I look down and see that it’s my dad.
Déjà-freaking-vu.
I’ve been trying to do better with answering his calls, so I tell Kendra I’ll call her later to which she gladly agrees since I woke her up so early.
The moment I swap calls, Dad gets right to the point. “Did you get the money your mom put in your account on Friday.” My parents have had the same archaic bank for years—no online banking and no problem a representative is able to fix over the phone—so I have to rely on ATMs to keep up with my balance.
“Hello to you too, and I’m not sure.” I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed, sliding my feet into a pair of flip-flops. “I haven’t used my card in a few days, but I’ll walk over to the student union ATM in a little bit just to check.”
He laughs in surprise. “Who is this and what have you done with my Evelyn? Surely this creature can’t be my child. What happened to the girl who maxed her card the second it was loaded?”
I remember a time last year when he asked me similar questions in anger, but now his voice is completely relaxed. This is the first time he’s talked to me like this in a long time, but I guess it’s because I’m not being hostile with him today about cheating on Mom.
“I’ve been busy with school work,” I say.
“Look, Evelyn, the reason I called you is this: Do you plan on coming home for fall break? Your mom and I are trying to make sure we plan accordingly.”
“Haven’t decided yet, why?”
“It’s right around the anniversary of Lily’s death.” At his own words, he sucks in a breath. “God, it feels strange calling it that.” To my ears, it sounded even stranger because anniversaries seem like something that should be celebrated and not a cause for pain—but I let him continue, “I think it’s better for your mom, better for myself, if we get away. Take our minds off everything.”
I start to tell him that no matter how much they do to try to completely distract themselves, it’s never enough. I’ve tried and failed, rinsed and repeated. Instead, I promise to let him know my plans before Oktoberfest begins next weekend.
As he ends the call, Dad tells me quietly, “I’m proud of you this year, Evelyn. Now, I haven’t seen your grades yet, but it’s nice not to have gotten a call from the cops or your RA at three in the morning because you’ve been arrested or gotten in some other trouble.”
It feels like a bit of a jab, but I suppress my usual sharp retort. “Sadly, I’m the boring kid who’s so lame my resident advisor doesn’t even know my name,” I admit, to which Dad tells me to keep up the good work.
Tossing my phone on my bed, I stand up and start to gather my shower supplies to head for the bathroom. Since the door is open and the shower’s not running, I’m positive I’m alone. I hang my towel and clean underwear on the towel rack and start to get undressed.
My shirt is off and I’m pulling my pants down when I see a set of male feet step out of the shower and onto the cushy red bathmat. Shrieking, I spin around, but not before realizing that it’s blond-haired, Hollister-esque Daniel. He gets a flash of my bare ass for just a second before I jerk my pants back up. My tank top is a few feet away from me on the floor, so I grab my towel off the rack in front of me.
I face him, my skin on fire as I take in how his mouth his hanging wide open. “What the hell are you doing in my bathroom?” I grind out, keeping the towel wrapped tightly around my chest. When he doesn’t immediately answer, I start to reach for my phone but then his eyes slip over my shoulder.
“Hannah said I could use the shower. Damn, Evie, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
As soon as he says Hannah’s name my nostrils flare. “Really?” Giving him a cold stare, I jerk my thumb to the bathroom exit, walking in a slow circle as he moves toward it. “Get out of here.”
“Ahh, hell, I—”
“Get the fuck out!”
Since none of the suite bathrooms in Campbell dorm have doors that lock, I shower quickly, peeking around the corner of the stall every time I hear the slightest noise. As I creep back to my room fifteen minutes later, I hear the sound of a comedy movie playing loudly from inside Hannah and Lara’s room, and I hope Daniel’s not in there. In spite of the Elliot fiasco, I know my roommate still carries a torch for him. I also know that if Hannah let Daniel spend the night, it has a lot to do with Corinne. I’m around my room way too much not to notice that neither of my suitemates have ever had a guy spend the night until now.
Fucking retaliation.
I tiptoe into my room and close the door as quietly as possible, but when I turn around, I jump when I see that Corinne’s sitting up in her bed sleepily looking at her laptop screen.
She giggles at my reaction and pushes her curls away from her face. “Morning.”
“Good morning.” Going through my drawers, I grab a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. “Did you have a good time last night?”
“Ehh, it was okay. I went to some frat party—and I can’t for the life of me remember their name—with Ella.” She gives me a curious look as I step into my jeans. “Why were you yelling a few minutes ago?”
I stare down at my pants, focusing way too much attention on buttoning them. “There was a douchebag in our bathroom.”
As I get finish dressing, I can feel Corinne’s bright green gaze regarding me inquisitively. When I get a bottle of water out the mini fridge, she leans over the side of her bed and grabs my wrist. Swallowing hard, I pull away.
“Evie? There’s something you’re not telling me.” I don’t meet her gaze, so a moment later, she tentatively asks, “It was Daniel, wasn’t it? The douchebag in the bathroom. He spent the night with Hannah.”
My lips curve downward into a frown. “I’m sorry, Corinne.”
She simply lifts her shoulders, but the fact she feels wounded is clear as day on her soft features. “It’s not like we were ever dating. Just friends, and if I look at it that way, I guess I kind of deserve it after what I did with Elliot.” I open my mouth to tell her exactly what I think about her believing she deserves to be hurt, but she cuts me off, adding, “Plus they’ve been spending a lot of time together lately, so it was bound to happen.”
“You deserve better.”
“Right.” Rolling out of her bed, she stretches her short arms over her head and yawns. “Alright, I better get dressed. I’m supposed to be meeting a few people from Communication Theory in the library to work on a group project”—she glances over at the alarm clock sitting on the edge of her desk closest to her bed—“fifteen minutes ago.”
Five minutes later, I watch in concern as she rushes out our door with her energy drink in hand. Shaking my head in anger, I finish getting dressed to go to brunch with Mac and Nathan. On the way out, a sound in the storage closet right outside the bathroom door stops me. I turn to see Hannah on her hands and knees looking through the bottles of cleaner and rolls of paper towels.
“We’re out of TP,” she tells me. When I keep walking past her, she clears her throat. “You don’t have anything to say?”
I look over my shoulder just in time to watch a satisfied grin stretch slowly across her face. I give her a cool smile, thinking how the Evie from last year would’ve probably knocked her ass in the closet and propped a door against it. “No, nothing to say today.”
***
Because Nathan backs out of eating with us to meet a deadline for an online linear algebra test, Mac suggests we go off campus and to one of the local malls. I’m thrilled when she offers to drive, and after we pick her Jetta up from the junior parking lot, she takes me to a little coffee shop downtown. It’s overcast out but warm—probably one of the last really warm days of the season—so we sit outside talking about music.
“Cameron handpicked songs for me in every language I failed in Diction,” Mac informs me, referring to her mid-term recital. At the skeptical look I give her, she nods slowly. She picks off a chunk of her blueberry muffin and pops it into her mouth. “You think I’m bullshitting you, but I’m not—“Das Veilchen” and a Russian piece I still can’t pronounce, and I’ve been trying to sing it since the start of the year. I swear everyone’s ears will be weeping blood. What does she have you doing?”