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I managed to squeeze in about four hours of sleep that night. Honestly, I felt like it was a small win given everything going on. The issue wasn’t so much the lack of sleep but rather the poor quality of it; my brain had decided that sleep was optional and chose instead to replay the past week on repeat. Maya’s voice.
The hockey ga. The weight of the keychain in my jacket pocket that I sohow started carrying around. The constant awareness of a person who lived just twelve feet away and whom I was now, with great determination and a touch of obsession, trying to dodge.
Avoidance had turned into my full-ti gig, and I was getting surprisingly skilled at it.
The days blurred into one long, chaotic routine. I’d rise before sunrise almost every morning, sneaking out of Preston Hall while Damien remained snoozing under his blankets, blissfully unaware of my stealthy escape.
I’d grab a coffee from the nearest vendor, clutching the scalding cup in my hands, and dive headfirst into the day, fueled by the frantic energy of soone who knew that moving forward was the only way to avoid confronting my thoughts.
Classes, the café, the flower shop, the hospital...repeat. I had packed my schedule so tightly that there seed to be no space left for anything uncomfortable. I was keeping this up with the devotion of soone building a very complex distraction device.
Evenings were devoted to visiting my dad. Every ti I saw him, he appeared stronger, sitting up in bed, his face looking healthier, always asking about my life with that hopeful look that parents wear when they’re eager for good news but trying not to seem too eager.
I’d share about lanie, carefully crafting the story to be simple and straightforward, leaving out the complications.
He’d squeeze my hand and smile, and I’d feel guilt for making him happy while knowing the truth was a lot ssier, and I’d push that feeling down, because honestly, I wasn’t ready to talk about it.
I wasn’t ready to talk about how I was actually attracted to my dumbass roommate.
lanie had ramped up the pressure in ways that left feeling overwheld. Her texts flooded in, cheerful good morning ssages with suns, heart emojis after class updates, and casual ntions of our next date, suggesting a continuity in a relationship I hadn’t fully accepted.
Because besides the whole Damien fiasco, I still wasn’t quite ready for a relationship with all the shit I had to deal with.
When she called her boyfriend in front of her rich, cute friends during a quick lunch between my shifts, I was dumbstruck as hell, but I smiled and didn’t correct her because doing so would require an explanation I wasn’t prepared to give, and going along with it felt easier.
Safer, like holding my position until I figured things out, except figuring things out was taking its sweet ti.
If part of thought I was playing a role I hadn’t auditioned for, I tucked that thought away for later, just like everything else.
By midweek, I was running purely on caffeine and adrenaline, and let tell you, that combo works until it doesn’t. After our shared psychology class on Wednesday, Joey cornered , bursting out of the lecture hall with the kind of energy that signaled he had been planning this encounter.
"Food," he said, pointing toward the student union. "Now. You look like you’re surviving on spite, and I need to confirm you’re still human."
"I’m a person," I replied.
"Walk with ," he insisted, already heading for the door.
We ended up at an old table in the union, surrounded by the usual noise of student life with trays clattering, overlapping conversations, and soone three tables away laughing at their phone.
Joey ordered sothing massive and devoured it with the kind of joy you only see in people who’ve never had issues with food. I picked at a sandwich that had probably been under a heat lamp for too long and didn’t mind.
"You’ve been a ghost," Joey noted, stabbing with a fry. "Not a fun ghost, either. You’ve been an exhausted, avoiding-everyone kind of ghost. I’ve seen you at the café, the flower shop, and the hospital, but nowhere else."
"I’ve been busy."
"Busy, sure. But it’s a different kind of busy right now."
I stared at my sandwich. "Everything’s fine."
"You said that like soone who’s far from fine."
"Joey—"
"I’m not pushing," he said, raising his hands. "Just saying, for the record, you look like a guy carrying way too much and running out of pockets."
I chuckled despite myself. "That’s actually pretty accurate."
"Is this about your dad?"
"He’s improving."
"Is it about lanie?"
I looked at my sandwich.
Joey t my gaze.
Three seconds of silence stretched between us.
"Let guess: it’s about the Damien situation," he said, as if he already knew the answer.
"There is no Damien situation."
"Right." He ate a fry. "How’s he doing?"
"Fine."
"Seen much of him this week?"
"Not really."
"By design?"
"By schedule."
"Got it," he replied, his tone indicating he didn’t buy it but wasn’t ready to argue. He switched gears to tell about his latest blunders trying out for the intramural soccer team, and I appreciated the distraction, even as the unsaid questions lood between us like furniture we weren’t moving.
By Thursday, my avoidance strategy was in full swing.
Morning: sneak out before Damien woke up.
Afternoon: café or the flower shop, wrapped in the clean scent of flowers that hadn’t added any drama to my life.
Evening: hospital visit, then return late, straight to bed.
These brief encounters were ticulously choreographed, like soone studying another person’s schedule without admitting it. I knew when he left for practice.
I knew roughly when he ca back. I used that intel to be elsewhere, convincing myself it was just smart ti managent, not anything deeper.
And it was working like a charm.
Then Friday rolled in with rain and a power outage, and of course, that ant everything ca crashing down, as it tends to when the universe decides to throw a wrench in your coping chanisms.
I’m sure you’d be surprised as to what Damien did next as if the emotional/sexual tornt, he’d put through wasn’t enough.
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