Page 34 of Break Me
Free.
“So, are you gonna tell me what’s wrong,” Tess gestures with the last half of her burger, “or are you just gonna sulk silently?”
“I vote for the second option.” I poke my paper straw around my water, but don’t bother taking a sip. I’m really not that hungry. Or thirsty.
“Did you see your new man?” she teases me. I guess she sees something in my stupidly expressive face because she sets down her burger and her perfectly arched brows fly high up on her head. “It’s about him, isn’t it?” She rolls her eyes. “If this dude is already causing you problems and you just met his ass, get out before it gets worse.” I know she’s thinking about Tad, the poet.
I sigh. “It’s not that. It’s just…he went back to Toronto today.”
She frowns. “You miss him? Is that it? Because, look, Ava, you’ve got dudes who would willingly beat down your door to take your mind off of him.” Then, abruptly, she stops talking and leans back in the booth, crossing her arms. “Wait a minute,” she says, and I see the wheels turning. “You said earlier I could meet him after class. Did this fool not tell you he was leaving?”
Why does she have to be so perceptive?
I throw up my hands, defeated. “Nope. He didn’t. He told Riley to tell me.”
Her mouth drops open. “He did not.”
I nod, growing angrier. “Yeah,” I say, “he did.” I glance at my phone. Nothing.
“What’s going on with you and Dumont?” Tess asks, wisely changing the subject, trying to get my mind off this asshole. The other asshole.
I flip my phone over so I’ll stop looking at it, and sigh, slouching back in the booth as I eye Tess’s fries with envy.
“Nothing important.” And then I realize I haven’t told her. “Him and his wife…well, she’s not his wife anymore.” I run a hand through my hair, thinking of Riley and Caden this morning, wondering why she has to be escorted everywhere to class. Isn’t that shit annoying?
Or am I just jealous no one is escorting me to class?
“What? Girl, why haven’t you told me that?” Tess drops her fry. “That’s like…big news.”
I swallow. “Yeah, I know, sorry…” I trail off, drumming my fingers on the table.
“And how are you feeling about it?” Tess asks, her brown eyes soft. She hates what I’ve got going on with Dumont, partly because he was married, and partly because he’s our professor. But I know, at the end of the day, Tess has my back no matter what, and if I’m happy, she’ll be happy.
But I’m not happy.
“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. “I kind of wish he wasn’t officially divorced.” I huff an awkward laugh. “I know that makes me nuts, right?”
Tess rolls her eyes, dusts off her fingers and clasps them in front of her on the table. “No,” she says carefully, “it just means that you don’t really want him like he might want you.” She shrugs. “Besides, now he’s just looking for a pity fuck and to not be so damn lonely. Don’t let him suck you into his post-divorce sulkiness.”
I laugh at her tone and a smile tugs on her full lips.
“Trust me, man, I would know all about that.”
It’s true. Her own parents got divorced just a couple of years ago, when she was starting college. Her mom kept the house, her dad moved away, and then they both ended up with other lovers weeks later.
Post-divorce sulkiness, I guess.
“How’s your mom?” she asks softly, leaning closer, shoving her tray out of the way.
It’s moments like these, when I bitch about my petty problems and she asks about the biggest one, I realize I’m a horrible friend. I know what’s going on in Tess’s life. I know about Tad and his shitty poems and how he sells pot on campus and I know that her mom is dating a guy closer to Tess’s age than hers, and that Tess is going to grad school in the spring and that she’s smarter than I ever could dream of being.
I know all of these things, but as usual, we’re talking about me. The mess that is my life. We’re both extremely privileged, but sometimes I feel like Tess was born with some innate goodness that I’ll never have.
I bury my head in my hands. “Not good.” It’s the truth, and yet it doesn’t seem to do the situation justice. At all. But it’s the easiest thing to say, because I don’t want to talk about it. Or think about it.
Her fingers lace around mine, pulling my hand from my face. She squeezes my hand across the table. “Do you want me to stay over? At your place tonight?”
I really do need to stay home. I spent this weekend with people I just met, who obviously have their own issues that they don’t feel like sharing with me, and while it was fun, I need to be home.
I know I do.
And yet when I go there, I feel like I’m suffocating. Tomorrow I’ll be meeting Dumont, maybe to tell him to back the fuck off, and tonight…
“Yeah,” I tell Tess. “It would be awesome if you stayed.”
She grins at me. “As long as you don’t skip out on leg day with me tonight.”
I groan. “Never.”
