Page 28 of True Blue

I carefully lift Bentley’s arm off me, moving it back over to his side. He readjusts, thrusting one of his hands under the pillow and snuggling in. I slide off the bed, grabbing my clothes off his floor and tiptoeing out of the room. At the doorway, I look back at him sleeping, grabbing the knob and swinging it closed silently behind me. Staring at the door, I feel an chasm crack open in my chest, knowing I'll need to take some time to sop up the bleeding edges before I can go back to being around Bentley casually again.

Sighing through a deep breath, I walk over to my room. Closing myself in, I lie down and stare up in the dark, debating if I made the wrong move tonight.

13

Isling the strap of my bag over my shoulder, sighing as I head out of the suite. Looking over at Axel’s closed bedroom door, I shut the one to the suite, something sharp moving in my chest. Walking over to the elevator, I feel the absence of my roommate as I wait by myself in the hall.

Waking up alone yesterday morning, I figured Axel had just gone to the bathroom or was getting dressed for the day in his room. My plan had been to ask him out to breakfast, psyching myself up to tell him how the night before meant more to me than a random one-off hookup between horny friends. The moment I looked down at him on his knees after he made me see stars, I realized just how not casual I felt about us. That’s why I reached for him, kissing him as he settled over my lap and wanting to return the favor. I wanted to see where things could go between us, wanted him close to me while we slept.

But after getting dressed and running my hands through my hair over a hundred times, I emerged from my room, looking around and finding no Axel. He didn’t have classes till the afternoon on Thursdays and he usually spent a lot of the morning sleeping but checking the bathroom and knocking onhis bedroom door had yielded no results as the realization slowly slid over my shoulders and tangled in the center of my chest.

He left.

I don’t know if he slept next to me. But as time passed and I paced the length of the living room and then my bedroom in two separate panics, I started to think he escaped as soon as he could. Feeling myself going a little crazy, I forced myself to leave the dorms, going on a walk around Ring Road and feeling the pit in my stomach start to gnaw at me from the inside.

Taking another deep breath, I step off the elevator, walking out to the sidewalk and heading toward the library. Keeping my eyes on the tall cathedral spires in the distance, I remember how the rest of yesterday played out.

Axel came home after class last night and went directly to his room after a grunted, “Hey,” to me on the couch. I kept playing video games, trying to keep my eyes from drifting to his closed door too often before completely giving up and going to my own bedroom to stare at the ceiling and try to quiet my rambling thoughts.

It would be one thing if he wanted to write off our hookup as a one-time thing. But his complete avoidance of me had me questioning how big of a mistake we actually made. He’d been the one to tell me we should explore our attraction, the one to offer to start this. But I pulled him into my bed. I tucked us in to go to sleep next to each other. I crossed the line past hookup to something more.

And now Axel has spent the entire day yet again avoiding me. I finally broke down and texted him if we were still meeting Janette to start our research project in the library, just to see if he would respond. Watching the little grey texting bubble made my palms sweat, but the message made my stomach plummet.

Axel

Yeah, I’ll meet you guys there.

Great. I don’t know what I expected.

I turn off Ring Road and cross into the shadow of the Gothic cathedral that looms over me. The grey stone façade shrouded in ornate details gives the building a foreboding edge and it mixes with my anxiety for this group meet up. Walking toward the library’s stone steps, I run my hand through my hair for the zillionth time and try to stave off the prickly panic making my hands shake. Not only will I have to interact with Axel who will probably avoid talking to me as much as possible, but Janette will probably be back to her usual iciness as well.

She hadn’t reached out at all yesterday either, after I basically spent the whole of Mira’s party watching after her and carrying her back to West Tower. We’d exchanged numbers when we planned out the schedule for the steps of our project, and the only text I had from her was the one that said her name so I could save her number in my phone.

Crossing under the stained-glass mural above the heavy wood doors, I bristle at the shock of cold AC blasting in the cool foyer, but it helps jolt a bit of the nerves in my system, allowing me to calmly survey the open central room I walk into. High stone archways cover the vaulted ceilings, warm lighting emanating from within them creating a pleasant glow around the area. I count two more floors above, finding balconies lined with dark railings and seeing some people walking around the edge of the room. Shadowy stacks line the walls on all three sides, more taking up the farther half of the room. A large circular information desk sits a few feet in front of me, a dozen circular study tables scattered around behind it and covered in students. Comfy chairs and sofas mingle in between the tables,some occupied and others abandoned. A couple computer stations seem out of place around the edge of the study area, the modern seemingly forced in among the ancient.

My feet echo on the dark marble floor, shoes squeaking a bit as I pass the information desk, looking for Axel or Janette or an open table to snag.

I spot Janette, sitting by herself at a far table with open books already spread out around her, bent over her laptop and typing away. Her hair is in two buns again, like the first time we met, and she wears a white tank top that shows off the smooth skin of her neck and shoulders. I walk through the tables, regretting letting Axel sit us next to her in the first place. We might have had to contend with Cassie for the rest of the semester, but it’s only been two days since we got assigned as a group and we’ve already managed to tangle everything between us up further.

“Hey,” I say, pulling the chair out across from her.

She blinks up at me, eyes adjusting after staring at her screen for so long. “Hey.” She glances around. “Where’s Axel?”

I reach into my bag, pulling out my own laptop and setting it on the table in front of me, ignoring the twinge in my gut at the question. “He’s meeting us here.”

“Okay.” She shuffles some of the books around, closing two and stacking them to make more room on the circular table for when Axel shows up. I type in my password once my laptop lights up, letting it take a minute to connect to the Wi-Fi before I check my email to clear the red badges in the corner of the icon.

“Thank you, by the way,” Janette says softly, and I look up, eyes meeting hers over the top of her laptop. “For taking care of me the other night. I remember you carrying me a bit and figure you left the water for me in the morning. You didn’t have to do that.”

Her quiet voice warms my gut, settling the earlier twinge. I smile, nodding my head before saying, “No problem.” She goesback to typing and I linger for a second, eyes roving over her as she works. The image of Christopher’s name on her phone rolls through my mind and I look back down, opening my browser to get to the doc where I type up my notes from class.

“Sorry I’m late,” Axel mumbles, rushing up to the table and grabbing one of the seats between Janette and me. The legs scrape across the floor, making several people around us glare over as Axel falls loudly into the bucket chair with a thud. He shuffles his bag off, swinging it onto the table on top of some of the books and papers Janette has spread out around her.

“You’re good,” she says, pulling her stuff out from underneath it. “We haven’t started yet.”

Axel nods, still not looking at either of us as he pulls out his stuff and tosses his bag to the floor. My hands shake on my keyboard, and I grit my teeth, trying to will myself to calm down. Anger pours over top of the ache that’s been growing in my chest, hardening around it and pushing its way through the rest of my body.

“So, Gutenberg,” Axel says, picking his head up and looking at each of us with a jovial grin. “Where do we start?”

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