Herpagonasyphilaids
This was not happening. There was absolutely no possible way this was happening. I struggled to think of any good reason why Zac would be in Bella’s room late at night in his underwear, but I could think of none except the obvious.
“You’re sleeping with her,” I hissed.
“I—I didn’t mean for you to find out this way,” Zac stuttered out.
“I’m sure you didn’t mean for me to find out at all,” I said, crossing my arms. “If you did, you would have just told me. It’s pretty clear you were hiding it from me.”
“Can you blame me?” Zac asked. “You’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t like her. So I’m sorry if I didn’t feel like hearing how awful I am for being with her.”
“Well, you’re going to hear about it now,” I replied.
“I wasn’t aware I needed your approval anyway. Do you have to vet every girl I sleep with?”
I stared at him. I had exploded in anger at him, without thinking of how it must look. Surely he could hear the jealousy in my words. There was no way to deny it; I was just jealous. It wasn’t like he had never dated before, and I knew that he wasn’t a virgin, but I had never had to spend that much time with the girls he dated. None of them ever seemed to last long or get very serious. And none of them were Bella.
“I… I don’t…” I stuttered out, struggling to find something to say to make myself look reasonable. “Look, you know how I feel about her. Doesn’t my opinion mean anything to you?”
“Zac?” Bella’s voice rang out just seconds before her door opened further and she stepped out wearing some silky little nightgown. “Oh… is everything okay out here?”
“Everything’s fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “We just had a little traffic jam at the bathroom.”
“Well,” she said, turning back to Zac. “Hurry up and get back in here, won’t you?”
He gave her a little nod, but didn’t speak. I just shoved past him and made my way to the bathroom. I could hear his and Bella’s voices, then the sound of her bedroom door closing. I tried not to think about what they might be doing in her room and hurried back to my own room. I doubted I would be able to fall asleep again after that, but I had to try.
Just as I settled back into bed, there was a knock at my door, followed by Zac’s soft voice. “George? You still awake?”
“No. Go away.”
Rather than do as I said, he opened the door. With the hallway light shining behind him, I could see that he had put his clothes back on. His hair was still a mess, reminding me of what he had just done with Bella.
“Are you mad at me?” He asked.
“Why would I be mad at you?” I tried to sound friendly and oblivious, but failed.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I mean, I was going to tell you. Eventually. You finding out this way was a complete accident.”
“Yeah, well, what’s done is done,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it. So you just go on back to Bella and try not to catch the herpagonasyphilaids, and let’s never talk about it again, okay?”
“Fine,” Zac said. “Whatever. I should have known you were going to be ridiculous about this. I was going to apologize for it, but you know what? I’m not sorry. I know you don’t, but I like her. I’m not going to apologize for that.”
“Then don’t. Just get out and let me sleep.” As I said it, I rolled over to let him know the conversation was over.
“Fine,” he repeated. Seconds later the door slammed behind him.
I could hear Zac and Bella’s voices again, but I put my pillow over my head to drown them out. I thought I could make out the sound of a door closing, but I wasn’t sure if it was Bella’s or the suite’s main door. I wasn’t sure I really cared.
That was a lie, though. I did care. I cared a lot. On a rational level, I didn’t think it was wrong to be upset that Zac had kept the fact that he was sleeping with Bella, the roommate from hell, hidden from me. He knew how I felt about her. He knew sleeping with her would hurt me, and he did it anyway. Even if he was clueless about my feelings for him, it was a dick move and he had to know that.
Did he know how I felt about him, though?
Surely he knew that I was jealous. And ultimately that was the biggest reason why I was so upset. None of the girls Zac had dated before had been that remarkable. They hadn’t been like me, but they hadn’t been so unlike me as Bella was. If that was what he really wanted, then it was obvious that I didn’t stand a chance with him and never would.
With that thought in mind, I curled up and cried myself to sleep.
I didn’t feel any better the next day. I woke up with puffy eyes and a pain in my chest like something had just been ripped out of it–namely, my heart. I covered up the tracks of my tears with makeup, but I knew any of my friends would be able to tell something was wrong as soon as they looked at me. Unfortunately, the one friend who could see through me–in every way but one–no longer seemed to care. And that was what had gotten me into this situation.
Even though I wanted to do nothing but stay in bed all day or even for the rest of my life, I forced myself to get up and go to class. Luckily, I didn’t have any classes with Bella on Wednesdays or the decision to stay in bed would have been very easy to make. I didn’t see her or any of my other roommates until I made my way into the food court for lunch.
Most of our group was already sitting at a table when I made my way over with my chicken sandwich. Most of them… except for one very important person. It was just as well, since I didn’t want to see him right then anyway.
“Hey, George,” Molly said, her voice so chipper that it was clear she hadn’t noticed my bad mood yet. “I don’t have a TA session tonight, so we were talking about the plans for tonight. Any ideas?”
“Nope,” I said. “No ideas.”
Molly tilted her head to the side and examined me as I sat down next to her. “Are you okay?”
I sighed. “I guess I should just tell you guys. Unless you already know, and Zac just made sure I was the last to find out.”
“The last to find out what?” Peyton asked. Elijah looked equally clueless, and that made me feel better. If Zac‘s own roommate didn’t know, then it was obvious that on some level Zac was ashamed. If he wasn’t, he ought to have been.
“That Zac is–” I began, the words dying in my mouth when I saw him walk into the food court with Bella. They were close together, their bodies practically touching even though they didn’t hold hands or anything. It was still very clear they were together. “I think I’m going to go barf now.”
“Oh my god. He’s not,” Peyton said, gaping at them.
“He is,” I replied. “And I only found out when I accidentally stumbled upon his walk of shame. He wasn’t even going to tell me.”
“How long has this been going on?” Molly asked.
“I’m guessing as long as he’s been staying out late studying,” Elijah cut in. “Studying Bella’s anatomy, it would seem.”
“Thank you for that wonderful mental image.” I glared at him.
To my utter dismay, Zac and Bella were walking toward our table. They parted ways with a brief kiss halfway there and she headed off toward her sorority pledge table. That was one small victory, at least, to know that I didn’t have to eat lunch with her. Somehow, it really didn’t make me feel any better.
As Zac approached our table, all conversation ground to a halt and was replaced by an awkward silence. He noticed it, I was sure, because he paused and stared at us. We were all staring up at him, too. I had no clue what everyone else was feeling, but I was disgusted, jealous and furious. From what I could tell, they all just looked shocked. I didn’t blame them.
“Hey,” Zac said, sticking his hands in his pockets and glancing around the table.
Everyone else at the table mumbled a greeting, but I couldn’t speak. The longer I looked at Zac, the angrier I became. Maybe it was irrational to think of it that way, but I just couldn’t understand how he could do this to me. He knew how I felt about her. He knew, even if he didn’t know how I felt about him, that this would hurt me. How could doing something that hurt me make Zac happy? I just didn’t understand it at all, and the more I thought about it, the more I wondered how things would ever be the same between us.
“So,” Zac said, sliding into a chair like nothing unusual at all was happening. “Have we come up with any plans for game night?”
Game night. I had completely forgotten about it. I wished I could forget it again.
Molly shook her head. “We were just talking about it, since I can actually be there for once, but we hadn’t decided on anything.”
“Well, how about Magic? Although I think George still has my best deck,” Zac said, giving me a little nudge when he said my name.
“Really?” I backed away from him. “Really, Zac?”
“What?” He asked.
“You’re going to act like things are totally okay right now?”
Zac frowned. “Yeah, I was kind of hoping we could. Making a big deal out of this isn’t going to fix anything.”
“No,” I replied. “You’re right. It’s not. You know what would fix this, though.”
“I’m not going to break up with her just because you don’t like her.”
I felt my eyes widen. “You’re actually dating her? I didn’t know she did dating. I thought she just did communicable diseases.”
“I’m not going to have this conversation,” Zac said. “Not ever, but especially not here and now, in front of everyone. You can’t just talk about my girlfriend like that.”
I was going to be sick. I was definitely going to be sick.
“You guys,” I said, pushing my tray back and standing up. “I think, umm, maybe we should cancel game night. I just… I just don’t think I can do this. I’m sorry.”
Before anyone could complain about that, I hurried away from the table. No one tried to stop me. They were all still frozen in shock at the conversation they had just witnessed, it seemed.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, I supposed. Yet I was. He was actually dating her. Zac, my best friend, was dating that bitch and he expected me to just be okay with it. He expected me not to make a big deal out of it. How could he possibly expect that to happen?
It couldn’t. Things would never be okay as long as he was dating her, and I wasn’t sure they would be okay even if they broke up. There was no way our friendship could ever be the same again.