Page 42 of Take Me Home

Ash shrugged it off. “Actually, I ended up with a friend from this baseball camp I went to a few years back.”

“You were able to pick your roommate that late?”

“It wasn’t that—” He stopped, turned to look out into the dark lawn, drummed his fingers on the rail.

“They sent roommate assignments back in June. How did you change yours?”

He didn’t face her as he said, “I changed it in April.”

Even though she was drunk, she’d gone over the timeline enough to have absolute clarity on at least this one thing. At the beginning of April, Justin had pitched a bad game, started a fight on the field. That night, he’d told her he loved her—butnotthat the college coach in the stands had rescinded his scholarship and spot on the team. Two weeks later, after prom, she’d slept with him. Then, for five more weeks, he’d kept quiet, let her look up the best dining hall, avoided her questions about his course load and which parking lot he planned to get a permit for, all the while knowing they weren’t going to go to college as a couple.

And if Ash had had time to request a different roommate—

“Youknew?”

Ash squeezed the back of his neck. “Hazel—”

“So, the whole time I was going on and on about doing our laundry on weekends and riding home together at Thanksgiving, youknewhe wasn’t coming to school here. God, you musthave thought I was so stupid. You spent all those weeks just, what, laughing at me?”

“I wasn’tlaughingat—”

“Bro code?” she went on. “That’s what that was?”

“No.” He reached for her, but she pulled away.

Only, the patio was beginning to tilt, and she stumbled. He caught her by the waist before she could face-plant off the step down to the lawn. “Hazel, I think you’re pretty drunk.”

Hazel wasn’t yet versed in the transitions from tipsy to fun drunk to not-fun drunk, but she supposed this seesawing feeling meant she’d gone too far. But she’d be damned if Ash Campbell was right about anything, drunk or not. She shoved him. “I’m fine. Leave me alone.”

He’d raised his palms in surrender and backed off. “Just— Do you have a ride home?”

“That’s not your concern.” She power walked across the small lawn, into the parking lot.

He followed, and when she stumbled again, he grabbed her elbow. “Will you just stop?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re headed directly for the train tracks.”

“Now youcareabout me?”

“Christ, Hazel. Yeah, I care if you stumble in front of a train.”

They stopped under the orange glow of a halogen light, moths circling frantically above them. Cicadas shrieked in a continuous chorus. Hazel wanted to join them, just scream at Ash until he went away.

“Why?Because we went to high school together? College is fornewexperiences, not old baggage, Asher. There are, like, twenty thousand other girls here for you to bother. Just because we’re from the same nowhere town doesn’t mean we have to be anything to each other.”

“Fine, but I’m not leaving you out here.”

“Oh my God. Why? What is this? First, you hate me. Now, you can’t leave me alone?”

“Would you please just let me drive you home?”

Hazel laughed in his face. “What, like, to hook up?This”—she waved a hand between them—“isnevergoing to happen.”

His face twisted. “You think I’mhittingon you?” The vehemence in his voice pressed a bruise deep inside her, even though she couldn’t have made her own feelings any clearer. She was either going to cry or vomit and couldn’t focus past breathing down the sickening lump in her throat.

Only later did she piece together that he’d taken her phone, texted Sylvia until she came, and ordered them a ride back to their dorm.