Just Roll With It: a Just Us novel (29 page)

I needed something drastic and public. Catching her off-guard in front of people is the sure way to prove to her that I am indeed the piece of shit she doesn't think I am. When I told my new lab partner about Rigbee, she made an annoying squealing noise thing and informed me on how she already knew her. Shana thought Bee was trash and she wasn't afraid to tell her, or me, for the matter. I skipped lab again after that. I couldn't deal with someone talking about Bug like she was to my face. Due to Amy's accident, my professor let it go and told me he understood I was grieving.
Right. He didn't know shit.

Now that I know Bee's past with my new obnoxious lab partner, I should keep my distance from the evil bitch. But I won’t. She might just be the only way to make this work. 

"He said he didn't need to do drugs because I was his drug, or something similar." He made the strange and random comment back when he went to the Miami tournament. Right before we went to Toronto. I didn't care anyway. I didn't even ask. He flat out told me for no reason and out of nowhere. Even then he was full of shit.

"Cocaine? Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure."

"It doesn't make sense. He flipped out on Lyle when he brought the crap to the hotel party."

I am baffled by the idea of Roman lying to me about what he was doing in Miami over the winter.

"I'm one-hundred-and-one percent. I don't think you've noticed, but he acted different when he was around you. Like, he wanted you to think he's an … I don't know, a better person or something."

Willow is talking as we sit cross-legged on my bedroom floor, finishing off our second bottle of wine.

"I never wanted him to be a better person! I wanted him to be trustworthy is all!" I go to throw my hands up but then stop when I realize I'm still holding my glass and it's a quarter of the way full.

"Were you never different when you were with him?" She squints her eyes and sloppily points at me. "Like
you
wanting
him
to think
you
were a better person? Things happen when you meet people who you want to like you. It's not being untrustworthy." She sighs. "It's about being the best person you can be for someone you care about." She shrugs.

"Not if you're still doing those things. Doing the stuff you don't think the other person would like behind their back!" I give her my best
duh
face.

"You never, not once …" She stops speaking to take a sip. She holds up a single finger with the hand not holding her glass, motioning for me to wait while she gulps down the wine. "… acted as if you were different in front of him? Not once? Not even in the beginning?" Now I can't tell if she meant for her finger to be used as a
hold on a second while I take a sip
, or to represent the
once
when she said
"Not once?".

"That’s not—" I start my defense, only to be drunkenly interrupted.

"It's exactly the same. I know you didn't want him to think you were damaged, or whatever, because of your whole anxiety thing, so you didn't tell him." She stops, then apparently realizes she has more to say and shouts, "
In fact, you never ended up telling him at all!
He figured it out on his own. Were you ever going to tell him?"

She waits for me to answer with eyes wide in anticipation while unknowingly rapidly bouncing one of her cross-legged knees up and down out of angst. She is way too invested and interested in my drama.

"What the shit is this? Quit interrogating me. Are you on his side now?" I whine, avoiding the question. Maybe if I stall long enough and she drinks more she will forget what we were talking about.

"Hey, I'm not on any side. I am on the outside—" she pauses for what I assume is an unnecessary dramatic effect "—looking inside." She raises her glass up and puts it in front of her eyes to literally look into it.

The wine glass magnifies her eyes, making them look really big from where I'm sitting. I explode into a fit of giggles.

"What do you think is funny about this." She crosses her arms, lifts her chin, and waits for my answer.

"Your eyes!" I screech. "They were so big," I inform her through chuckles as I continue my fit.

She points her first two fingers at her eyes and then at me, all while still drinking from her glass.

Her eyes go wide. "How symbolic." A slow and menacing smile spreads across her face. "It's an omen, and it means I see more than you think."

My giggles only become stronger, and I fall over on my side. It's a good thing I finished the rest of my wine—it would have spilled out of the glass I now have dangling from my hand. She starts laughing now too. However, it isn't long before we find ourselves somber, lying on our backs on my floor, staring at the ceiling.

She's still looking into the blank space above a moment later when she breaks the silence.

"You are both my friends. I'm trying to show you he wasn't always messing with you. Granted, he is now, but he wasn't then. What he was doing was real. He cared about you, a lot."

"Cared. As in, past tense." My skin breaks out with goosebumps when the chill of realization hits.

She turns only her head to face me. "I don't know what's going through his head right now, but I can sure as shit tell you he still loves you. He might be trying to bury it, but it's there."

"He doesn't love me. He never did and doesn't now. I told him for the first time during our last phone call. I said those three stupid words out loud, and he didn't say them back. I was so stupid." I throw my hands over my face in embarrassment.

"You weren't stupid. He was stupid."

"That's right. He was stupid." I nod my head.

The wine is hitting me hard now. I suddenly have an urge. An itch in need of scratching. Like, right this second. Deep, I'm talking way back, in the black of my mind, I know leaving an angry message would not be something I would do sober. I will regret this later, but my drunk self is telling me it's so very much the perfect time. That I have to do it now while I have the courage. I shoot up off the floor and wave my finger in the air as the sudden epiphany courses through my willful brain.

"Phone! I need my phone!"

Willow sits up slowly and halfway leans back on her elbows. "Uh oh, what are you thinking that's causing you to be so zealous all of a sudden?"

"Message. He's not answering my calls but he will get a message. I need to tell him he is stupid. He needs to know right now. If he knows he's stupid, then maybe he can try to be less stupid again."

"You do realize what you're doing is the very definition of drunk dialing, right? There is a reason it's deemed bad. I don't remember exactly what the reason is at the moment, but there is definitely a reason it comes with such a stigma."

"Leave it to you to use such big words after a bottle of wine. Now where did I put my phone?"

"You don't like big words? I enjoy big words. I have a love affair with big words. How can you not like words? Words are so vital to your—"

I interrupt her rambling. "I like big words, all right? But not when I'm inhebri-inheb. Drunk. See what I mean. Now where's my Thor-whore phone?" I pace around the room, looking in all the places my phone wouldn't be. Like the mini fridge.

"Are you sure you should be chewing him out when you can't even say big words? And did I hear you say Thor-whore?"

"What? Yes. I don't need big words.
You
and
are
and
stupid
are all little enough words I can say just fine. And Thor-whore, like goddamn. You know, deity plus swear word. Equals new and even better swear word. Now lay off about the words!"

"Fine. Over there on the charger by my phone." She points.

"Oh. Right."
Wow. Just wow.

"You know, I think I want to do this now too." She hops up. When I say hop, I mean literally hops. She's acting like an excited little bunny rabbit all of a sudden.

"Do what? You don't have a hugely jack ass-ish boyfriend who's in dire need of a drunk dial chewing out message."

"Nope. But I do have a hugely jack ass-ish step-brother who does. Hand me my phone this is going to happen now."

"What? No." I hold her phone away from her in hostage. "Malik is incredibly pleasant. What on Earth could you possibly be mad at him about?"

"You have no idea. He's so frustrating. Maybe I'll tell you halfway through the next bottle. Phone! Now!"

"All right. Damn, girl. Chill. Here's your phone." I let my hostage go without further negotiation.

"Thanks." All smiley now, she's back to being bunny again.

She's midway through scrolling her contacts, presumably to find her step-brother's name, when Roman's voicemail picks up. I hold the phone out in front of me and point at the picture on the screen, as if it was actually him I'm about to yell at. It might as well be.

"You! You, Row-Man, have thoroughly underestimated my cap- capacity. No, that's not right. I mean capability. Yes,
capability
, to find shit out!" I scream into the receiver and then hang up.

I glance over at Willow. She's frozen with her phone in hand, looking at me with her jaw dropped and eyebrows raised.

"Wow. What happened to telling him he's stupid and not using big words?" 

So I have decided to take up drinking. It helped with the attacks before, so maybe it will help now. I was fine, as fine as I can be right now, until Enzo and I stopped at the gas station.

He offered to pump my gas so I decided to go in and buy a pack of gum. Fucking Enzo being all nice and crap, allowing me the moment to go get the fucking gum. I should have just pumped my own goddamn gas.

I walk in and see Nate standing at the cash register. It goes without saying, after the Ren Fest fiasco, the remainder of fall semester was pretty awkward. We never hung out again after that, obviously, but even the exchange of a slight smile or polite greeting was a rare occasion. The lack of congeniality was, believe it or not, on his part. Nate seemed to go out of his way to avoid interacting with me. Once the semester was over, so was our friendship. Communication became nonexistent, and I haven't seen him since. I walk over to the counter, because the gum is there anyway, and mentally ready myself to say hi. My preparedness seems unnecessary the moment I catch Nate notice me out of the corner of his eye. I stand disheartened and watch as he hightails it the hell out of there. I didn't know it was possible for the chiming of a store door to reverberate with the profound idle animosity I am forced to swallow as I stare painfully at his retreating form. Still wounded from the fresh sting of rejection, Nate's evasiveness hurt more than it should have. I scramble out of there, and it’s not until I open my door to get in my car do I realize I didn't even get my fucking gum.

"He's giving you more than space, Bee. You might not see it, but I can. He knows what he's doing. He's pushing you away on purpose. I did it to Marty. Stupid is as stupid does. I hate to be the one to tell you, but needing space never ends in happily ever afters."

I'm sitting in the passenger seat of my car next to Enzo in the mall parking lot. He tends to get all philosophical and shit when he drinks, but today I am okay with that.