Surgeon General’s Warning
Sure enough, Bella was out of the suite by the end of the next day. We all volunteered to help her pack—except for Zac, of course. He kept his distance, which I felt was probably at least partially to prove to me that he really wasn’t with her or interested in her anymore. In that sense, it was overkill, but I appreciated the thought.
And Bella? Well, she was clueless as to why we all wanted to help her. I’m sure she thought we were just being nice. What she didn’t realize, though, was just how happy we were to see her leave. She ought to have been smart enough to realize that, but I really don’t think she was. Sometimes, I was convinced that some people were just so two-faced that they didn’t even realize it anymore. They could treat you like shit, get found out, then turn around and be so nice to you and not understand why you didn’t trust their niceness. Bella was a textbook example of that sort of person.
But she was gone, never to critique my looks or fuck my best friend again.
We were all so happy to have her gone, in fact, that our game night Wednesday was partially a party to celebrate being Bella-free. It was also technically Zac’s birthday, although we had already decided to save most of our celebrating for the weekend, when Taylor had planned to throw him a party in his apartment. Since it was his birthday, we let Zac choose the game—Cards Against Humanity.
“So, will they move someone else in now that Bella is gone?” Elijah asked.
“I hope not,” I replied. “It’s halfway through the semester. Anybody who has problems with their roommate has probably already figured it out and switched with somebody else. Maybe a transfer, but again, it’s pretty late in the semester.”
“Don’t jinx us,” Peyton said, pointing a finger at me. “We thought there couldn’t be a roommate worse than Sharon. I think Bella proved that wrong.”
“Sharon?” Elijah asked.
“You know,” Peyton said. “That girl I got stuck with last fall. Went to bed at eight pm every night, even Friday and Saturday, and woke up screaming if I so much as typed too loudly after that. But she could stomp around while she got ready for her morning run at six am. Because that didn’t wake me up or anything.”
“Yikes,” Elijah replied, then glanced around at the rest of us. “Remind me not to piss her off. Somebody holds a grudge.”
I chuckled. “Well, anyway, we’re free of Bella and hopefully we won’t get anyone else. Speaking of grudges, I guess.”
“You know, she was a bitch. I’m not denying that,” Zac said. “But I did also recently break up with her, so can we just… not talk about her so much?”
Elijah nudged him. “It’s cool. We’ll get you shitfaced at your party and you’ll forget her completely. Maybe you’ll even manage to get laid!”
I coughed and sputtered a little, not feeling like pointing out that Zac had been getting laid. I really, really didn’t need to think about that. Based on the way Zac blushed and scowled at the same time, I didn’t think he wanted the reminder either.
“I don’t know why you’re letting Taylor throw you a party,” Molly cut in, finally handing over her answer card to Zac. “I mean, are you going to know anyone there? Besides us. And if it weren’t your birthday, I really don’t know if any us would bother going to one of his parties again.”
As Molly leaned across the coffee table, her hair fell back and I saw a spot on her neck that looked suspiciously like a hickie. I opened my mouth to point it out, but I was cut off by Zac.
“Well, why not?” He asked. “Sure, there will be a lot of people there who I don’t know, but there will also be a lot of alcohol.”
“I feel like Taylor’s parties should come with a Surgeon General’s warning,” Peyton said. “If not for the alcohol poisoning, then for the STDs you could probably pick up from touching any surface in that apartment.”
I shuddered at the thought… then remembered that they were all talking about the guy I had just been caught fucking. That kind of ruined the joke for me, and the fact that everyone was staring at me only made it worse.
I tried to laugh off my discomfort. “Can I declare a moratorium on mocking Taylor, too? If we can ban Bella talk, and none of us even like her, surely we can lay off Taylor.”
“Is ‘lay off’ really the phrase you want to use there? Really?” Zac asked.
My mouth fell open in shock that he would even joke about the situation at all. There was a little bit of an edge to his words, though. I wasn’t so sure it really was a joke. For a moment, we just stared at each other, like we were daring each other to say something else. Finally, I shook my head and looked away.
“Whatever,” I said. “I think we should have a little get together here first, though. Do the cake and the normal birthday party stuff. Then we can go get trashed with Taylor or whatever.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” Zac said, then grinned and added, “You can all just bring your presents here.”
“I love how you’re just assuming we all bought you something,” Peyton replied.
“Well, maybe not the rest of you worthless assholes, but Georgie always gets me the best presents.”
I caught Elijah making smoochy faces at us, and I tried really hard not to roll my eyes. What Zac had said didn’t really imply anything. He was right; I did always put a lot of thought into his birthday presents. Except for this year. We had barely even been speaking for the past few weeks, so his birthday had been the absolute last thing on my mind. I was going to have to sneak out after class and buy him something really good.
But Elijah’s point… well, I didn’t think he had one. Zac had a point. The fact that I bought him great presents didn’t mean anything, and the fact that he appreciated them didn’t mean anything either. I bought everyone great presents, but of course I did my best for my best friend. I was really getting sick of Elijah acting like everything Zac and I did was proof that my feelings for him were reciprocated. I just didn’t see it at all.
A quick glance around the room revealed that everyone else seemed to agree with Elijah, though. Everyone but Zac, who had gone right back to the game as though he hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary. And to me, he hadn’t.
“What makes you think I bought you anything either?” I said teasingly, even though it was the truth. He didn’t need to know that.
Zac nudged me. “Oh, please. I know you better than that.”
Did he? Until recently, I would have said that we knew each other pretty well. But I hadn’t thought Zac was capable of actually liking and wanting to date someone like Bella. And I’m sure Zac wouldn’t have thought I was capable of, as he would have put it, doing the horizontal mambo with Taylor. But Zac also didn’t know about my crush on him. So how well did we really know each other? Maybe not at all.
“Yeah,” I replied, laughing nervously. “You keep telling yourself that.”
Thankfully, the subject was dropped soon after that and we finished our game without any further incident. It was, after all, a week night and we were all big dorks, so we didn’t stay up all hours of the night playing our games. Before it got too ridiculously late, we called it a night and the boys left.
The three of us girls went our separate ways to get ready for bed, too. It felt so, so good to have a bathroom all to myself. I did feel a little guilty, since Molly and Peyton still had to share, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that. Mostly, I was just glad that I didn’t have to share with Bella. Even if she hadn’t been trying to get in the middle of my friendship with Zac, she was still just a bitch whose very existence made me feel inferior. Not seeing all of her beauty products, which she didn’t even need except to go from naturally gorgeous to fucking perfect Barbie Doll, littering the bathroom was more of a relief than I had the words to explain.
Once I had showered, dried my hair and put my pajamas on, I padded back to the kitchen to get a glass of water to wash down my pill. Until recently, I had felt kind of silly being on birth control, since any kid I conceived would be the second coming, but at least now I could say I had a reason other than my awful periods to bother with it.
I was standing at the sink when I heard footsteps approaching, and I spun around quickly to see who it was. Of course it had to be Molly or Peyton, but weeks of living with Bella obviously still had me on edge even in my own suite.
“Oh,” I said, when I realized it was Molly. “I thought I was the only person still awake.”
“I just got up to get a drink of water,” she said, nudging me aside gently to get a glass from the dish drainer. With her that close to me and her hair pulled back in a messy bun to sleep in, I could see the spot on her neck more clearly. I had almost forgotten about it earlier, but it was staring me in the face right then.
“Umm, Molly?” I asked. “This is a ridiculous question, but is that… a hickie on your neck?”
“What?” She gasped out, and I almost believed that she really didn’t know what it was until she fumbled around and managed to cover it entirely with her hand, in spite of supposedly not knowing where it was or even that it was there at all. “N-no, I think I… I burned myself with my flat iron.”
I eyed her critically. “Look, I’m not going to ask who gave it to you. Mostly because I don’t feel the need to be hassled about my own sexual choices lately… again. But I just wanna know if my BFF is getting any—and I don’t mean Zac. I know way too much about his sex life already.”
“You’re just bitter because you’re not a part of his sex life,” Molly teased. Blushing a little, she added, “Look, I don’t know if I could calling it getting any. That sounds so sleazy. But I guess… I don’t know. I’ve been hanging out with the guy I told you about a little more.”
“I bet you have been.” I nudged her playfully. “I just don’t get why you won’t tell me who he is. Unless it’s for the same reason I didn’t want to tell you about Taylor. Oh my god, you’re doing Taylor!”
“I am not!” Molly squealed, giggling. “It’s just, you know, we’re not ready to go public or whatever. I don’t wanna complicate things. I like it being just between me and him.”
“That makes sense, I guess. I mean, god knows people finding out complicated things with Taylor. Not that there are things—it’s just sex, I swear. And I don’t even know how that makes it better, but it does.”
“Probably because while the idea of Taylor having sex with anyone is—no offense—really disgusting, it’s at least believable. But the thought of Taylor dating someone? Having feelings for someone that don’t originate in his underwear? The world might as well end right then and there.”
I giggled, but Molly was right. She was so right. I wasn’t totally sure that Zac understood that distinction. Maybe he just didn’t care, and the thought of me being with Taylor was going to bother him no matter what. At least Bella’s indiscretion had given him a reason to apologize to me and try to get over the Taylor thing.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was a step in the right direction. Just about four million more steps left before he realized I was in love with him, I supposed.