I flounder like a guppy, never having done well with conflict, and since when does Kaylee get all up in someone’s face like this?
It’s so unlike her that I’m thrown off balance.
She’s not like this with me, anyway; other people I have no idea about since we don’t always hang in the same circles. She and Lilly have other friends they go out with, so I wouldn’t know what she acts like around them.
I only know how she’s been with me.
“It’s not what it looks like.” I sound like the worst kind of cliché—fumbling over my words, brain racing for a better explanation, none forthcoming. I try again. “We were just there talking. I was there, then he showed up, and we were just talking.”
Talking and kissing, but she doesn’t need to know that.
“He just showed up? How does he keep showing up to the Lords Café—it’s so random. Absolutely no one goes there but you.”
“I don’t know how he discovered it,” I tell her honestly. “Or why he shows up.”
The only explanation is that he returned to see me; the unspoken truth hangs between us in my tiny bedroom.
“How long have the two of you been hanging out behind my back?”
“Behind your back?”
“Yes—behind my back.” Her bare foot taps impatiently on the carpet.
“In all fairness, you weren’t going out with Jack.” I sound feeble and weak and she has every right to be pissed at me. “We weren’t hanging out behind your back, not intentionally. We bumped into each other a few times, which led to us sitting around and talking.”
“And doing whatever you were doing in this picture.”
It does look rather incriminating because it is. Very damning, his mouth near my ear. Despite the fact that my face isn’t showing, it is undeniably me, and he is undeniably canoodling my neck.
Jesus.
“Eating breakfast—I told you that. You know he goes in there, too. I can’t prevent him from liking their eggs and toast.” And scones and omelets and tea.
“No, but you can prevent him from kissing you in public.”
True.
I can.
Could have.
“You said…you said he didn’t have a girlfriend.”
Is she implying that I am his girlfriend? “No, I said you should assume he was dating someone—I never said anything about a girlfriend.”
“Whatever. Semantics. You sat there and lied to my face. How am I going to trust you?”
It takes everything I have not to roll my eyes. “Kaylee, come on.”
“No, you come on. You know I like him and you went behind my back and you were seeing him. Does he even know I like him?”
Of course he knows she likes him—she could not have made it any more clear with her barrage of messages. “You texted him dozens of times.”
Her eyes narrow. “How do you know how many times I texted him?”
“You told me.”
Plus, I saw the messages when he had my phone and I had his.
“No, I didn’t tell you shit. All I said was that he wasn’t texting me back.” Her mind works in overdrive. “Did you see my messages? Were you together when I was sending him notes?”
My lips part into a small O.
Kaylee’s nostrils flare and her chin tilts up. “You can’t stay here.”
It takes seconds…moments for me to register her words.
“What?”
“I said, you can’t—”
“I heard what you said, but you are not kicking me out.” I let out a laugh that sounds nervous and slightly maniacal.
Kicking me out.
Ha!
“I need space. I don’t trust you anymore.” Chin still up, she glances over and out the window to the pitch-black yard. Or perhaps she’s gazing at herself in the reflection—it’s hard to say with her.
“Are you seriously going to kick me out because of some guy? You know nothing about him!”
“It doesn’t matter—you went against girl code, and the first freaking rule of girl code is that you don’t steal someone’s boyfriend.”
Is now a bad time to point out that he was never her boyfriend?
“I have a lease.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’ll find someone. I’ve already spoken to my dad, and he will cover your portion of the rent until we get a subletter.”
My stomach drops. She’s already called her parents and told them about this?
I’m screwed. Kaylee’s parents spoil her rotten, and her father is worse—there is no way he is going to allow me to stay, lease or no lease.
They furnished this place down to the smart TV on the living room wall and the utensils in our kitchen drawers.
“Have you talked to Lilly about this?”
A curt nod. A snort. “Of course.”
Duh.
“And she’s cool with kicking me out?”
“Yup. We voted.”
That’s a bunch of bullshit and we both know it. Kaylee wouldn’t have had time to hunt Lilly down, fill her in on the entire situation, and vote me out of the house in the span of a few hours—Lilly is nearly impossible to locate on campus now that she’s constantly with Kyle.