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“Why not?” I replied, accepting her suggestion. “Actually, Pierre was going to give me a little tour of the library. Can we go there?”
“Sure, good idea,” Cassidy said, freeing up one arm to take mine in hers. The close contact was a little unexpected, and to be honest, the only place I really wanted to be was at Pierre’s side. “It’s an amazing place. There’s six levels, and even though it’s an old building, there’s these skylights that let in the moonlight just as well as sunlight.”
“That’s great,” I said, a bit distracted as I felt my phone vibrate. Pulling it out, I saw that it was Elliot again. I couldn’t let him go a second time. “Hey,” I said, slowing down. “Is there a bathroom I could use around here?”
Cassidy nodded, and pointed to the cafeteria. We hadn’t traveled very far from it.
“There’s one on the first floor before the dining room. You can’t miss it.” I smiled in thanks, but hesitated leaving her as she looked at me. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” I replied quickly, backing away toward the building. “Just wanna wash my hands up. I’ll be right back.”
I left before she could say anything else, before she could notice the anxiety in my trembling voice or the fact that I was beginning to blush despite being thousands of miles away from him. I let Elliot’s call go, but as soon as I entered the cafeteria building, I remembered there was a couple handicap restrooms with single stalls around the corner. I went past the regular restrooms, and locked myself into a handicap stall.
Alone, I took out my phone, called Elliot back, and sucked in a few deep breaths.
He picked up immediately.
“Look who’s alive,” his voice muttered through the speaker.
It was obvious. He was angry. Preparing for a lecture, I leaned back against the door, and stared at my reflection in the mirror across from me. God, I looked terrible. You’d think that girl would have pointed out the fact that my arms up to my elbows were speckled with dried blood.
My hand that held the phone up to my ear looked just as fucked up.
The quiet moment between us was sadder than anything else. Another second passed, and I could hear him let out a sigh.
“How’s it going over there?”
It wasn’t what I’d been expecting to hear, which was a good thing. My shoulders relaxed, and I rested my head back against the door.
“Pretty … okay,” I replied, wondering if it was true as I waited a moment for his response. Silence. “How are you?” I tried.
I could hear some shuffling around in the background, and someone else’s voice. Didn’t resemble either of the other boys’. I decided to ignore it.
“Fine.”
I rolled my eyes. When it came to talking about feelings, he was just as bad as Pierre. At least I could predict what was going inside Pierre’s knot of thoughts—Elliot was a whole new puzzle, a complicated one at that.
“Okay …” I said, taking on the tone of a therapist. “Look.” I took in a breath, and it must’ve been audible over the phone because Elliot cut me off.
“Don’t apologize. I know you’re busy. I just wanted to check in, cause that’s what boyfriends do, or something.”
Shaking my head, I let out a short laugh. “Or something?”
Boyfriend. He called himself my boyfriend. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or vomit. Pierre was going to kill me. There was no avoiding it.
“Whatever.” Even over the phone, I could tell he was smirking. He knew that I knew he was putting up an angry facade. He was mischievous at heart. Anger wasn’t his thing, it was mine. “You still sound American, so that’s good.”
I snorted, and decided to put on my worst British accent. “I don’t date patriots, lad,” I said playfully, my roundabout way of bringing up the idea that we were an official couple. “At the end of the day, you belong to the Queen.”
He laughed. “That sounded stupid.”
“It did, it really did,” I laughed along, rolling my eyes at little moment of awkwardness. “Anyway. Yeah, it’s been alright. We went to that restaurant Felix’s dad owns. Oh, and guess what—we met the guy.”
“You did?” Elliot sounded genuinely amused. “What’s he like?”
I thought he was joking until a couple seconds passed by, and he didn’t answer his own question.
“You mean…” I began, “you’ve never met him?”