Page 39 of Finding Her

SAYLOR

When I found out that I wouldn’t have a roommate this year and would get a double room to myself, I hadn’t imagined that I would end up my two best friends and four hockey players in it almost every day. But by the end of the first month of school, that was exactly what it had become.

“Alright, I found some drinks in the common room fridge,” I announced as I walked in. The group was spread out across the room, all draped on different furniture or sitting on the floor. “I’ve got Gatorade, lemonade, and…” I studied the glass bottle in my hand and said, “something pink.”

“I’ll take the something pink,” Poppy said immediately. She jumped up to grab it.

“I have no idea what it is,” I said as I handed it over. “The label is very unclear.”

Poppy just shrugged, opened it, and took a swig. “Tastes good.”

Everybody laughed and she smiled at us all, before plopping back down on Bear’s lap. He was siting on the extra bed I had in my room, which we’d started using as a couch. She held the bottle out to him. “Want to try?”

“I have a better way of trying,” he said. I groaned at the cheesy line as he kissed her. Poppy immediately forgot about the drink as she weaved her hand into his hair and deepened the kiss in a way that I thought was very inappropriate, given that we were all still in the room.

Apparently, Lilah thought so too because she grabbed a pillow and threw it at them, yelling, “Have some respect!”

They both laughed but pulled away, although Poppy didn’t move from her spot on his lap.

“Alright, who wants what else?” I asked. “Lilah, you want the red Gatorade?”

She nodded, and I passed it over to her, where she was spread out on my bed.

Tino was sitting at her feet and kept poking her legs in various spots.

Every once in a while, she would just kick him so hard that he would yell and complain about how mean she was to him, but then he would go straight back to what he was doing, so I couldn’t muster up much sympathy.

“I’ll take the lemonade,” Crossy said, pulling my gaze away from the odd pair on my bed.

He was sitting on the floor with Mako, playing some sort of card game.

Crossy was the strangest guest for me to have in my room.

Some days, I felt like I should tell him to stop coming by, even though I knew I couldn’t do that without banning all the hockey boys.

Other days, I didn’t want him to leave at the end of the night.

As I handed the lemonade over to him, he grinned at me, and I didn’t even have to force a smile back. He always drew that happiness out of me in a way that nobody else could. A little piece of me hated him for it, even though there was a time I’d loved it.

“Come sit with us, Saylor,” he said, patting the spot next to him.

I hesitated for a moment, but then I eyed the couch-bed, where Poppy and Bear were cuddling and the actual bed, where Lilah and Tino were doing whatever it was they were doing, and I realized I didn’t want to be in the middle of either of those situations.

So, my only options were standing or sitting with him.

I dropped onto the floor beside him, hoping that Mako hadn’t noticed my hesitation, even if Crossy definitely had.

“You can help me win,” Crossy murmured to me. Then he shifted toward me so I could see his cards, brushing his arm along mine and sending tingles up my spine.

It was just another piece of him that I hated—the way that every brush of his skin made me feel that way, how his smiles always made my knees week, how he could disarm me with just one look. All of it told me that I wasn’t over him. That I wasn’t over us.

Not that there was an us to speak of—not really. There was only that one night at a New Year’s party, where he made me feel so seen that it made me wonder if there could be future. I’d dreamt of what we could be together… only to never see him again.

Not until that awful moment weeks later when my sister had walked in with him on her arm and announced that this boy, Caleb Cross, was her new boyfriend.

I knew that I had no claim to him and I was sure he didn’t know her connection to me when they met.

It had been so long since the last moment we’d spoken.

But seeing him next to her like that made me want to kill him.

Destroy him. But every moment we’d gotten alone since then also made me want to steal him back.

Even if, only weeks later, he’d broken my sister’s heart, just like he had already broken mine.

On the couch-bed, Poppy giggled at something Bear was whispering in her ear and I looked at them enviously.

I hated that I wanted it so badly. But I couldn’t help but feel that almost-empty bottom drawer of my nightstand, the one with just one lonesome polaroid sitting in it, was just waiting to be filled with a thousand more pictures of us .

Thank you for reading!

Want to read Saylor and Crossy's love story? Coming late Feb 2025!