Page 49 of Sunflower Persona (Classic City Romance #2)

Kori

M aking friends isn’t hard; keeping them is.

This year was different. I met people, found common interests, and now I’m ignoring every call and text they’ve sent me since I walked out on Friendsgivmas.

That was over a month ago, but Evelyn and Nathan haven’t given up.

It was easy to leave them on read while I was back home for the break, but I know I won’t be able to avoid them forever now that I’m back on campus.

I’m surprised Evelyn hasn’t shown up at my dorm yet.

But with those friendships falling apart, I’m back in the exact same position I was in this time last semester—completely and utterly alone.

Only this time, I know what I’m missing, and I refuse to let it be gone for long.

I’m going to make friends who aren’t attached to Gage; I need people who are mine and mine alone.

Unlike last semester, I have a game plan for how I’m going to do this—one that doesn’t involve getting drunk and hoping for the best. Which is why I’m making the trek up to the student center on a Wednesday evening when my last class finished hours ago.

I’m joining a club.

The retro movie club, to be specific, and tonight is their first screening of the semester.

I’m not exactly sure what that entails, but I do know I’ll at least find people with common interests, and that’s as good of a starting point as any.

Plus, the flyer said it’s a creature feature.

It couldn’t get more perfect than that. Hell, it feels like fate.

But so did Gage, and that turned out to be a whole lot of wishful thinking on my part.

Fuck. Maybe this was a bad idea too. It isn’t too late to turn back. A semester alone to reorient myself and get over my ex might be exactly what I need. I could—

“Hey, Kori, wait up,” Nathan calls out from behind me, interrupting my spiral of self-doubt.

I freeze at his unexpected appearance, and he uses the pause to his advantage and catches up with me, slinging an arm around my shoulders. The easygoing wide smile plastered on his face sends a shiver of unease through me. It doesn’t match the glacial anger in his eyes.

“Hi, Nathan,” I squeak out.

“How was your break?” he asks, keeping that same cheerful facade.

“Good.”

I start to move away, but he moves with me and falls in step at my side, his arm still wrapped around me, anchoring me to his side.

“That’s good. How was my break? Good question, Kor. I spent my break trying to get in contact with a friend of mine, but it was like she fell off the face of the earth.” His words grow more pointed as the mask falls away, and I grimace.

There’s the judgment I deserve.

I don’t have a leg to stand on to argue against it. Like a coward, I did ignore him over the past several weeks. My gaze falls to my feet as my shoulders climb. This would be a great time for a sinkhole to open up so I can disappear for real.

“Nathan—” I start, but he cuts me off before I can give him a bullshit excuse.

“She wouldn’t ghost us now, would she? That would be cruel. Her phone must have broken or something. Because she wouldn’t just abandon her friends like that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Apologize to Evelyn. She’s been worried fucking sick.”

“I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“I—”

“Thought it would be easier than talking about the hard things?”

“I didn’t think you all would care,” I admit.

“Of course we care. You are our friend, and you went completely AWOL. Evelyn was convinced you had died. She almost went to Gage to have him check on you since he knows where your parents live.”

“No, don’t get him involved.”

“That’s what I told her. But you should text her.”

“I will.”

“Good. You should also come to game night this weekend.”

“No,” I say, putting my foot down. “That’s not a good idea.”

“Why not? You can’t hang out with your friends because your ex will be there?”

“Yes.”

“Bullshit. You both are acting like fucking children.”

“Says the man who wanted to use me to make his ex jealous.”

For a moment, the infuriating man is rendered speechless. I should get a prize for that one. It’s a feat I doubt I’ll be able to pull off again.

“Okay. That’s fair,” he concedes.

“I don’t want to avoid any of you, but I’m staying away for Gage’s sake. You saw what happened at Friendsgivmas. We aren’t ready to be friends again. Maybe one day, but right now, he needs you all more than I do, so I’m walking away.”

“Giving him space doesn’t mean you have to abandon us completely. We can be friends independent of him, and if you had responded to any of our messages, you would know that.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

God, I’m an awful friend.

“So you’ll stop this ignoring-us shit?”

“Yes. I promise I’ll respond.”

“Good. Because you’re stuck with me, Kor.”

“Like an incurable disease.”

“Exactly,” he says with a cheeky grin.

With his arm still slung over my shoulder, we walk toward the student center.

He fills the air with mindless chatter, and with each step, it becomes more and more apparent that I missed this idiot.

I didn’t realize how attached I got to Gage’s friends.

How could I when he monopolized all my attention?

I definitely need to apologize to the others. Not only for trying to ghost them, but also for being so wrapped up in my romantic relationship that I neglected all the other budding friendships.

But that’s a future Kori problem. Because even if I do want to keep them, I still need to branch off on my own. I need to know I have people who are strictly on my side.

“This is me,” I say as we come to the front of the student center.

Nathan nods and drops his arm from my shoulders but doesn’t walk away. Students move around us as we stand in front of the entrance, giving us dirty looks as they pass. Even then, we linger. The question I’ve been dying to ask bubbles up, dancing along my tongue until I can’t hold it back anymore.

“How is he?” I ask and cringe.

“He’s doing good. Honestly better than I’ve seen him in a long time,” he says.

Oh.

“That’s…good,” I say, but the words lack conviction.

I mean it—I think—even if the thought sends a jolt of pain to my battered heart. He deserves happiness. But I hate that he couldn’t find it with me.

“You’d be proud of him. The circumstances suck, but you were the kick in the ass he’s been waiting for. So he’s trying to get better. Not to win you back or anything, but because you were right, and you got through to him when none of us could.”

The love that refuses to wither and die swells in my chest. I’ve always known he was capable of doing anything he put his mind to.

“That is good,” I tell him with more certainty, “but I really should get going…”

“Of course. But text Evelyn, and don’t be a stranger.”

I nod as I turn and walk into the building.

A cold blast of air washes over me as I step through the sliding doors, and a low din of chatter fills the air.

Not as loud as it can be during the school day, but still loud enough that my nerves are set on edge.

With a steadying breath, I push farther inside, heading down the large staircase and into the depths of the building’s basement.

This floor is older and more dated than the rest of the building.

I follow the signs to a meeting room tucked into a narrow hallway.

It’s all but empty except for a scrawny guy wearing glasses working on hooking up the projector to his laptop.

He doesn’t even acknowledge me as I walk inside and take a chair near the back wall.

More people trickle in, finding seats spread among the rows and creating clearly defined groups.

And then there’s me.

Alone.

I hadn’t planned for preexisting groups. Approaching them is way harder than someone individually. I don’t think I can slide into a group like that. Getting up the nerve to talk to one stranger is hard enough.

My heart hammers in my chest while I watch my not so carefully constructed plan crumble around me. Then she walks in. The same girl I saw at Cutter’s the night I met Gage—the beautiful dark-skinned woman whose friend played D&D. The one I was too scared to talk to then.

And she’s alone.

If this isn’t a sign, I don’t know what is.

She scans the room, takes a seat a few down from me in the back, and sprawls out with more confidence than I think I have in my right pinky.

Even from the back, it’s like she owns the room, and her being here alone is a feature, not a bug.

I try to mirror her posture, uncurling from the tight ball I shoved myself into.

Taking up this much space feels unnatural.

My limbs are too long and gangly. I’m not sure my poor imitation has the same effect, but I force myself to keep the awkward pose.

I steal glances at her from the corner of my eye, trying to plan my way in.

Jumping in with “Hey, I remember you from a bar a few months ago” is a surefire way to make myself seem crazy.

My gaze lands on her shirt, and a plan formulates.

I recognize the reference as something from Big Bang Theory .

I’ve never watched the show myself, but I’ve been on the internet long enough I get the context and can probably fake enough knowledge to start a conversation.

“Hey, I like your shirt,” I say with a smile. I really hope it looks normal because the grin feels feral on my lips.

She looks down and grimaces. “Thanks.”

“Are you a fan?” I ask, unwilling to let her short answer be the end.

“Not really,” she says, her lips still curled.

“Oh, thank God. I’ve never seen an episode but couldn’t think of a better way to start a conversation,” I ramble.

She visibly relaxes and sinks back into her chair with a smile.

“I was worried you were about to ambush me with that cursed show. The shirt was a gag gift from a friend, and it’s laundry day.”

“No ambush here. I’m Kori, by the way.”

“Shaunee,” she says and shakes my hand. “You new around here? I haven’t seen you at a screening before.”

“Transferred in last semester, but this is my first time coming to one of these. I saw it was a creature feature and knew it was time for me to crawl out of my lair and try to make some connections on campus.”

I leave out everything that happened last semester. That’s not a small-talk story—or one I’d want to share even if we were friends. There’s too much baggage there.

“Well, you came to the right place if you like campy monster movies. If Jeremy had his way, we’d watch them every month, but Hannah makes sure that some other classics get thrown into the mix.” She nods toward the scrawny guy with the laptop and a girl who joined him in his fidgeting.

“Kaiju movies are my favorite, but I’m down for pretty much anything involving monsters and practical effects.”

“I’m a slasher girl, myself. But hard agree on anything involving practical effects. They just don’t make them like they used to. Good CGI is great—I’m not stupid enough to try to deny that, but the amount of bad CGI out there almost makes it not worth it.”

I open my mouth to respond, but before I can, the pair at the front finishes their setup and turns off the overhead lights.

All of the soft chatter in the room falls silent as the title card for Night of the Living Dead appears on the screen.

Next to me, Shaunee mutters a quiet “fuck yeah” under her breath.

The next ninety-six minutes pass by in a blur.

As the credits start to roll, someone flips the lights back on, and we let out a collective groan as our eyes adjust to the bright lights.

No one sticks around for long after that.

“Are you hungry?” Shaunee asks as she stands and stretches. “I’m meeting my friend Jayla for dinner at Bolton. You should join us.”

A huge grin threatens to overtake my features, but I school it. I’ve got to play this cool. I can’t let her know how her offer has made my whole week.

“That sounds great,” I tell her, trying to keep my excitement in check.

She nods and heads toward the door without a word. I scramble out of my seat and fall into step beside her.

“So, Kori, what’s your story.”

We fall into easy conversation after that, and once we meet Jayla at the dining hall, she joins in as well.

I leave out all the drama of last semester and my ex.

The whole point of this was to get a fresh start, and I’m not about to taint what could be a new friendship with memories of the man I’m trying to forget.

After we finish eating and phone numbers are exchanged, I head back to my dorm feeling optimistic about my future for the first time since I walked out of Gage’s apartment. I don’t need him to have a social life—I’m capable of finding my people all on my own.