldn’t actually remember him wearing, but they made her feel closer to him anyway. Arielle clutched a thin blanket around her shoulders and resettled on the same spot on the couch, picking up the little pack of tissues Amy had brought out for her.

  “Oh my God,” she moaned. “Pizza. You are the best. Seriously.”

  A smile twitched at the corners of Rion’s mouth. “See? Things aren’t all bad.”

  Now even Arielle cracked a smile. “It’s been pretty much the worst day of my life, but pizza always makes things better. Seriously, thank you.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Arielle’s eyes went wide. “You got dumped too?”

  “No, I just had to take a shit job I really didn’t want to take.” Rion had stormed out of the Studio determined to find some other place, any other place, to work. But all of them had online job applications that asked whether she’d ever been convicted of a crime. The little voice at the back of her head that said the Studio was the best opportunity she had was right. Dammit.

  Rion needed to change the subject before she got all melancholy. That wouldn’t help anyone. “So which of these douchebag college guys do I have to murder?” The words were out before she thought about what she meant by them. Why did she give a shit about which Indiana Northern asshole had broken Arielle’s heart? It seemed like the crying was over, and hopefully so was the food-ordering. They could go about their lives going to different classes and moving past each other from the door of their suite to the doors of their rooms, and before they knew it, freshman year would be over.

  But she still had some strange pull toward wanting to know. Wanting to care.

  “None of the guys. But a two-faced sorority girl would be good.”

  Ah, lesbian romance drama. Fucking fabulous. In the group home, Rion had seen more than a few gay girls making out one day and throwing punches the next, and that shit was never pretty.

  Still, she caught herself guarding her words. Caring what Arielle would think of her. “Well, give me her stats and I won’t let her into the Suite. You have my word.”

  Arielle cracked another smile as she reached for a pizza box. “Tall, willowy, straightened reddish-brown hair, wearing her sorority letters. Fucking gorgeous. And full of herself. You know, the usual.”

  “Done and done. If you have a picture we can hang it on the wall and throw darts at it.”

  But now the girl choked back a sob. “I have so many pictures.”

  “Okay, okay. Too soon. Sorry.” Rion fumbled through the bags. “Look. I have ice cream too. It’ll be okay.”

  And then the door to Suite 17C flung open, and the previously bubbly, bouncing, smiley Amy came in, her face dripping with tears and a total fucking mess.

  Arielle

  Arielle had been just about to shove a bite of hot, cheesy comfort food into her mouth when the door swung open. Shoulders shuddering, Amy let the door slam behi
nd her, and slumped against the wall. She slid down to the floor in time with the tears sliding down her cheeks, her purse softly thudding against the office-grade carpet a moment before her butt did.

  The pizza dropped on the plate, leaving a hot smear of pizza sauce on Arielle’s hand, which she absentmindedly wiped on her clean yoga pants. She’d have to find the laundry room sooner rather than later, she guessed.

  “Jesus fuck,” Rion murmured, slowly taking steps back toward her room.

  Amy gasped and whipped her head, with eyes wide with shock, over to Rion.

  “She’s really…Christian,” Arielle mumbled at Rion while she moved across the room to slide her arm around Amy’s back and pulled her to standing. “Come sit on the couch,” she said to the still-weeping girl. The haze of the headache that her own tears had left behind minutes before still pounded behind her eyes. If Arielle thought she’d looked bad, Amy multiplied that tenfold. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

  Maybe she was called down to the lobby because there was bad news from home. Maybe one of her parents had been in a car accident or something. Arielle would lose her shit if anything happened to her mom, no matter how much the woman could annoy her sometimes.

  “He…he…he said he loved me, but …” Amy managed, gasping, before she collapsed into tears again.

  “Motherfucker.” Rion swore again, but when Arielle shot her another scolding look, she shrugged and slumped into a chair, watching Amy, who was beginning to calm down enough to hiccup instead of gasp.

  “Oh, honey,” Arielle said, channeling her mom’s calming tone as much as possible. Her hand hovered in the air above Amy’s back, uncertain as to whether she should rub it like Amy had rubbed hers. A couple girls back in high school had flinched any time Arielle’s hand came close to touching their bra—she’d learned to be careful with touching girls.

  But when Amy let her head fall onto Arielle’s shoulder, the choice was thankfully made for her. Arielle put her arm around Amy’s back, and squeezed her shoulder. “What did he say?” She asked, softly. Carefully. She couldn’t repeat Rachel’s stupid excuses right now if she tried.