Page 16 of Lost and Found

“He just wants to talk,” she explains. “He and Keri broke up, like, a month and a half ago. I could use some closure, too.”

“I just hopeclosureisn’t code for fucking him,” I say, shaking my head before I walk down the hallway and shut myself into our shared bathroom.

I hate this. I hate being this person, sounding this judgmental over my best friend. But I hate Stephen more. Before Stephen, Merritt was not someone who slept with someone else’s boyfriend. She wouldn’t lie or skip plans to sneak around with anyone, especially not some asshole with questionable politics and a penchant for too much cologne. After three months trapped under the sorcery of him and his allegedly magic penis,she managed to break free, but . . . I’m not so sure. It’s been two months since then, and she still isn’t the same. She’s too tired too often, always sore from the gym. Always preoccupied or mentally far away.

I stare at my reflection between the toothpaste flecks on our bathroom mirror, grumbling under my breath before I pull out the cleaning supplies from below the sink. Most nights, Merritt is passed out on the couch before she even finishes her dinner—forget washing her dish—so I guess shirking the bathroom cleaning isn’t exactly a surprise. She thinks I’m too militant about it, anyway. But it’s just another thing that’soff. We took so much pride in this little place after suffering in the dorms our first two years away from home.

Home.Homesickness rocks me like an uppercut, and I sway on my feet. Damp air and windswept trees and seagulls squawking in the eternal breeze. Savvy’s almond poppy seed muffins. Bonnie’s cabbage rolls. My mom’s marionberry cobbler.

Maybe she really does need closure with Stephen, but maybe home is what Merritt needs, too.

I hear our front door creak open and rush out of the bathroom.

“Wait! Mer!”

“Hmm?”

“What do you think about a trip home next weekend?”

She brightens instantaneously from head to toe and I go dizzy with hope. “Yes,” she moans. “God, I miss my old mattress in my old room. I even miss our parents.”

“I think I miss everything lately,” I admit.The way we were, too, I don’t say.

She closes the door again, and we automatically walk toward each other with our arms extended like mummies, then lock into a tight hug.

“Perfect,” she says. “We’ll jet out Friday morning and stay the whole weekend?”

“Perfect,” I agree. “But, Merritt? For real . . . don’t sleep with him. He’s a succubus, I’m sure of it.” Even now, in my arms, she feels smaller.

Her laugh shakes through her before she pushes out of my embrace and jogs my arms, expression going distant again, shutting me out once more. “I won’t, I won’t, all right?”

I nearly make her promise, but something tells me I shouldn’t. I don’t want to risk setting her up to lie to me.

“Stay strong, I mean it,” I urge her retreating form. “Hey! Love you!”

She pokes her head back through the door and blows me a fleeting kiss. “Always!”

This party really is a repeat of every other party that seems to happen on a loop. Same songs fighting to be heard over the same shouted conversations and beer pong cheers. Looking around, I’d venture to guess that most of the people here are, like me, old enough to legally drink but poor enough for this sort of group setting to be more economical than barhopping.

I check the time on my phone. Less than thirty minutes and I am already wishing I’d stayed at the apartment. A bottle of Two Buck Chuck and an old romantic movie on TV. Maybe I could hit up one of the reliable hookup buddies I made the quarter before.

Eh. I’d be better off reaching into my nightstand.

I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn toward it, only for a voice to speak over my opposite side.

“Can I get you a beer?”

I hate that trick and have to stop my lip from curling, but I recognize Shane’s voice. One of the aforementioned hookupbuddies, a guy I met in women’s studies last semester. I paste on a smile and tip my head his way.

“Hey, you.”

“Hey, pretty girl,” he says, and my smile gets more earnest. Shane is nice, reliable, and plenty cute, if a little baby-faced. He golfs with his dad every other Sunday and single-handedly won trivia night at the bar he once took me to for a date because that evening’s theme was all things Tolkien. He wants to be a pediatrician someday.

He’s great, honestly. An all-around decent dude.

There just wasn’t anythingmorebetween us, and I couldn’t force it. He wanted things to move past our casual fling, and I didn’t. I was up-front from the beginning and he changed his mind, and that was that. No hard feelings. No big feelings at all. I fight off the urge to sigh.

“How’ve you been?” I ask. “I’m actually on my way out, I think, so I’m good on the beer.”