Under the Rose (11 page)

4)
“Sure. It wasn’t bad enough that my roommate and my society brother were getting it on while I’m trying to do my homework. I need more romantic torture today and a tête-à-tête with the ex fits the bill.”

T
HINGS
I DID S
AY

1)
“Brandon. Wow. Hi. Come in.”

And then I put my hand to my hair in the universal girly gesture of “Oh, look what a mess I am, I usually look so much better than this,” and ushered him into the room. I took a seat on the couch. He hesitated, then sat across from me on the coffee table. (Pinprick #1)

“How have you been?” he asked.

“Good. You?”

“Busy.” He smiled sheepishly and began folding a stray piece of paper on the table. “Working my ass off on my thesis. Have you started yours yet?”

I shook my head. “No. I need to soon, though. I was just e-mailing my advisor about our meeting.”

“What are you going to write about?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” I admitted. Brandon and I used to talk about our Lit papers all the time. I wondered if he now had those conversations with Felicity. I wondered if he proofread Felicity’s papers for her and then sent them back to her in the shape of little paper airplanes.

Brandon folded a nose onto the airplane he was creating out of a “subscribe to
Cosmo
” postcard. Yeah, that’s exactly what he did. Brandon flirts with aerogami. I watched his hands. His summer tan had faded, and they were back to being the pale olive color I remembered. I’d always loved how his skin looked against mine. At the thought, my skin flushed with heat.

To get my mind off its train of thought, I said, “I’m thinking maybe something with feminist theory. Maybe some sort of examination of female myths from several traditions.”

He nodded without looking up. “That’s so you.” After a moment he launched the airplane, and it dove straight to the floor. “I know we haven’t talked for a while.”

“Yeah.” And I don’t think that was my fault. The ball was totally in his court after his little “see you later” comment at Clarissa’s party. Probably too busy making four-fold stingers with
Felicity.

“Your summer sounded really interesting when you told me about it at the party.”

Me,
huh? Not
me and my stunning, rich girlfriend, in whom I found solace after you broke my heart
? Maybe he was about to tell me it had been nothing more than a summer fling. A rebound. They weren’t together anymore.

“Amy?” he asked, and he waved a hand in front of my face. He was smiling, but it wasn’t the special smile he used to give only me. (Pinprick #2) “Your summer?”

“It was amazing,” I said. “Really made me think a lot about my plans. I don’t think I ever could have learned as much running for coffee as an intern at Horton.”

“So, no more Manhattan editing position for you?”

“I haven’t decided,” I said. “Maybe I’ll go to grad school. Sometimes I think I’d like to do something really important and life-changing, like I did this summer, but full time. But I don’t know if I have that in me. I don’t know if I’m the type of person to do important things.”

Time was, Brandon would have responded with something like, “You’re very important.” But today, he just said, “You have to do what’s right for you.” (Pinprick #3)

He must be over me. Otherwise, he’d still believe I was capable of moving the world. That’s the best part of being loved. Someone attributes to you all kinds of abilities they’re fooled into thinking you possess.

Or maybe that’s the worst part. I guess it all depends if the person you love lets you down or not. I’d let Brandon down. He’d attributed to me a return of affection, devotion, and loyalty. I hadn’t lived up to it.

“So,” he continued, “how’s…everything else?”

“Like?” I asked, leaning forward.

“Like the stuff you don’t talk about?” he prompted, pulling at an imaginary society pin on his shirt.

“I don’t talk about it.” I shrugged. “But…it’s been good.”

The smile reached all the way up to his eyes this time. “I’m glad to hear that.”

I understood his need for paper airplanes. I was dying for something to do with my hands right now. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” I asked. “Is there anything specific you wanted to discuss?”

“No. I just missed you, Amy.” (Pinprick #4)

Amy. Amy. Amy.
No one said my name like him. No one had said my name like
that
in months. Even George only called me Boo. “We used to talk a lot,” said I.

“We used to be really good friends,” said he.

“And then we screwed it up.” There. I said it. And then, before we could back away from the big black hole we were edging around, I ploughed forward. “But I need to know. How did we screw it up? I mean, do you think it was when we tried to have a relationship in May? Or maybe if we hadn’t slept together back in February—”

“No.” He put his hand up and I closed my mouth over the rest of my outburst. “I think,” he began, “I would have screwed it up no matter what happened. Because I liked you, Amy, and I couldn’t stop pushing for something serious.”

He
liked
me? Last spring, he’d claimed he
loved
me. I’d been downgraded. No longer a hurricane in his life. Just a minor breeze. (Pinprick #5–5,000)

The door to Lydia’s room opened and out walked Josh. He nodded at us and hurried past, clearly sensing this was a private convo. And then, at the door to our suite, he turned to me and held up five fingers, his expression inquisitive.

I nodded once. Yes, Brandon was number five on my Hit List. And Josh knew it. Josh knew everything about me, and I knew everything about him. Including the fact that, even now, he was probably plotting to cheat on my best friend, the woman he’d left giggling back in her bedroom. And one wonders why I have little faith in relationships.

“So we were doomed,” I said, my voice flat.

Brandon chuckled. “Yes. Doomed. That’s suitably dramatic.”

Ouch. “How’s Felicity?” I asked, because as long as you’re going to indulge in pain, you might as well get it all over with at once. But even as I said it, a little part of my brain crossed its non-existent fingers and prayed,
Please say “Felicity who?”

“She’s good.” He started in on another plane. “You’d like her, Amy.”

I snorted. “I wouldn’t like her.”

But he didn’t ask me why not, and so I never got the chance to tell him I would never like his girlfriend because she was the living embodiment of how I’d disappointed him, of how I couldn’t be the girl he wanted me to be, and how I couldn’t love him the way she clearly did.

I hoped she loved him. I’ve never known a man so worthy of being loved. I thought I’d kill Josh if he hurt Lydia the way I feared he would. I
knew
I’d kill Felicity if she broke Brandon’s heart. Only I got to do that and live.

What he did say was “Are you seeing anyone?”

I broke into a weak laugh. “No. I don’t see people. Learned my lesson on that one, I think. I’m not the girlfriend kind of girl.”

He studied me. “I don’t think you know what kind of girl you are.”

Oh, please. I know and he knows, and apparently George knows, too. I don’t do relationships. If I did, there would never have been a Felicity. “And you’re the one who always says I think about that too much!”

Josh returned, and his second intrusion seemed to kick-start Brandon. “I’m going to stop by the Lit office with some coffees,” he said. “Want to go with me and deliver them?” It was a tradition at the
Eli Literary Magazine.
The old editors (like Brandon and me) would bring the new editors coffees when they were heading into crunch time. “Ari said they’d be in this afternoon.”

So he did have some pretense to visit. “Sure. Let me go change.” I went into my room, and as I closed the door behind me, it struck me that I was shutting out a man who’d already seen me naked plenty of times. The world would be ideal if ex-boyfriends disappeared like puffs of smoke, and you never had to run errands with them again.

So I got dressed. I wore my nicer (read: tighter) pair of jeans, my push-uppiest push-up bra, and a bright pink sweater with a deep V-neck. Of course, there was the usual carriwitchet over the placement of my pin. Strap of my bag, where Brandon had once before spotted it? Belt loop, where it would be nice and subtle?

“Screw it,” I said to the mirror, and attached the damn thing to the sweater’s neckline. I pulled on my ankle boots, grabbed my wallet/key/cell phone-on-a-carabiner combo, and marched out the door. “Ready?”

He looked from my neckline to my face and shook his head, a smile flickering over his mouth. “Sure.”

Do you know what I dislike? Aside from the obvious thing where I walk down the street with my ex-boyfriend on a spurious coffee-procuring trip? The thing where said ex-boyfriend is an utter genius who is not only completely over me, but also can see through absolutely every attempt I make to look fabulous and carefree about how much he’s over me. And doesn’t give a fig that I am a Digger, and therefore a member of a super-cool club he could never hope to penetrate.

So there I was, in line at the coffee place, listening to Brandon rattle off the very specific orders of the new Lit Mag editors. (Frankly, if you’re going to go with some sort of caramel mocha confection, you’re kidding yourself by making it with fat-free soy. It’s like ordering a Big Mac, large fries, and a small Diet Coke.) We moved down from the ordering section to the waiting-for-coffee section, and it’s there I saw Jenny. She was standing with that blond kid from the freshman bazaar. Her head was thrown back, laughing, she was practically beaming at him, and the look in her eyes was one I’d only seen on her face in the glow of a computer screen. I’d known Jenny for a good half a year now, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen her laugh like this.

Gone was the air of wariness and derision I was so accustomed to. There was no Ms. Hyde present this morning. Granted, we’ve all had our rough times in the tomb, but I should at least be able to recognize a fellow Digger’s expression of joy, should have seen it at least once—during a good song, a good lobster tail, a last-minute Kaboodle Ball victory? I’d observed our resident snorter, Nikolos, looking happier to be hanging out with the other Diggers than Jenny ever had.

And that’s when I realized it: Jennifer Santos was miserable being a Digger. She hated it. I made the command decision not to go up and talk to her because, in this moment, she was really happy, with the kind of elation I’d never once witnessed inside the tomb. And now I knew those dirty looks she always gave me when I ran into her outside were actually her begging me not to remind her of how we knew each other.

The real attrition threat was not Nikolos. It was Jenny. How could I have missed this?

I began to back away very slowly, hoping the bright fuchsia of my make-Brandon-miss-me sweater wouldn’t attract the attention of my fellow knight, and slammed right into Brandon. For a moment we stood frozen, half falling, shoulder to shoulder, back to chest, butt to things very much not butt.

“Ouch!” He put his hands on my waist and held me. Held me for a whole, unnecessary second after I was completely steady on my feet again. And then his hands were gone, leaving behind them a whispered imprint, a ghostly pressure and warmth so vivid I swear I thought I could feel every whorl on his fingertip. Even through my sweater.

Of course, his outburst and that second of hesitation were all it took to gain the attention of every eye in the place, including Jenny’s. I watched her face fall into its usual dour expression and bit my lip. Behind her, the blond guy’s gaze dropped to my neckline and he frowned.

“Hi, Jenny,” I said.

“Hi, Amy.” Behind her, I saw the guy give me a once-over, and his lips curved into a slow, contemptuous smile. My psychic powers must have been on in that coffee shop, for I came to my second blinding flash of insight for the morning—Jennifer Santos had broken her oath of secrecy and told this person about my C.B.

And no, I wasn’t simply overreacting because of my uncomfortable situation with Brandon and all the leftover stress I’d been feeling about my report and how the other Diggers would take it. Honestly, I knew without a doubt this was the case. I
knew
it. This guy’s expression couldn’t have been any clearer if he’d been holding up a neon sign saying “I know who you did.”

“Who’s your friend?” I asked, straightening and looking him right in the eye.
Have you told him what sluts you think we all are?

“This is Micah Price,” she said. “Micah runs the prayer group I’m in. Micah, this is Amy Haskel. I tutor her in fractals.”

I don’t know a fractal from a fraction, but sure. “Nice to meet you,” I said, and held out my hand.

He didn’t take it. Of course, last time I ran into Micah Price, he’d practically pummeled Josh into the pavement. Thinking back on it, perhaps I should have let him. Would have saved me from all that through-the-wall giggling.

Brandon stepped forward. “Hi, I’m Brandon.” He pumped Jenny’s hand and then gave Micah a little punch on the shoulder. Jenny raised an eyebrow in my direction but I was in no mood to play nice.
She’d told her boyfriend about me.
I was fighting my better instincts to keep my oath, knowing it may well break my best friend’s heart, and Jenny had told her snobby blond boyfriend all about me. For what? A funny anecdote? Bragging rights about all the cool stuff she’d heard in the Rose & Grave tomb? My throat began to burn. She wasn’t just any Digger. She was a Diggirl. Didn’t that mean anything to her?

“Well, we should go,” Jenny said quickly, as the laser-powered glares I was shooting in her direction finally hit their mark. “See you later.”

“You bet,” I replied, my voice like ice.

I leaned against the counter and watched them leave. Brandon stood beside me. “You know that guy?” When I shrugged, he went on. “He’s bad news.”

“How bad can he be? Super-Christian, runs a campus prayer group?”

Brandon shook his head. “It’s not a prayer group so much as a cult. He lived across the entryway from me freshman year. Sometimes I would hear him talking in there. Nothing he was saying sounded very Christian to me.”