Clutching my towel close to my chest, I shake my head. “Like I said, I screwed up last year. Time to make things right. But before all that, you should get some rest.” I dip my head to the nearly full bottle of water she’s nursing. “Try to drink that so you don’t feel like crap tomorrow morning.”
When I return from my shower twenty minutes later, I’m grateful Corinne is already asleep.
***
Aside from exploring Richmond with our suitemates, Hannah and Lara, who are both from Charlottesville, the rest of my weekend is, thankfully, uneventful. Of course, that’s also a bit of a curse. It gives me plenty of time to go to battle with myself about the Rhys Delane situation.
And this is one of those situations where there are only two actual solutions. Either I can go directly to Professor Cameron—who’s already let me know she doesn’t think I deserve to be in her program—and tell her I’m unable to work with her trusted assistant. Or I can suck up all my apprehension about Rhys, try my hardest to overlook our mutual connection, and get the hell through this semester.
Both solutions royally suck.
After spending most of Sunday driving Corinne to the nearest Ikea and helping her put together a small bookshelf, and then getting all my stuff prepared for the upcoming week—printing out my schedule and tracking down a book that I didn’t order along with the rest of my course materials—I’ve almost convinced myself to take the more difficult road.
Almost.
Then again, that may be the exhaustion screwing with me. It’s nearly eleven-thirty. Corinne’s been asleep for almost an hour, and Facebook has sucked me in for the last twenty minutes. I’d stupidly reactivated the account I cancelled last spring, only to get an eyeful of all the dumb crap my ex-boyfriend James is doing already on his first weekend back to school. The sentimental fool in me wants to feel some type of emotion—anger or longing or even a desire to send him a message. I can see that he’s logged on, and despite the rocky way our relationship had ended, I know he’ll respond quickly if I contact him—but I don’t feel any of that.
As I scroll past a picture of James giving a thumbs up as he and one of his frat brothers hoist up a skinny girl for a keg stand, my phone rings. Startled, I nearly drop my laptop in my effort to grab it before the noise wakes up Corinne. Once it’s silenced, I flip it over to see my mother’s name. Mom’s old school—she holds fast to the belief that after nine, you don’t call people unless it’s an absolute emergency.
I quickly accept the call.
“Mom? Are you okay?” I breathe into the receiver.
The voice that greets me, however, doesn’t belong to my mother but to my father. Shit. Yesterday morning I’d sent him a message to let him know that I’d call him soon to catch up, but I never heard back from him. I assumed he was pleased that I even responded.
"A call would’ve been nice," he tells me in a tight voice. “But I’m glad to hear you’re alive and kicking.”
The exact wording he uses sends a jolt through my body but I shake it off as I quietly come to my feet and tiptoe out my bedroom. My suitemate, Hannah, is coming out of our shared bathroom as I head inside to talk, and she gives me a sleepy smile, murmuring, “’Night, Evie.”
When I tell her the same, Dad releases a breath. “Oh no, not yet you’re not.”
"Sorry, I was talking to one of the girls who lives in my suite,” I explain as I sit down on the bench seat right outside the standup shower. It’s wet, and I shift uncomfortably in my now damp pajama pants. “I’ve been busy with settling in, and—.” Something hits me, and I bring my knees up to my chest, wrapping my free arm around them. Dad’s calling me from Mom’s phone. “Wait. Are you back at home?”
"Evelyn,” he groans. I purse my lips, expecting him to start with the evasive maneuvers at any moment. Unfortunately, that particular habit is something we have in common. "I know you have some ... issues with me right now, but at some point you’re going to have to let your mom and I work out our own lives. This has nothing to do with you."
For some reason, I expected a better line of bullshit from him, but maybe he’s losing his touch. "Oh, I’m sorry that you’re a compulsive cheater," I retort sharply. "But she’s my mother. I think that has everything to do with me."
There's a brief moment of silence between us before I say, "So, are you living at home again?" While I was home for summer break, he’d spent maybe a total of seven days at our house. He had girlfriends, and yes, I do mean in the plural sense, and since I’d gone ahead and blown the whistle on his first affair, he didn’t see any point in hiding that truth any longer.
Growing up, it was never a secret that Mom favored Lily and Dad me—my mother and I seemed to clash at every turn—but after the last several months, I couldn’t be in the same room with him without feeling bitter.
“Did I lose you?” I say through clenched teeth, half-hoping that he did hang up on me.
To my disappointment, he says, "Let's talk about you instead. How are you liking the place so far?"
"It’s fine.” When he sighs, frustrated at my short response, I add, “What do you want me to say? That I'm settled in? Or that I'm all ready for my classes tomorrow morning and I have every intention of going this year? Or, even better, that I'm not hung-over?"
"Do you have to be so sarcastic about everything?" he demands.
"But it's all true. Besides, you’ve been quick to remind me about all my shortcomings whenever you want to get your point across.”
"I've apologized to you, Evelyn." As soon as I remind him about the text he sent me not even two days ago, he quickly corrects himself. “I’ve apologized to you about what happened with your mom.”
But you’re still seeing other women behind her back, I want to say. There’s no point in arguing. He’ll just feed me the same lines of crap he’s been doling out to her. I slide off the bench and to my feet. “Look, I’m currently in a bathroom talking to you because everyone in my suite is asleep. I should probably get to bed too because I have a nine AM class, and I really, really don’t want to be late on my first day. If you are with Mom, tell her I said goodnight and I love her.”
As I walk back to my room, the next thing my father says makes me consider turning right back around just to argue with him. “It’s complicated. I know you don’t understand, but it is.”
I've always loathed that word. When I was a kid, and Dad wanted an easy out on something he couldn’t explain or didn’t want to deal with, he was quick to throw it around. Back then I had no problem accepting it, but now not so much. I stop right outside my door, placing my forehead gently against the wood.
“Complicated, huh?”
“When you’re older you’ll understand.”
I swallow hard. “Yeah, sure. Goodnight. I'll call you ... soon, okay?" I don't give him the chance to stop me before I disconnect the call.
After I’ve once again deactivated my Facebook account and put my laptop back on my desk, I lie in bed reflecting on all the things I’ve screwed up over the last year. For starters, there’s my parents’ marriage—but of course, that was broken long before I found out about all the affairs and told my mom. She deserved to know, deserved better. And yet, she would’ve preferred to remain oblivious. I’d seen that much in her eyes as she avoided my gaze all summer long.
And then, I’d wrecked what was left with James. Don’t get me wrong, we were never perfect—we had a relationship that began in high school and was based around too much sex, smoking pot, and drinking ourselves into oblivion—but the end still hurt. When I’d retaliated after our breakup, I only managed to damage myself.
Even if my grades hadn’t gotten me kicked out of school, the slut shaming I faced from James’ fraternity after that “retaliation” probably would have sent me on my own way.