Page 77 of Daydream

“I’ll be twenty minutes,” she says. “Have you eaten?”

“I’ve had a cup of that tea Aurora gets from England and a protein shake.”

She laughs, and even hearing it over the phone gives me the same serotonin boost I get when I see her do it in person. “That’s a no then. Healthy or unhealthy?”

“I want crunchy stuff like cucumber and chips. Nothing sticky.”

“Coming right up. I’ll be with you soon, so try to relax for now. We’ll get it done, Henry. We haven’t failed yet, and I’m sorry this one is taking more energy than you have.”

“You’re the best.”

ISTARE AT MY CEILINGfor the thirty-five minutes it takes for Halle to turn up at my house, and as soon as I see her standing on my doorstep everything instantly feels more manageable.

She struggles to hold up the grocery bags since they’re so full, but she attempts to show me anyway. “I bought everything that looked crunchy.”

I lean forward to take them out of her hands, kissing her cheek gently as I bend down. I want to tell her how much better she makes everything, but Russ and Robbie appear from the den like two dogsresponding to a rustling treat bag. Robbie stops next to the kitchen island. “Did you get them?”

I think he’s talking to me until Halle responds to tell him yes. Putting the bags on the counter I look between my friends. “What?”

“I need beer if we’re going to get through this study session,” Robbie says. “But Halle was scared to use her fake ID that isn’t fake.”

Halle starts unloading the bags, not making eye contact with me until she can’t take me staring at her. She clears her throat and steps toward me. She looks up at me with big eyes. “Aurora invited me to go for dinner with her, Poppy, and Emilia earlier. We’d just finished eating when you called me, and I forgot to ask you to check if anyone else needed anything from the store, so she called Russ—”

“And Russ was watching TV with me,” Robbie says, interrupting her. “And we decided we should probably be doing something productive instead of watching reruns. So, we’re going to all work together and drink beer and eat. And you’re not going to struggle in your room alone and blame yourself for shit that isn’t your fault when you have people who want to help you.”

“I’m not blaming myself for shit that isn’t my fault.”

Russ takes a bag of chips and opens it loudly, somehow managing to crinkle every inch of the bag. “We win as a team, we lose as a team. No one person is responsible for how we play. It’s quite literally a group effort.”

“Faulkner wants me to go to his office on Monday. He’s not pretending this isn’t my fault.”

“He wants to check that you’re okay, Hen,” Robbie says, cracking open a beer and handing it to me. “He might pretend he doesn’t give a shit, but he does. He notices the way you retreat into yourself after every loss and he’s worried. He might be a hard-ass, but he still has a duty of care. It’s why he wouldn’t leave you the fuck alone on the bus. Shit’s hard, but it’s not supposed to ruin your fucking life.”

This is the exact reason I stay in my room alone. Halle has what looks like guilt written all over her face. Maybe she didn’t know this would be the outcome when I asked her to help me and she involved other people. People who want answers and want to help and want me to act in a certain way.

I want to walk away and lock my bedroom door. That’s what my body is telling me to do. Fight or flight, and it’s immediately picked flight. It’s too hard to say how I feel in a way that will appease everyone’s worries when I don’t evenknowhow I feel to be able to assemble a suitable response.

Overwhelmed doesn’t convey how I feel anymore when I know that this anxious weight of impending doom is going to be with me until I graduate or until Faulkner realizes asking me to be captain was a massive mistake and I let everyone down.

Russ is rustling the chip bag again and the TV is playing and Robbie is tapping his fingers against the side of his beer bottle and Halle’s finger lightly brushes my knuckles by accident and it’s like tiny bugs crawling across my hand and I can’t think.

Ican’tthink.

“Do you want to go upstairs?” Halle asks, her eyes flicking to where I’m rubbing my knuckles repeatedly trying to stop my hand feeling disconnected from the rest of my body. “Go if you need to.”

I nod, and the idea of answering her properly feels entirely impossible as I step around her and head to the stairs. As soon as I enter my bedroom, I throw myself onto my bed facedown, bury my head in my pillow, and let myself pass out.

IDON’T KNOW HOW LONGI’m out for, but when I wake up, there’s a lukewarm cup of tea and a selection of snacks next to two Tylenol on my bedside table.

Telling Halle not to be embarrassed about things is second natureto me, and yet I can’t shake that same feeling as I take the pills and stand to head downstairs.

Russ is watching TV on his own when I reach the living room, and I can’t see or hear Halle or Robbie. He doesn’t say anything when I sit at the other end of the couch; he lowers the TV volume. He’s watching Halle’s baking show with the British people.

“Halle put it on,” he says.

“How long ago did she leave?” I ask.

“Couple of hours ago. She took Robbie to Lola’s, so it’s just us tonight. You hungry?”

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