Page 15 of The Trophy

“No, that’s still how I drink my coffee. Thank you.”

I accept the cup, touched by his oddly sweet gesture.

“Lake,” he pleads. “I was hoping we could talk. Just the two of us, without Bay in the way to whisper in your ear.”

I look at him, the boy I grew up with and I feel… nothing.

Ok. Not exactly nothing, but as I look at him, I think about how he dumped me with a lame excuse. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t handle being long distance, he already had someone else. Jon wasn’t truthful about it and he made it quite clear that he didn’t even want to stay friends.

“There’s nothing left to say, Jon,” I say, starting to walk the short distance to campus. “The only communication we’ve had in the past six weeks was when you called me a month ago to yell at me and accuse me of stalking you. I don’t know what changed since then, but you showing up here out of the blue, transferring to my school without even telling me is batshit crazy.”

He lowers his gaze, looking at his feet as if his sneakers were the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. “I just missed you and I realized that you and I were so close. I’ll never get another relationship like ours.”

It hits me suddenly. “She dumped you.”

It isn’t a question and he denies it but it takes him a beat longer than it would have if I wasn’t right.

“No, I?—”

I quicken my pace, done with this conversation. “Jon, I think we both know that it isn’t true. You should have talked to me before transferring to Star Cove. The good news is that academically Star Cove College is as good as Princeton and the winters in California aren’t as bad as in New Jersey. But if you’re here on my account, you fucked up.”

He stops and I do too without even thinking.

“So that’s it? A lifetime of friendship and three years together and you’re ready to throw it all away for three jocks?”

I’m furious and for once I don’t try to mask my feelings to avoid hurting him. “I wasn’t the one who threw our relationship away. You made your bed, Jon. Now you have to lie in it. If you’ll excuse me, I can’t be late for class.”

“When your new boyfriends get tired of you,” he says bitterly, “I’ll be here waiting.”

I turn to face him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

His jaw is tight, his voice full of hostility. “No matter how hard you try, you aren’t Bay. She can go from one jock to the other and be a puck bunny any day of the week, but that isn’t you, Lake. So when you realize that, I’ll be here.”

His hurtful words should hit harder, but I see through his game. He’s always done it. Jonathan puts me down when he doesn’t get his way, but I’m done falling for it. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I snap. “I’m no puck bunny and neither is Bay. For all these years, I never wanted to believe her when she said that you were a dipshit. I guess she was right. Goodbye, Jon.”

I make it to class just in the nick of time, managing to slip in one second before the professor.

I eye the coffee cup Jon handed me as if it was Pandora’s vase. It’s crazy that until the end of summer break, I thought I’d marry this guy and now even the coffee he bought me feels tainted. Not that he would spit in it or worse, roofie me, but I realize that I want nothing to do with him from now on. Jon was clear that he didn’t want to stay friends when he ended things, so now he gets his wish.

My friends treat me better than he did. They don’t lie and cheat and then come back when it suits them.

I resist the temptation to drink the coffee but I’m so tired that I space out during class. If you asked me what Kant’s philosophy is, I would draw a blank.

I welcome the end of class with a sigh of relief. Hopefully I’ll be able to get my friend Hannah to let me borrow her notes, but there’s no time to stop and ask her now. I need to run if I don’t want to be late for my shift at the library.

Thank goodness the library isn’t far from the Human Studies building, so I have a good chance to make it on time.

I smile when I dash into the building and make it to the reception desk with three minutes to spare. Maybe this day can be rescued after all.

“Hello?” an unpleasantly high pitch voice demands my attention the second I press enter to log into my admin profile in one of the reception’s computers. “I wish they hired better staff in here, I need to tell Daddy that the student staff suck.”

I close my eyes, inhaling deeply to gather my patience. I would know that voice pretty much anywhere.

It’s Bianca, the girl who called me a loser the night I went to the Zeta house to get ready for my first hockey game. She also tried to crash my date with Luca at the Country Club. Bay told me she’s a puck bunny and the only reason she was forced to let her pledge Zeta Theta Beta is that she happens to be the Dean’s daughter.

“How can I help you?” I ask, forcing what I hope is a professional smile on my face.

“I booked a study room, I need the key. My friends and I need to study for our Renaissance Art midterms.”

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