Page 8 of Accidental Roommates

I look over at Liam, who’s putting on his jeans, then back at Kat, who’s picking at her fingernail polish as she chomps on her gum.

She swings her hair back and I get a whiff of her shampoo. It smells like pineapples and coconut. The overly sweet scent makes my already queasy stomach feel even worse. Before I can stop it, my stomach contents push up my throat and spew out of my mouth.

I hear Kat scream, and when I look up, I see the burrito I ate for lunch is now all over her white tank top, bits of it splattered on her neck and shoulders.

“Liam!” she screams.

He races to her side, then stops suddenly, his face cringing. “Oh shit, that’s disgusting.” He looks away from her.

“Help me, you idiot!” she yells at him.

“I can’t deal with that shit,” he says, walking back through his room to the bathroom. He returns with two towels and tosses them at her. “That’s the best I can do. I can’t be around that or I’ll end up hurling too.”

He walks past us both and goes down the hall to the living room. I hear the front door open and shut.

Kat and I are left standing there, facing each other. She glares at me, then rips off her tank and throws it at me. She goes into Liam’s room and slams the door shut. I hear it lock, then a few moments later, I hear the shower running.

My stomach feels better now that I threw up, but my heart is still aching from being ripped to shreds. I go down the hall to the kitchen and get a plastic cup from the cupboard. It’s the green shamrock cup Liam and I got when we went to a St. Patrick’s Day festival last March. Kat said they’d been dating for six months, which means he was probably dating her when we went to that festival. The thought of that hurts my heart even more. How could he lie to me like that? How could he see me and talk to me and kiss me, knowing he’s with someone else?

I fill the cup with water and drink it down. Then I hang my head over the kitchen sink and splash cold water on my face, over and over again until that dizzy sick feeling finally goes away. I grab a kitchen towel and dry my face, then take a deep breath and walk to the door. I’m tempted to text Liam and ask if this is really what he wants, but then I don’t, because doing that would be giving him a second chance and he doesn’t deserve a second chance. He lied to me, cheated on me, for six months! He doesn’t get a second chance after that.

Back outside, I slowly walk to my car. People are passing by me, smiling and laughing like they don’t have a care in the world. To them, this is just another day. But to me, it’s the end. The end of what I thought would be forever.

I get in my car and drive down the street, stopping every few feet for people to parallel park in front of their new home. It’s move-in day and the streets around campus are packed with cars and people trying to get settled into their dorm room or off-campus housing.

What am I going to do? Where am I going to live? I was supposed to live with Liam. He was my only option for housing. It’s too late to get a dorm room. The apartments are all rented out. And I’m sure everyone looking for a roommate has already found one.

I turn down a side street and see someone pulling out of a spot in front of a row of houses. Needing a moment to figure out what to do next, I pull into the vacated spot and turn the car off. I get out and go stand on the sidewalk, feeling lost and confused, not sure what to do or where to go.

“Watch out,” some guy says as he nearly hits me with a couch he’s holding.

The guy holding the other end of the couch says, “You need to move off the sidewalk. Another couch is heading this way.”

I see it coming and back out of the way toward the small blue house that’s just behind me. It’s a similar style to the one Liam’s living in, except the porch is larger and there’s a white swing on it.

Sitting down on the porch steps, the weight of what just happened hits me all at once. My head falls into my hands and tears pour from my eyes.

This was supposed to be the best day of my life, but it turned out to be the worst. I lost my boyfriend. The life I’d planned with him. And I have nowhere to live.

This is definitely the worst day ever.

CHAPTER THREE

Jace

I need to get out of this house. Being here just reminds me of Nikki and then I think of Carter and imagine them together and want to punch my hand through a wall.

I can’t believe that bastard betrayed me like that. And Nikki. I thought she was different. I didn’t think she was one of those girls who cheats on the guy she claims to love. I know it happens. It’s happened to guys on the team, but I didn’t think it’d happen to me. I trusted Nikki. I thought I knew her. I thought I loved her.

I grab my keys and go out the front door. I start to run down the steps but stop suddenly when I notice someone in my way. There’s a girl sitting on my porch steps.

“Hey.” I stand behind her and am about to tell her to move, but then notice she’s crying, or more like sobbing, her head bent over, her body shaking.

I sigh, not wanting to deal with this but also feeling kind of bad for her.

“Hey, you okay?” I sit down beside her. I’m not sure if she heard me so I nudge her side. “Hey.”

She slowly turns her head toward me.

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