Page 19

Brookie B sent a wink emoji to Grant A message.

Chapter Nine

Brooke

I’m in some strange version of hell. I’m sure of it.

My hands are covering my eyes because behind my hands are boxes piled on top of boxes covering the entire living area of the apartment.

“B, you’re going to have to look at them eventually,” Cami says from the floor with her head in a box as she rifles through a box.

“Nope, if I don’t look, they don’t exist,” I whisper while still firmly holding my hands over my eyes.

Twenty minutes ago, the truck arrived with all my stuff. Three weeks after the evening we do not speak of, even with Cami arguing daily with Josh about where the stuff was. He kept saying it was scheduled and brushing her off, then she randomly got a text this morning saying it’d be here in an hour.

“Who brings this much stuff to college?” Adam grunts, and I move my fingers to see him bringing another box up the stairs, and I groan.

“I didn’t! I don’t even know what half of these are.” I waved my hands towards all the boxes. “This must be someone else’s stuff.”

Gunnar walks in with two more boxes on top of each other and turns, trying to find a space before putting them on the couch.

“Oh my God, how many more?” I exclaim, pushing some boxes into more manageable spaces. I step over Cami, who’s started looking in each box instead of helping.

“Like ten more.” He sighs, taking his cap off and wiping his brow.

“I’ve got some bad news,” Grant says, walking in before putting his hands on his hips. “He is insisting on dropping the furniture off.”

“No, I told Josh I’m not taking the furniture.” I frantically look at Cami while climbing over boxes to talk to the driver.

“He’s already unloading.” He sighs. “And it’s a lot; we might need to move some stuff over to ours.” he looks around and at all the boxes.

Bear walks in, holding my childhood bedroom bedside tables, and my mouth drops. The truck didn’t pick any furniture up from my mom’s, so how did they make their way to Cami’s apartment?

“Um, B, why did you pack your childhood Easy-Bake oven for college?” Cami says, lifting it out of the box to show me.

“Cool,” Adam shouts, leaning over the couch to look at it, and she holds it out of his reach like he’s a toddler.

“Not now, Adam!” Cami screams in frustration.

“She’s gone insane,” I whisper. “She’s packed up my room and moved it all here.” I whirl around, looking at all the stuff; no wonder there’s so much, and the truck was “delayed”. She needed time to pack and move it all.

“Brightside! At least your room will be furnished,” Bear says, moving towards my new bedroom before whirling back around. “Ooh, it already is, wait, what?”

“That’s why I didn’t want the furniture.” I sigh, putting a hand on my forehead. “This is everything I own.”

“B, it’s going to be okay.” Cami gets up and hugs me from the side. “We can keep it all if you want to.”

I can’t help but laugh at that. There is no way half of this stuff will fit in the apartment, aside from the fact that I’ve lived without most of it for two years. So, do I even need it? This is all a game to force my hand to call her so she can worm her way back in and try to get Josh and me back together. “I’m going to have to sell most of it.” Sighing, I sit on what looks like a sturdy box. “I need the money anyway, since I’m pretty sure I’m cut off.”

“Are you selling the mattress?” Adam randomly asks, looking at the mattress from Josh and my last apartment; it’s top-of-the-line memory foam. It’s like sleeping on a cloud, but I don’t want to go anywhere near anything Josh has touched.

“Adam, ew no!” Cami shouts

“How much would you pay for it?” I ask at the same time; might as well make something out of it.

“Oh my God, what is happening?” Cami shouts. “No one is selling or buying a mattress; we need to figure out what to do with all this stupid stuff.”

“Stupid stuff?” I gasp, clutching my throat and looking at her in shock."You just said I could keep it”