Page 66 of The Rom-Commers

“What?” I asked.

“I think Cuthbert likes you.”

Fifteen

WHEN I FINALLYmade it back to bed, my earthquake had settled, and I slept hard—until I woke up again, at five, with a start.

And a feeling of dread that my dad might not be okay.

I know that’s a pretty nonspecific worry: a vague sense that someone might not be okay. But I’d done a lot of worrying about my dad over the past ten years. It was like my heart had been cramped into a tight, worried ball all this time, and now—even with nothing particular to worry about—it couldn’t unclamp itself.

I had officially handed my worrying duties over to Sylvie. I knew she was competent and mature. I believed she could handle things. Mostly. Sort of. I just didn’t know how to not be the person who always worried about my dad.

Maybe that’s what my heart was up to these days with the thudding. Trying to untie its own knots.

Or maybe I was just dying.

Maybe I should let myself google it, just this once.

That’s what I was wondering—in bed, in the dark, at fiveA.M.—when my phone rang. And it was Sylvie—FaceTiming me.

“I knew it!” I said, sitting up in bed. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Sylvie said. There she was, inside the rectangle of my phone, her calm vibe validating her statement. She was in our room, sitting on my bottom bunk, with her hair pulled neatly back like she’d just washed her face.

My hair, in contrast—I couldn’t help but notice from my own smaller FaceTime rectangle—had wiggled its way out of the ponytail I’d gone to bed in, and the alarm on my face plus the wildness of my curls gave me the look of someone who’d just stuck her finger in an electric socket.

“Nothing’s wrong?” I asked. “Then why are you calling?”

“To tell you that.”

“People don’t call to say nothing’s wrong,” I said.

“Normalpeople don’t call to say that,” Sylvie said, “but this is me and you.”

She had a point. “But it’s five in the morning.”

“It’ssevenin the morning here.”

Another good point. Sylvie was sounding more reasonable by the second.

“Can wenotFaceTime at this hour?” I asked next. “I am not camera ready.”

“But I want to see you!”

Before I could respond, another face squeezed into Sylvie’s frame. The face of her boyfriend, Salvador, with his ponytail mussed like he’d just woken up, too.

“I think you look great,” Salvador said.

I’d FaceTimed with Salvador several times. They’d been dating since their sophomore year. “Hi, Salvador,” I said.

“Hey, sis,” Salvador said.

Then, to Sylvie: “Salvador is there? At our place?”

Sylvie took a minute to wave as Salvador left to go take a shower. Then she said, “He’s staying with us.”

I didn’t want to feel alarmed. I liked Salvador. He was a great boyfriend for Sylvie—mature and thoughtful and supportive. He’d carved her a pumpkin last Halloween with teeth that spelled outI LOVE YOU.

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